Preaching Values in First Corinthians

Andrew W. Blackwood  |  Southwestern Journal of Theology Vol. 3 - Fall 1960

The state of the times today calls for a number of ethical sermons every year. The time of year ought to depend on the minister’s program. Personally, I did such preaching during the months following Easter. In the harvest season (winter) we received more new members than at any other time. Then we needed to teach them what to believe and how to live. I did such ethical preaching one year at the morning service and the next year in the evening. I soon verified the statement of a strong English divine that a dozen consecutive sermons by a pastor of average ability would do more good than that many brilliant discourses by a succession of imported preachers.

The plan here calls for preaching one’s way here and there through the noblest book ever written about Christian ethics. Before a man dares to do this, he ought to live with First Corinthians devotionally and otherwise until he knows it as well as any book in the Bible. Both as a whole and by paragraphs he should work his way through the epistle. He will need two or three standard exegetical commentaries. Personally, I like best the one by G. G. Findlay in The Expositor’s Greek Testament and the one by H. L. Goudge (based on English) in the Westminster Commentaries (Britain). After these preliminary studies, a man’s files should contain the salient facts about each paragraph of this difficult epistle.

In what follows I attach a good deal of importance to the title of the course—not a formal series to be announced as such—and to the topic of each sermon. Each time the Bible materials will come from a paragraph. Unless a man uses an accurate topic to unify the discourse, the “interpreter” may ramble and start along a number of trails that he has no time to follow. In other words, a preacher who wishes to be clear, interesting, and helpful must practice “the fine art of omission.” So let us think about these sermons, each of them simple, kind, and non-controversial. This is what W. E. Sangster of London calls popular “teaching-preaching.” The reader is encouraged to read this article with his Bible open to First Corinthians.

1. “How to Be Christian Today in Fort Worth.” In a rural church, substitute “Community” (context: 1 Cor. 1:1-25; text, 1:2-3). The sermon should consist of a lively introduction to this letter about the way believers ought to behave in a worldly city or community. Somehow I should stress three things, without calling attention to the fact that the three show the ethical teachings of this “letter to a young city church.” First, the present-day sins of our church people; second, their moral problems; third, their Christian ideals (chaps. 1-6, 7-11, 12-16).

In a survey sermon such as this first one a man has to select and omit in order to heighten and illuminate. The idea is to preach mainly in present tenses, not to make a post-mortem dissection. This book is not dead or dying. A man singles out from the inspired letter the sins, the problems (relating to things questionable), and the ideals most needed for Christians in the home community today. Toward the end of the sermon he explains that during the coming weeks he will at this service be preaching from the best book ever written about how to be Christian here today, and that the lay friends will help him and themselves far more when (not if) they read this letter in their homes, going through it again and again. Each week the bulletin will indicate two or three chapters for special reading in this instance chapters 1-2.

2. With each sermon repeat the main title-“How to Be Christian in Fort Worth Today”-and then state the title of the next message. For the second message one may use The Sin of Church Divisions” (1:10). After a brief introduction in terms of Christ and the hearer today, the sermon may bring out what the Apostle puts first (the most important place in a sermon) and often stresses throughout his searching epistle: the ideal of unity in the Lord Jesus. (Too often in our moral essays we fail to make clear that every Christian duty grows out of a Bible doctrine). Then in sharp contrast show the folly and the shame of putting human beings, even the noblest of ministers, in the place of authority that belongs only to Christ. Instead of turning aside to preach about the sins of the Catholic hierarchy, why not preach to the Baptist people in the pews? In this letter the Apostle addressed the church folk at Corinth.

The remedy for the sin of church schism appears in this paragraph (1:10-17) and throughout the epistle. In a way different from that in the beginning of this second sermon an interpreter shows “the expulsive power of a new affection” which centers in the Christ of the Cross. People who love him supremely love each other largely. They are united, not like fish frozen solid in a pond, but like the saints of God in heaven. In this sort of pulpit work a minister often engages in preventive medicine. As Phillips Brooks used to declare in worldly Boston, the best way to deal with a church quarrel is to prevent it. In order to do so preach Christ, but not without constant reference to how he wishes Christians to live now in the home city or community.

