Hard Questions

"For who makes you different than 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?" 1 Corinthians 4:7

I think it is pervasive in our culture to not answer questions. If I don't say anything or can avoid saying anything then I can avoid incriminating myself. Have you ever tried to get a straight answer from a utility company or a bank? It is not just the public sector though, where they seem to train people to evade answering, it has crept over into our everyday relationships too. I am certainly not suggesting that we begin interrogating each other or trying to set each other up to answer embarrassing or trivial questions.

I would like to take a stab at answering Paul's questions that he is posing to the Corinthians who have begun to become arrogant and above it all. The Corinthian church was known for being emotionally driven and susceptible to over spiritualizing everything, to the degree that they would tend to follow after men and their own vain imaginings instead of the Lord. So Paul poses three questions to reel them back into reality. Feel free to answer them for yourself. Of course my answers are not the final say on this passage although I may have been able to convince a Corinthian or two.

#1 "For who makes you different than anyone else?" Nobody does. God made us all and when it comes to basic understandings of the basic truths, we are all the same. One man's salvation is not different than another's. The ground really is level at the foot of the cross. We are unique in a sense, but we are not more special. I do not have special knowledge or a special position or a special calling that elevates or differentiates me from anyone else. We have different gifts but the same Savior. These gifts are not for comparing or for "lording it over" each other. I should be careful about how 'special' I think I am, and never compared to anyone.

#2 "What do you have that you did not receive?" Nothing. Everything I have comes from God. Everything period comes from God. If I have a gift or ability that God uses, it comes from Him. Everything I have to serve Him with He gives me to serve Him with. It is not like I have something that God needs and therefore out of my beneficence I allow Him to use me. He works through me, not the other way around. I cannot save myself, I cannot do anything for God in and of myself. Without Him I have nothing. Whatever I have is because He gave it to me and uses what He gave me to glorify Himself.

#3 "And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?" Because I am full of myself and I want to take credit for what God does. Why? Because I am arrogant and it makes me feel really special and important. What I receive from God, my salvation and my gifts or abilities are only because He, in His infinite wisdom and grace has decided to use it in some way to glorify Himself. Me thinking I am doing something special or have something special from God does not make it so. He will not put me in a position to receive His glory. If I do, I somehow did it myself. Meaning, I put myself in front of Him. I cannot claim that something that He did, that somehow I did it. I must not say that what He gave me, is now somehow mine for glorifying myself.

So, I end with this. Ask yourself these questions and answer honestly. The more you serve Him, the harder it may be to face your own answers. We have a tendency to get too big for our own britches, as the old saying goes. From time to time it is good to put ourselves in check and make sure we are not looking for the center of the universe for a place to sit down. He is the center of the universe; He is the end all, and the alpha and omega. He is all that and I am not, no matter what I say or anybody else says.

Thoroughly humbled,
Pastor Fred

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