The Gift of Grace

“I want to look at life–at the commonplaces of existence–as if we had just turned a corner and run into it for the first time” (playwright Christopher Fry). As we begin 1 Corinthians with Paul’s familiar literary structure, the danger lying at the trailhead is over-familiarity, not feeling the shiver of the Gospel. “This is just the introduction…let’s skip on.”

We can’t notice too strongly that Paul sees his ministry as a call from God (1). It is not a vocation he chose, or a preference. It was not sourced in him at all, but is traced back upstream to the heart of God. “Paul, called by the will of God.” While the world is in love with choice and preference, in following our bliss, God comes looking for us (2), tracking us down. To be a Christ-follower begins and ends with God’s eternal choosing and our answering. There’s a story bigger than “me” going on in this life.

Corinth was filled with problems–which is why Paul wrote from Ephesus in the early 50s. What a massive clue it is that Paul does not begin with these troubles. No, he yearns to anchor these believers in Jesus Christ. The name cascades down eight times in nine verses. He wants them (and us) drawn out of their fragile dramas into his Story. This name will take you somewhere! He is our neverending beginning (8).

“Grace and peace” (3,4). Here at the trailhead, Paul wants us to be stunned by a beauty too often seen. It is grace: still amazing. It is undeserved kindness which seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return; it is love for the loveless; its essential reality is that God cares for sinners not after they have turned to him, but before. Run into this grace as if for the first time.

Make a list of the ways that Paul states God has blessed the Corinthians (4-9). Do you feel you share in these blessings? Why or why not?