3. “Living in the Light of the Cross” (2:2). The stress this time falls on how to live in the light of the Cross, here and now. I stress doing so in our worship, in our beliefs, and in our everyday service. In my pastoral experience I learned that I could accomplish far more in the way of moral betterment by holding up the Cross, practically, then by hammering away at local sins. Instead of roaming all over the Bible for materials with which to attack sin, I secured them for a time from First Corinthians. Thus, indirectly I was encouraging my lay friends to read the Bible intelligently, as it was written, one book at a time, and as a rule, for a specific purpose.

4. In a rural community, “Every Christian a Farmer for God” (3:6). In order to preach this way a man needs to know the difference between sowing wheat and planting corn, but he need not try to transmit secondhand lessons in scientific agriculture. In Paul’s epistles he relied largely on appeals to imagination. In a good book, The Metaphors of St. Paul, scholarly J. S. Howson shows that the Apostle preached often in terms of what most interested the men in church: agriculture, athletics, army life, and architecture. When the interpreter preached, the hearer could translate the figure into fact as it concerned himself in relation to Jesus Christ.

In our part of the world many city dwellers have come from the country, and others are moving back that way. They easily grasp and appreciate Bible preaching that enables them to see what the dominie tells about the ways of God in terms of the vast outdoors. But their ethical needs have far more to do with their city and its sins. In Fort Worth today, as in Corinth of old, laymen need to hear about “Every Christian a Builder for God” (3:10). Here the idea calls for something about “every man’s life a plan of God”: the call for a sure foundation, the choice of first-class materials, and the need of being a trained workman.

For illustrative material read at the town library in Harpers Magazine for February, 1960, an able article, “A Good House Nowadays Is Hard to Find.” Here the stress falls on poor design, cheap materials, flimsy structure, and careless workmanship.

5. “Religion for a Man’s Body” (6:19). Here let me ride one of my few hobbies. (Another is to use President John R. Sampey’s idea, not copyrighted, of cooperative preaching, by getting people to read the Bible passage in advance of the sermon). In young manhood and in late middle age, I suffered twice from nervous breakdown. Now I feel better physically than I did fifty years ago. In a sermon I should not thus refer directly to myself. I should try to do what Paul suggested in this chapter, though he too might have had a long personal “organ recital.” He stressed the truth that the body—one body—comes as a wonderful gift from God; that the best of bodies may be abused by God’s custodian, who would not think of dealing so with his automobile; and that the sadly abused body may be redeemed by the blood of Him who in the flesh once died to set us free from sin, both in body and in soul. For a dollar, and cheap at the price, order and use as a guide in study a paper­ bound treatise in New Testament theology by J. A. T. Robertson, The Body (London: S.C.M. Press, 1953).

After a recent sermon on care for our bodies I had expected repercussions. More than one hearer went the next day to get a checkup by an expert in internal medicine. One elder even enrolled in a clinic, where specialists kept him busy with tests for the better part of a week. They found him “sound in mind and limb” and sent him a bill for $185.00. Facetiously he told me he was going to demand that I pay the clinic this amount. If the bill ever comes, I must face a few ethical problems: Should I for once in my life request a ministerial discount? Can I in honor deduct the amount from my income tax under the heading of “professional expense”? Can I count the payment as a slice out of my tithe? We ministers often talk as though life today had few ethical problems.

6. “A Christian Declaration of Dependence” (8:13, R.S.V.). This passage is hard to interpret, and the sermon is hard to prepare. It runs counter to all our ordinary ways of thinking and living. Also, it has to do with things neither right nor wrong. To do them may involve no sin; to refrain from doing them may lead to no evil. So it seems that somewhere between Christian ideals and pagan sins there is a sort of neutral ground where a man has to use a sliding scale about his ethical conduct. Now let us turn to the Apostle. He deals here with a strong man’s meat, which means Christian liberty to enjoy all the good things of God, even though these things have just been used by others in ways far from Christian.

I once knew a pastor who quit playing golf on a course near his home at a year’s cost of $10.00. For him an hour or two on the green Monday morning was the surest way to clear his brain after a hard week’s work. But he found that his elders felt he should not engage in a game that most of the church members could not afford. At last, climactically, the trail leads up to a strong man’s declaration of dependence. This means a Christian gladly gives up anything that would lead a weaker believer to do what he thinks to be wrong. If he thinks something to be wrong, for him it is wrong. The value here comes in part from giving up gladly, not grudgingly. What else is the meaning of Christian self-denial (see Luke 9:23)? In Sermons on Living Subjects, by Horace Bushnell, see “Free to [Worldly] Amusements, and Too Free to Want Them” (1 Cor. 10:27).

