“Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Cor. 1:1-3
Who is the Sosthenes mentioned by Paul as being a co-sender of this letter to the church in Corinth?
It is an intriguing question, because in Acts 18:17 we are told that the chief of the synagogue, who apparently had instigated the malicious prosecution of Paul before Proconsul Gallio, was named Sosthenes. He was beaten, apparently by the Gentile crowd that had gathered to watch the proceedings, but his beating failed to get a rise out of the Gallio, who presumably had intuited that Sosthenes was a malicious, vexatious litigant.
Did Sosthenes convert to Christianity as his predecessor, Crispus, had done? Had he followed Paul to Ephesus and now was writing with Paul to his fellow Christians in Corinth? Or was there a Christian, coincidentally named Sosthenes, whom Paul called a “brother” who wanted to say “hi” to the Corinthians, but who was not the Sosthenes who had been the Jewish synagogue leader? As far as my research has revealed, inspiration sheds no light on this question, so our curiosity must go unsatisfied.
“I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge—God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” 1 Cor. 1:4-9
God supplies the church with all necessary spiritual gifts, including knowledge and languages. God gives His church what it needs to accomplish its mission. He will also keep each one of us firm until the end. Please don’t miss that last point: God will keep us firm until the end; He is not going to let go of us.
There is a faction of Adventism that wrongly believes we must be insecure and fretful about our salvation. These anxious Adventists try to drive the rest of us crazy with their ceaseless obsessing over faith and works, their public agonizing about their salvation. It is not scriptural. God wants us to be confident not only in the saving power, but also in the staying power, of the blood of His divine Son, Jesus Christ.
To that end, Paul writes to the Corinthians, “He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Cor. 1:8. Paul says this in most of his epistles, usually right up front, in the greetings, where he says he is thankful for the believers and prays for them. The most famous such passage is to the Philippians: “being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Philippians 1:6. There’s even a song. And to the Thessalonians, Paul says:
“Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your entire spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The One who calls you is faithful, and He will do it.” 1 Thess. 5:23-24.
Peter also gets in on this good news:
“This inheritance [which can never perish, spoil or fade] is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” 1 Peter 1:4-5.
Jude says, “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you unblemished in His glorious presence, with great joy.” Jude 1:24. God chose this for us, and predestined us: “For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence.” Ephesians 1:4. “And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.” Rom. 8:30.
Isaiah prophesied: “He will see the fruit of His suffering and will be satisfied. By the knowledge of Him, my righteous servant will justify many, and He will bear their iniquities.” Isa. 53:11 (emphasis added). The source of our confidence is that God will not allow the suffering of Christ to have been in vain! Many will be justified by it.
The word “many” comes up over and over in this context:
“For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” Rom. 5:19.
“So also Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many” Heb. 9:28
“just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” Mat. 20:28
God is not trying to keep people out of heaven; He wants everyone to be saved (2 Peter 3:9) because He and Jesus both want Jesus’ suffering to result in a glorious harvest of souls for eternity.
It is true, of course, that God never takes away our free will, and that we are always free to blaspheme the Holy Spirit and intentionally reject God. But Adventists are so anxious to make this point about free will that we rob ourselves of the assurance God wants us to have, that “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it,” and that “He will keep you firm until the end.”
“I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Peter”; still another, “I follow Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?” 1 Cor. 1:10-13.
We all know who Paul, Peter and Christ were, but who was Apollos? The latter part of Acts 18 tells us about Apollos:
“Meanwhile a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.
When Apollos wanted to go to Achaia [Greece], the brothers and sisters encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. When he arrived, he was a great help to those who by grace had believed. For he vigorously refuted his Jewish opponents in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah. Acts 18:24-28.
Apollos was a Jew from Alexandria, the Greek-speaking city that Alexander the Great had founded in Egypt, naming it after himself. Apollos is obviously a Greek name; the god Apollo was the son of Zeus and the twin brother of Artemis/Diana, being worshiped in both Greece and Rome under the same name. Does anyone else find it remarkable that Jewish parents would name their son after a Greco-Roman god?
Consider that the Jews in Alexandria were highly Hellenized, taking Greek names and speaking Greek exclusively. It was feared that if the Hebrew Scriptures were not translated in Greek, Judaism as a religion would die in Alexandria. This was the motivation for the production of the Septuagint, by the way, which became the Scriptures of Hellenized Jewish diaspora, as well as the Bible of the first Christians and the men who wrote the New Testament.
What about the substance of Paul’s complaint, that the Christians in Corinth were attaching themselves to individual teachers—Paul, Apollos, Peter? This is what I call “guru Christianity.” Among conservative Adventists, it might be Doug Batchelor, Stephen Bohr, Conrad Vine, Ron Kelly, Steve Wohlberg, or Danny Shelton. I don’t know who it would be among liberals, maybe Randy Roberts or Dwight Nelson, and blacks would have their own set, maybe including Carlton Byrd.
We don’t need guru Christianity. I’m not criticizing any of the preachers named above; to the contrary, I think they all have excellent things to contribute, and we should take what is helpful from all of them, and be blessed by it. What I am criticizing is what Paul took issue with among the Corinthians: singling out one Christian leader, handing over our conscience and agency to him, and then taking up cudgels against all who are not on “our team.” This is never safe, and we have been warned against this type of spiritual and intellectual laziness. In the final days, this could cause us to be lost:
Satan is constantly endeavoring to attract attention to man in the place of God. He leads the people to look to bishops, to pastors, to professors of theology, as their guides, instead of searching the Scriptures to learn their duty for themselves. Then, by controlling the minds of these leaders, he can influence the multitudes according to his will. The Great Controversy, pp. 506-507.
We are blessed to have access, through the Internet, to many great preachers and teachers. But we cannot make any of them our guru.
Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized in my name. (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. 1 Cor. 1:13-17.
If Paul did not baptize most of the Corinthian Christians, who did? Probably a local elder. Does the one doing the baptizing need to be an ordained minister? I have read stories of Adventists in the Pacific Islands waiting years to be baptized, until the missionary ship returned with an ordained minister. That’s not necessary. Sacramentalism and hierarchicalism are crutches for the carnal mind. The importance of baptism is that it symbolizes the death and burial of the sin-loving nature we are born with, and our resurrection to newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is the public symbol of our being born again. It does not matter who baptizes you, it matters that you are baptized.
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” 1 Cor. 1:18-31.
This is all self-explanatory. That God can send His Son to die for our sins, and therefore we can be saved, seems like a stumbling block and foolishness. But it is the power of God unto salvation for those of us who are being saved. The gospel is not designed to wow the intellectuals; it isn’t good news because it answers philosophical questions. It is good news because God has made a way of salvation for us, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God did for us that which we could not do for ourselves, and that is good news indeed!