Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
There is a connection between 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and Acts 18:1-17. Two outstanding details there are intriguing: (1) the fierce hatred of the Jews who heard Paul preach in Corinth and (2) Paul's plea for the Corinthian church members to be in total, perfect theological harmony.
(1) Paul proclaimed Jesus with the blessing of the Holy Spirit. Honest hearts were deeply impressed, and moved, as he presented the cross of Christ and told of what the Son of God accomplished for the human race. But the unbelieving Jews had hearts like stone and were totally unimpressed by the evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit; "they opposed themselves, and blasphemed" (Acts 18:6; the Greek word means "stupid talk"). Their legalistic hearts were impervious to all reasonable, logical evidence of gospel truth. This fantastic phenomenon is evident even today as again hard hearts refuse "most precious" Good News.
(2) Paul's plea for the church members to "speak [teach] the same thing, and that there be no divisions," that they "be perfectly joined together in the same mind" is not idle talk (1 Cor. 1:10). This is God's ideal for His church, and a little known prediction in an out-of-date book entitled Historical Sketches states categorically that such blessed heart-and mind-unity will be realized in the church before Jesus returns: "They will see eye to eye in all matters of religious belief. They will speak [teach] the same things."
Did you catch that? That's Good News! But hard hearts will never know it!
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: January 3, 1998.
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