7. “The Christian as a Spiritual Athlete” (9:25). Here I think of R. J. (“Jackie”) Robinson, a famous college athlete, now doing noble work at the First Baptist Church in Augusta, Georgia. During the year when he honored me by attending my graduate classes, one of his classmates wrote for print an article on “Paul, Our Pattern for Preaching to a Sports-Minded Public.” In former years Raymond I. Lindquist used to delight many of us with his sermons at Orange, N. J. He became known because he attracted hosts of young people, as well as boys and girls, with their grandparents. A ministerial observer tried to account for the young pastor’s appeal apart from his charm of personality. “He preaches more about Jesus than any other minister I have ever heard. He also follows a kind of sportsman’s church year. Whatever the season, he draws local color from the game that currently appeals to strong men. You know, when these men come to church, women and girls do not remain at home.” On the other hand, when a “sissy” preaches pink tea sermonettes devoid of ethics, strong men give the church “absent treatment.”

In the text the Apostle teaches every believer to look on life as a race, with a course laid out by Him who as a long distance runner set his face like a flint (Isa. 50:7c) going up to Jerusalem, there to die. Once Alexander Maclaren preached from Luke 9:51, “Christ Hastening to the Cross” (Sermons Preached in Manchester, 3rd series, pp. 189-204). The idea here is to set forth the Gospel in terms of strength, courage, and endurance, thus appealing to the best in human beings. In the Christian race Paul stresses the need of self-control and the glory of the prize. In other words, to be a child of God can never seem as effortless as a game of checkers or of table tennis.

8. “What to Do When You Are Tempted” (10:13). A wise minister preaches often about temptation, each time from a different text in its setting. Instead of conducting a sort of Cook’s Tour through Holy Writ, repeating without interpretation one golden text after another, he settles down in one garden spot of Holy Writ. There he finds all the biblical material he needs, and more than he can use, in preparing a meal for hungry souls. The hearers today know all about temptation except how to deal with it so as not to suffer defeat and shame. In one of the better books of its kind, The Mystery of Preaching (1924), James Black of Edinburgh tells how he gave up “the young man’s large way” of dealing with a subject biblically. After a few months of discursive efforts he felt that he had exhausted all available truth, and he knew that he had exhausted himself, as well as some of the hearers. Then he made “a remarkable discovery,” which has influenced the writer of the present article.

If I were only content to preach from a definite text or passage, with its own definite aspect, I could preach on temptation this morning, and temptation the next [Sabbath] morning, and temptation the third morning. For I discovered that if I stuck to my passage, and dealt with the phase of truth enshrined in it, I could take a dozen texts on temptation, and yet be fresh on each of them. In attempting to crush a whole subject into one sermon, I was only attempting the impossible, spoiling the subject by unnatural compression, dazing the hearers, and ruining my own peace and nerves.[1]James Black, The Mystery of Preaching (New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1924), pp. 152-53.

The text in hand differs from all the others in the Bible. This one bids the believer anticipate temptation and look to God for the way of escape. In Old Testament times young Joseph did so, and young folk today need like courage to flee. They also need to know that God makes a trusting soul powerful enough to stand strong under any temptation. An engineer like the Roehling father and son can make plans for a suspension bridge strong enough to bear any conceivable weight. Their Brooklyn Bridge has stood since 1883. The God who made the engineer and gave him wisdom can now supply all needed spiritual strength. This is one of the most helpful texts in the present epistle. The words sound best from the lips of a person who loves young folk and expects every one of them to stand strong in the power of God.

9. “Being Christian in Ordinary Affairs” (10:31). Strange as it may seem, it often proves easier to stand up as a Christian in an hour of crisis than in long stretches of dull, drab routine. Partly for this reason the Apostle devotes much of this letter to ordinary affairs during long, pale, gray days. Here he speaks of two main ideals, closely intertwined. The text would have delighted Frederick W. Robertson, with his preference for the two-point sermon and its “contrasting truths.” First, a man’s religion ought to include all of his life. Naturally his daily existence consists mainly of things far from spectacular. From week to week, what a man does at the table, when he drinks, and while abed goes far to reveal the extent of his likeness to our Lord.

