Editor’s Note: The AMI QT devotionals from Jan. 1-15 are provided by Pastor Ryun Chang (Ph.D.) who is the AMI Teaching Pastor. He and Insil have been married for 28+ years and they have three children: Christy (teacher), Joshua (grad student) and Justin (college freshman). They live in Philadelphia.
Devotional Thoughts for Today
Acts 1:13
When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James.
1 Corinthians 1:26
Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.
This past December, I got to see an NBA game between San Antonio Spurs, a five-time champion, and Philadelphia 76ers, the league’s worst. Predictably, the game got of control fast and the Spurs won by 51 points!
Upon examining each roster, Jesus’ disciples would be more like the overmatched 76ers than the Spurs. It is said that, besides a handful of Philadelphia players with raw potential, the rest don’t belong in the league. And that’s who the disciples were. Being described by their detractors as “unschooled [and] ordinary” (Acts 4:5, 13) was merely scratching the surface. The disciples were initially divided not only from the rest of society but even among themselves. Simon belonged to a militant group called Zealots who violently opposed the Romans and those who worked for them, like tax collectors, among whom Matthew was one. The disciples’ favorite pastime was arguing about “who was the greatest” (Mk. 9:34); once, John and James sought to kill an inhospitable Samaritan (Lk. 9:51-5).
Let’s suppose that you’re assembling a roster to begin a new company. Would you start with these men? Are you crazy? No! Instead, you would recruit kinder, humbler and more educated people; but Jesus, purposely avoiding them, chose just the opposite for his institution aimed at changing the world.
Now, for the past three years Philadelphia 76ers purposely gathered its outmatched players to lose; but there is method to their madness. Being the worst team in the league increases their chance to pick the best player in the upcoming draft of college players. And there was also method in the “madness” of Jesus in selecting his men. To that end Paul wrote, “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things to nullify the things that are not, 29 so that no one may boast before him” (1 Cor. 1:27-9).
This criterion is both encouraging and sobering because this means that God can use the “unschooled and ordinary” but it also means that we shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously since God is the one who does all the heavy lifting. Cheer up—God can use you: work hard (Col. 1:29), stay humble and be faithful.
Prayer
Father, I confess my willful forgetfulness: now that I am better, thanks to your provision, I am deluded into thinking think that I wasn’t all that bad when You saved me. No, I wasn’t okay then and I won’t be okay the moment I fall into this self-deception. Lord, I cannot do anything apart from you (Jn. 15:5). I absolutely and completely depend on You. Amen.
Bible Reading for Today: Genesis 6
Lunch Break Study
Read 1 Cor. 1:26: Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.
1 Cor. 6:9-11: Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were.
1 Cor. 4:7-8: For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not? 8 Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! You have begun to reign—and that without us! How I wish that you really had begun to reign so that we also might reign with you!
Question to Consider
- Apostle Paul referred to the Corinthians as not having been wise, influential or of noble birth. What were they like before God saved them?
- It is important to note in what tone Paul was writing what he wrote in 1 Cor. 4:7-8. It is decisively a sarcastic tone: “Already you have become rich and begun to reign.” What happened to these once hapless Corinthians? What was worrying Paul?
- So, why is Paul writing all this? What do we need to watch out for as we become wiser, stronger and wealthier?
Notes
- The key phrase is 1 Cor. 6:11, “And that is what some of you were”, meaning many of the Corinthians used to be thieves, drunkards and sexually immoral.
- Evidently, these Corinthians were forgetting their former, miserable state before God saved them and were acting “cool” as if they were always wise, strong and influential. Alarmed, Paul was reminding them what it was really like from the outset—“Not many of you were . . . “
- He wrote this before their spiritual amnesia turns into a full-blown spiritual pride, which would bring about their fall (Prov. 16:18: “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall) as well as God’s discipline (1 Pet. 5:5: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble”).
Evening Reflection
Looking back to all that happened today, did you face a situation where you ended up embellishing your accomplishment and/or pedigree? If so, why did you give in to that? Take a moment and ask the Lord how he can help you with this weakness that makes you feel even less secure the next day.
“‘Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.’ For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends” (2 Cor. 10:17-8).
No one extolled the virtue of city life better than erstwhile Harvard professor Harvey Cox, who argued in his seminal work Secular City (1965) that modern city life is preferable over rural (traditional) life. Cox liked that in the city, “relationships are founded on free selection and common interest,” giving people a “wider range of alternatives,” unlike in rural life, where relationships are preset and any newcomer was held in suspicion unless one knew “where they came from and whether their family was any good.” Undoubtedly, he would prefer Sex and the City over The Waltons, a popular TV show in the 1970s featuring a large rural family.
