Lord, I don't pretend to understand this passage even though I've heard great sermons on it. I know the basics, but I don't know how it relates to their boasting. Could you teach me this morning?
So... here I am. I keep reading this passage over and over and that word "judge" has me stumped. In the midst of my business, I'm not supposed to judge some things but I am supposed to judge others.
How? How do I know which things to judge?
But right in the middle of two paragraphs about judging, I'm thrown this one about keeping the feast and boasting. It's somehow the glue between them, but why?
I guess I'll just take it phrase by phrase....
6Your boasting is not good.
So none of us would argue that boasting at best is irritating. And then we turn around and use it- boasting - to fluff our resumes, pad our progress reports, compare our "success" to other churches as if God looked at numbers. (Oddly, God seems to constantly reduce numbers - Gideon started with 22,000 and God whittled it down to 300. Pharoh had his tens of thousands with horses and chariots and God uses a little band of Jews on foot. One little boy's lunch feeds thousands.)
But we, um, I mean the Corinthians.... were facing off. "They" were/are factioning off. Fighting for numbers as to who followed Apollos, Paul.... And they were boasting. Back to I COR 4:6 Now these things, brethren, I have figuratively applied to myself and Apollos for your sakes, so that in us you may learn not to exceed what is written, so that no one of you will become arrogant in behalf of one against the other. 7For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?
Paul wants us to walk humbly and not exceed what is written... which is Christ crucified and risen for us. We always want to add to that. "Christ crucified and risen and making us better than......"
When we forget that HUGE simplicity of Christ crucified... equally for each of us... we become such poor arrogant idiots.
It just takes a grain of pride to catch quickly. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? We think we've got it. The key to being more important than someone else. Pure evidence that we are not gratefully secure in the love of Christ. That FACT that He has paid the price escapes us. We start crusades and end up killing the chance for others to know him.
Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
And the point? as you really are FACT. I SO VERY MUCH NEED TO RECOGNIZE "AS I REALLY AM" Because, and only because... and FREELY because Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
Easter follows Passover. It's coming! The blood of the lamb on the doorpost. Death passes over. We walk away on a step by step journey of faith toward the resurrected Christ.
Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
God wants us to keep remembering who we are ... "as we really are".
When we get it, we become humble. Thankful. Effective. HIS.
How does this connect the judging passages? I still don't know. I see the connection, though. A thankful person is secure. A thankful person doesn't need competition to be secure. A thankful person has "enough" because they are complete in who they really are... HIS.
I think I need to ask my good friend J. to teach me how to look up the meanings of words in the original Greek so that I can understand how Paul is using the word "judge".
Thank you, Lord, for being WHO YOU REALLY ARE, the one who paid the price that makes me who I really am. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so very much. Because you are the LAMB, I am blessed! You have blessed me!
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