1 Corinthians 1:4-9 – Thanksgiving for God’s grace

Paul’s life epitomizes gratitude. He had cultivated a life of thanks-living. Here he gave thanks for the Corinthians, not so much for the things that they had done but more for the things that God had done for them. They were recipients of the grace of God given in Christ Jesus. And due to their relationship with the Lord Jesus, they experienced the abundant grace of God. So Paul gave thanks to God for them, not just once but always.

Wanting the Corinthians to see that their past was forgiven because of God’s grace, everything was put in the past tense. The grace was given, they were enriched and their testimony in Christ was confirmed. Having experienced the forgiveness of sin was not the only thing for them, they were also enriched in Him in both their speech and knowledge. Their testimony of the truth concerning Christ was confirmed in the forgiveness of their sin and the new life they had in Christ. In I Corinthians 6:9-11, Paul described them as former fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, thieves, drunkards, rabble-rousers, and swindlers, until the grace of God in Christ sanctified and justified them. 

Despite their past, the Corinthians had the potential to advance. Why?  It’s because their past was forgiven in God’s grace and they were not lacking any gift for the present. Besides, they also had hope in the future. For they were eagerly awaiting the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the blessed hope. In the absence of this hope, there would be no motivation. Life today would be meaningless and futile.

In this letter Paul would be dealing with some of the sinful lifestyles of the Corinthians. Not wanting to discourage them in the process, he began by assuring them of God’s keeping grace. He wanted them to know that God would keep them blameless to the very end when the Lord Jesus would come to bring believers to the reckoning. The negative practices of the Corinthians did not indicate that they were not saved. They merely revealed their immaturity and were still in God’s sanctifying process.   

The Corinthians might not be a trustworthy lot, God, on the other hand, had always been trustworthy. He had been and will always be faithful. Their hope as well as our hope rest in the faithfulness of God. Here, God’s faithfulness is seen in Paul’s letter to them. God did not abandon and leave them to their destructive sins. Paul’s letter to them now was the intervention of God’s grace in their lives. And despite their negative state, Paul wanted them to know that they were still in fellowship with Jesus. They were in partnership with Jesus Christ, God’s Son.

What about us? We may find ourselves living in some problems of the past and are stuck in them. Let’s stop rationalizing and finding excuses to continue to live in them! Release them! Our forgiven past cannot continue to dominate us now if we refuse to give it the power that had held us. Let’s abandon ourselves in total surrender to our faithful God!