My uncle had always been a man of bravado but not that day: he spoke slowly in a low voice following a grueling surgery to treat his cancer. A man of substantial wealth, he was living at a nice condominium during the treatment, but it paled in comparison to his house, a mansion. In fact, I had stayed at this sprawling property the night before while in town. As I was leaving, my uncle said, “Whenever you are in town, please stay at my house; in fact, it’s open for any Lord’s servant; I want my house to be used for the Lord’s work.”
Most evangelicals probably no longer care what Rob Bell has to say after he questioned the existence of hell in Love Wins (and later declaring, “Smile, there is no hell” ), but at one time he had their ears. Calling evangelical theology, “Evacuation theology,” he said, “Figure out the ticket, say the right prayer, get the right formula, and then we’ll go somewhere else.” That, he said, was “lethal to Jesus, who endlessly speaks of the renewal of all things.”
In effect, Bell points out: “Don’t be so heavenly minded that you are of no earthly good”. In a symbolic manner, this is exactly what the men of Galilee gathered at the Mt. Olive were doing: “Looking intently up into the sky as [Jesus] was going.” You can hardly blame them for being glued to what was a spectacular scene, but they must have stared too long. The angels were dispatched and after tapping their heads, they said, “Why do you stand here looking into the sky?” Reading between the lines, you could almost hear the angels shout, “Stop staring and get to work.”
A recent Mexican Coca-Cola ad produced a storm of controversy because of its insensitivity toward indigenous people. The commercial begins with sad natives “mop[ing] around a hillside feeling rejected by society. Then a group of young white hipsters turn up to save them, with the aid of coolers full of Coke and a Christmas tree. . . . The indigenous people can only smile in wondering gratitude.”
Over the years, conservative Christians have rightfully called out liberal scholars for holding to a low view of Scripture that results in the denial of important Christian doctrines, such as Virgin birth and resurrection of Christ. But those who say they believe the Bible aren’t entirely guilt-free for doing the opposite. Despite being told, “Do not go beyond what is written” (1 Cor. 4:6), that is exactly what some do, especially regarding the time of Christ’s second coming. Even though Jesus disprivileged himself by choosing to be agnostic about it, and reminded the disciples, just before his ascension, that “it is not for [us] to know the times or dates the Father has set,” there has been no shortage of people who do just that: setting the date of his return.
A pastor’s worst nightmare is being told how ineffective his sermon is, and that’s what recently happened to a pastor to whom this college sophomore said, “I’ve gotten nothing out of your sermons.” To him, the problem lies squarely with the pastor’s alleged inability to preach or teach well; but that may not necessarily be the case.
Once, a theology professor and former academic dean of a Reformed seminary, who used attend my church, said to me, “There is no spiritual power in the seminaries.” So, there might be some truth to people jokingly mispronouncing “seminary” as “cemetery.” But behind the humor lies good reason: first, since the Bible is treated as a textbook to be studied in dry academic fashion, it begins to lose its luster as a sacred book “sent” from above; second, seminarians “forget” to pray while juggling a demanding course load, church responsibility and perhaps even a part-time job; third, some seminaries are so hell-bent on imposing their particular brand of systematic theology, that those students who believe it begin to disdain others who don’t. That’s being carnal, not spiritual (1 Cor. 3:1-4).
Atheist Sam Harris, in his book The End of Faith (2004), writes, “Religion preaches the truth of proposition for which it has no evidence. In fact… no evidence is even conceivable.” A demand for evidence before believing an extraordinary claim is fair, and Harris would find Christ’s disciples in agreement. After all, upon being told by some women that they saw the resurrected Christ, “they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense” (Lk. 24:11). What they demanded was “proof” as Thomas said, “Unless I . . . put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it” (Jn. 20:25). And Luke the physician states that that’s exactly what they got: “Many convincing proofs that he was alive.”
However, unfortunately for us, what were empirical evidences (i.e., based on sensual experience) for the disciples are now nothing more than a historical narrative to us, and in the hands of skeptics like Harris, mere myth or fable. So then, what makes resurrection, a scientific impossibility, a plausible event to us without having to check out our brains at the door before entering the sanctuary?
Today spectator sports aren’t limited to watching ball games while sipping beer and munching on popcorn; now they can go to church every Sunday, to be entertained by one talented individual who can do it all: sing, dance and even preach! A while back, a professional wrestler, standing at 6 ft 9 in and weighing at 450 lb, called himself, “The One Man Gang.” While the moniker might fit for him, it’s unequivocally unbiblical for us! That’s like saying, “The One Man Church.” Whether it’s a gang or church, no one single individual, however great he may be, should be its entire: it’s a recipe for an eventual defeat.