1 Corinthians 3:21-23 - Homiletics

A call to the utmost expansiveness in religious sympathy.

"Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours," etc. The attendants on a Christian ministry may be divided into two classes.

1. Those who esteem the doctrine because of the teacher. There are not a few in all congregations who accept doctrines simply because of the strong sympathies they have with the preacher. Paul seems to have thought of these when he wrote this chapter. He alludes to the men in the Church at Corinth who had been taken more with the teachers than with their doctrines. The other class of attendants on a Christian ministry are:

2. Those who esteem the teacher because of his doctrines. A man who preaches to them they feel is estimable only as he embodies and propounds the true doctrines of the gospel. The impropriety of glorying in teachers rather than in their doctrines is strikingly illustrated in these verses by three things.

I. THE UNIVERSE IS FOR THE CHURCH . "All things are yours." "All things," not some things.

1. The ministry is for the Church. "Whether Paul, or Apollos." There is no agency more valuable on earth than the Christian ministry; in every way it serves man—intellectually, socially, materially. But its grand aim is to restore the human spirit to the knowledge, image, and fellowship of its God. Why, then, should it glory in one form? Let those who like Paul take Paul, and be thankful, and not find fault with those who regard Apollos as the most effective preacher.

2. The world is for the Church. By the world we mean the earth, with all its beauties and blessings. In the sense of legal possession the world, of course, is not the property of Christians, nor is it the property of others. For he who claims the largest number of acres has but a handbreadth compared with its numerous islands and vast continents. Yet in the highest sense it is the property of the Christian. He feels an intense sympathy and oneness with God who created it.

3. Life is the property of the Church. "Or life." There are certain conditions in which we find men on this earth, in which they cannot be said to live. There are some chained in their cell, under the sentence of death; they have forfeited their life. There are others whose limbs are so paralyzed that they can neither speak nor move; life is not theirs. Morally, sinful man is as a criminal; he is under the sentence of death; he is dead in trespasses. But life is the Christian's; his sentence of death is removed; his moral infirmities are healed, and all his faculties and powers are alive unto God.

4. Death is the property of the Church. "Or death," What is death? Who shall define it? Who shall penetrate its meaning? The word has unfathomable depths of the wonderful and the terrible. But it is for the Christian; it is his. It delivers him from the imperfections of the present state; it frees him from all that is incompatible with his peace, his safety, and his advancement; it introduces him into the scenes, the services, the society, of a blessed immortality. It is his; it is the last step in the pilgrimage.

5. General events are the property of the Church. "Things present, or things to come"—an expression including all the circumstances of existence. "Things present," whatever their character, are ours. "Things to come:" what things are those? Now, if all these things are for the Church, why should any of its members give themselves up to any one particular ministry to the disparagement of others?

II. THE CHURCH IS FOR THE REDEEMER . "Ye are Christ's." There are two very different senses in which Christian men are Christ's. They are his:

1. By his relationship to them. He is the Creator of all. "By him were all things created." He is the Mediator of all.

2. By their pledge to him. They have pledged themselves to him as their moral Leader. They have vowed unqualified obedience to his teaching. If they have thus consecrated themselves to him as their great Teacher, how absurd to glory in subordinate and fallible teachers! Why live under the rays of the rushlight, when you can bask under the beams of the sun? Follow a Plato in philosophy, a Solon in law, a Demosthenes in eloquence, a Bacon in sciences, but no one but Christ in religion. Value the Calvins, the Luthers, the Wesleys, for what they are worth, but disclaim them as leaders.

III. THE REDEEMER IS FOR GOD . "And Christ is God's." Jesus, as a Mediator, is the Messenger and Servant of the Eternal.

1. Christ is God's Revealer. He is the Word of God, the Logos.

2. Christ is God's Servant. He came here to work out God's great plan of saving mercy.

Learn from this subject:

1. The infinite worth of Christianity. It gives all things to its true disciples. None of the "all things" specified here are possessed by those who are not his genuine disciples. The ministry is not theirs. If they attend preaching they are mere instruments in the hands of the preacher; they are carried away by the emotions of the hour. The world is not theirs, however large a portion of it they claim legally; the world uses them as its tools. Life is not theirs; it is forfeited to justice. They have no true enjoyment in it. Death is not theirs; they are its. "Through fear of death they are all their lifetime subject to bondage." "Things present and things to come" are not theirs; they are the mere creatures of circumstances. It is Christianity alone that makes all these things man's. It attunes the soul to the influences of God, as the AE olian harp is attuned to the winds; and every passing breeze in its history strikes out in music the anthem, "The Lord is my Portion, saith my soul."

2. The contemptibleness of religious sectarianism. How wretchedly mean and base does sectarianism appear in the light of this subject! The men who glory in their own theological peculiarities, ecclesiastical sect, and religious teachers, have never felt the grandeur contained in the text, that the universe is for the Church, the Church is for Christ, and that Christ is for God.