Again, being a Christian here means living for God’s glory. According to the Presbyterian Shorter Catechism, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.” The enjoyment of the Lord begins when a person is born again and normally increases with each passing day. A believer delights to do the Father’s will in things both large and small. The motive is to please him. The principle is to follow his will as revealed in the Book through prayer. The end is to live for his glory (Matt. 5:16). This sort of person enjoys the religion that other men strive only to endure.

10. “The Sermon on the Supper” (11:26). In the Greek New Testament the word here translated “show” or “proclaim” usually refers to what we term “preaching.” In our text the word refers to a message that comes through symbolic action more than by words. However we may differ about details concerning this blessed ordinance, we all ought to agree that it is an “action sermon” about Christ as Redeemer: his death on the Cross; his death for our sins; and his death as the ground of our hope for salvation. In all the writings of the Apostles the “centrality of the Cross” is the mightiest of all motives for Christlike character and service. And yet ofttimes the observance of this ordinance calls for not a single or a spoken word about the Lamb of God as the appointed Sacrifice for the sins of those who observe the ordinance.

11. “The Church as the Body of Christ” (12:27). Here again the Apostle appeals to imagination, the noblest power of a twice-born person. In writing to Grecian folk at a time when they almost adored the human body, Paul used this figure to stress the unity of the church in Christ and the diversity of its members, both in their aptitudes and their ministries. Some of us wonder about the wisdom of much that now goes under the name of “ecumenical Christianity,” as though the Lord wished us to reduce religion to the lowest common denominator, so that we may become one in name and home with persons who do not profess to believe in the deity of Christ and the necessity of his atoning death. But surely all of us who love the Lord hail with delight every token that those who share him have become more nearly one in loyalty to him and in love for each other. Meanwhile, the text in its setting holds up a lofty ideal for the local church and for every member of it as the body of Christ.

12. “The Supremacy of Christian Love” (13:13). Often a wise minister turns to some portion of this golden chapter for a heart-warming message. At least once in a pastorate a man does well to deal with the chapter as a whole. Ever since the appearance of Henry Drummond’s sermon-essay, The Greatest Thing in the World, I have looked on this chapter as the best in all scripture for a Christian young man or woman to know by heart and to use as a guiding star through all the years to come. What then does it say? At least three things:

I. The Supremacy of Love by Contrast (vv. 1-3). Here the Apostle contrasts Christian love (agape) with five other things that people in Corinth counted great, and that we ought to count good. Today we could list other things equally good when used aright. If we put into one side of a scale all the good gifts of God on earth apart from Christian love, on the other side of the scale Christian love would outweigh them all. Think of them! In Paul’s time, he had possessed all five: the gift of public speaking, sacred learning, mighty faith, generous “sharing,” and Christian martyrdom. In our secular time, we think more about these five: money, power, pleasure, culture, and health (long life).

II. The Supremacy of Love in Itself (vv. 4-Sa). Here the Apostle does not attempt to define love. At its utmost height love means God, and no one can define him. To define means “to set limits, and he is infinite. But the inspired master of words here describes love by showing the way it works. Each of his sixteen marks would lead to a sermon. Here we can only gather them all together in a few bundles. In a reverent paraphrase, love here means being like the Lord Christ on his way to the Cross: “Jesus suffered long, and was kind; He did not envy, and He did not boast. . . . The love of the Lord Jesus never has failed.” Thank God it never can fail. For much the same reason, love means being a worthy member of Christ’s church. It also means being a church leader, such as the Apostle Paul, or my own hero, George W. Truett.

III. The Supremacy of Love in Its Permanence (vv. 8-13). Christian love endures. It lasts. Those other things do not. Not a one of them will endure and increase throughout eternity, when “love divine, all loves excelling” will come into the fullness of its glory in God. According to a suggestion in the closing verses here, love lasts from babyhood over into adult years, from the day of a maiden’s marriage over to the day when she becomes a great-grandmother, and from her old age over into eternity. For this reason many of us feel with Browning that Christian youth is good, and middle age ought to be better, but the best of life comes toward the end, which ought to be only a sort of portal into the ideal world where we shall live and serve in the light and life and love of the Triune God and of the spirits of just men and women made perfect through the love of Christ. If we had more pulpit work of the right sort about what lies beyond this earth we might have less concern about the worldliness and the sins of the home church. According to the Apostle of Love, in writing about the blessed future, “He that hath this hope in him [God in Christ] purifieth himself, even as he [God] is pure” (1 John 3:3).

13. “The Wonder of the Heavenly Harvest” (15:20, or 23). Here again the Apostle’s words mean much to everyone whose eyes the Lord has opened to see the wonders of the unseen world. Sometimes laymen ask why the minister seldom preaches about such a supreme passage in Holy Writ. They may not know that he hesitates to translate these exalted visions of truth and glory into commonplace terminology of sermonic prose. On the other hand, he should trust God to take his human best and transmute it into a message that no angel could bring so surely to the hearts of those who love the Lord’s local interpreter.

As every reader knows, in the Holy Land barley harvest comes about Easter time. In this happiest season of all the year the Hebrew farmer took into the Temple the first and best sheaf of ripening grain. This he gave to the Lord as a token that all the rest of the ingathering came from him and would be used for his glory. From this point of view the inspired author deals with the Resurrection of Christ as the beginning of the heavenly harvest. Paul likewise tells about the resurrection of the believer’s body. But in preaching to good people not yet theologically minded” a pastor should thank God if in one sermon he can get every one of them to behold the wonder of Christ’s Resurrection. What a miracle of grace and glory!

At Easter when I was a pastor I once attempted in less than thirty minutes to deal with both parts of this text (v. 23). Now I should content myself with a morning sermon about the Resurrection of our Lord, and at night I should deal with the resurrection of the believer in terms of the heavenly harvest brought to its completion. But why should a New Testament interpreter content himself with preaching such messages only this one Lord’s Day in the year? Does not the First Day of every week call for rejoicing in the most wondrous of all biblical miracles? Just as the death of Christ calls for messages throughout the year, so does the related truth of the Resurrection. In either case, golden texts abound. As for the Resurrection, a man could preach about it again and again without ever being able to deal with all the facets of heavenly light from the supreme chapter about the wonder of the heavenly harvest.

14. “The Resurrection of the Body” (15:44). If feasible in the local church, after an Easter hymn and just before the sermon, I should have the people rise and repeat in unison the Apostles’ Creed. After I announced the text I should again repeat this one clause, “I believe in the resurrection of the body.” As a rule, I think the less a man says about himself in the pulpit and the more about Christ, the better for the people. But “never do anything all the time.” Without apology I should say frankly: “Once I did not believe in the resurrection of the body. I suppose that I believed in the resurrection of the soul. Then I awoke to a fact: the soul of a believer does not die. When I declined to believe in the resurrection of the body I could believe only in the Bible truth of immortality. That too now brings me joy and hope, but not nearly so much as the loftier and more practical truth, the resurrection of the believer’s body.” Some other time I should preach about the hereafter as it concerns the unbeliever, both soul and body. Good pastoral preaching is specific. One large truth in each sermon, and only one.

In a difficult message of this kind a man does well to attempt only two things, but not under these headings, which might repel, where they should attract. First, what does this doctrine mean? Second, what difference should this truth make to each of you now in Fort Worth? The Apostle shows that the resurrection of your body will be as that of your Lord, which was spiritual rather than material. In heaven there will be no need of glands and muscles and nerves. In a sense it will be the “same” body, doubtless with the same voice, which your loved ones will recognize at once. In a much higher sense, not the “same” body, for then you will have “such full-grown energies as suit the purpose of heaven.”

As for the ethical value of this truth, what a powerful motive it affords for Christian living here and now! The man who accepts this truth about his body as a wonderful gift of God does his utmost to keep it as clean as an oldtime temple. This means constant self-control in matters of purity, temperance, and indulgence of food. It means too that a person will grow old gracefully, without repining, and that after he has used his body to the utmost in the service of the King, he will at the end face the future unafraid, thanking God that he can rejoice in the resurrection of the body.

15. “Resurrection Power for Daily Living” (15:58). At the close of his exalted chapter the Apostle comes down more nearly to the prosaic level where most of us live. If only for variety, the resulting sermon may assume a textual form. Really it matters little what shape a message assumes, if it enables the hearer to see and know, to feel and act, as the Lord desires in the light of this written word. Here the text calls on believers to lay hold of resurrection power for Christian belief, for Christian character, and for Christian service. Steadfast in belief, unmovable in character, always abounding in the work of the Lord! All so simple! Yes, but not one lay hearer in ten has figured out what these words mean. As Lord Morley said about Gladstone’s famous budget speeches, much of the best preaching on earth consists in “the noble and imaginative use of the commonplace.”

16. “A Christian as God’s Trustee” (16:2). In terms of today, the trustee of a church or a first-class college is somebody. As a rule, a steward is not. On an ocean liner or even on an airplane a person of the latter sort has no authority or power of independent action. Alas, such words have a way of changing their meaning. But God can guide in using such a term as trustee, where the Bible speaks of a steward. In that day a steward was a man of importance. Here in the practical application of the Resurrection truth the Apostle is saying, in substance: “The Lord has highly honored each of you as an heir of the life everlasting, which in the believer has already begun, but only to a slight degree. Before you enter into your heavenly inheritance he wishes you to serve as his trustee, with authority to manage and use all the things he has committed to your care.”

Here the Apostle does not teach what often appears elsewhere in Holy Writ: the will of God about the making of money and the keeping of money, as well as the things that money can buy. If only to develop love for “the things that money cannot buy” God wishes each of his chosen trustees to distribute the Lord’s money in ways that everyone knows, but not everyone accepts in fullness and obeys with alacrity. Just as Augustine prayed about something else before he gave himself out­and-out to God, many a church member now feels like saying, “Lord, make me one of thy good and faithful trustees, but not yet.”

What then does the Lord require of his trustees in the way of giving through the home church? He expects this honored and trusted agent to give practically, proportionately, promptly, and progressively. If any man does all this, gladly and well, out of gratitude for what God has done to him through the crucified and risen Lord, this man keeps growing more and more like the self-giving Christ. Thus at last we come to the place from which we started in our quest for light on “How to Be Christian Today in Fort Worth,” or out on the farm at Cream Ridge.

No one would preach consecutively on all these subjects. Each pastor ought rather to single out from this practical epistle the portions that will most surely enable him to meet the needs of the people in the home church just now. He will do his part most surely if he knows the epistle well and prizes it highly before he begins to prepare any of these sermons. During these weeks of direct preparation he will find that any one message comes with more assurance because he has “mastered” the entire book. As for the people, if he gets them interested through the opening sermon, he can guide them in reading this Bible book, preferably again and again. Later he will hear from many of them that never in their Christian lives have they received so much guidance and help—not from his sermons but from reading God’s Book in the spirit of prayer and of holy expectation.

Now for a parting word to a young reader. As an older man let me echo the message of an Apostle no longer young: “I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospers” (3 John 2). Under God, on what does the health of a young minister’s soul depend? Unless you ought to undergo some kind of major soul surgery, you can keep spiritually well and strong, and continue yearly to grow more like your Lord, if you have daily abundance of spiritual food, fresh air with sunshine, and spiritual exercise. Without pausing now to think about the atmosphere of prayer and the opportunity to use all your spiritual muscles in doing the will of God, gladly and well, remember that your soul needs daily the sort of food that you can find only in the scriptures (2 Tim. 3:15-17).

Remember too that if you wish to keep the souls of God’s people well and strong, so that they will continue to grow in knowledge and in grace, you should feed them from the Book. If you find that some of them suffer from spiritual anemia, like that of many “saints” in Corinth (11:30), you can bring the sick souls into health and strength by feeding them skillfully, first with the milk of the Word, and later with the strong meat. But be sure that you make it seem inviting. Many of our “expository sermons” have been served in a way much like that of keepers who feed pure meat to raging tigers down at the zoo. Dear young friend, learn how to preach! You will if you already know what to preach, and why, and if you know the people, so as to love them more and more. Then you will keep on working as though everything depended on you. Down in your heart you know that the wisdom, the power, and the glory all come from God, and that only your best pulpit work can begin to be good enough to feed God’s people, especially the dear little boys and girls.

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