Corinthian Apples

What a telling statement! Here Paul calls the Corinthian church out and compares them to having been deceived as Eve had. Reaching all the way back to Genesis, we can learn much about the state of the Christians in Corinth.

1. God have given Adam & Eve a single law:
And the Lord God commanded the man, You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will certainly die. (Gen 2:16, 17 TNIV)

Likewise, the Corinthians had been given one Gospel: The resurrected Christ. There is but one hope - Christ risen; one Spirit - the Advocate (John 16) sent by Christ.

The same holds true for us today. We have received the same Gospel Paul preached: Christ and Christ alone. Not Christ plus something more. The son of God is all we will ever need in order to be washed clean and forgiven. Christ died for us, and that is enough.

2. The serpent was "cunning" in its deception of Adam & Eve (Gen 3:1)
He questioned them and challenged what they had heard... Did God *really* say...

Thus the church of Corinth may have been challenged by these false prophets to question what they had been told by Paul and the other disciples of Christ who came and laid the foundations of the church there.

There are those today who still try to manipulate and question. While I see nothing wrong with challenging and questioning what God has told us in order to understand more fully, the motives in this case were to mislead. Thus, we must be wary, striving to discern the motives of those who call Christ into question.

3. Eve wasn't 100% clear on what God had said...
‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die. (Genesis 3:3 TNIV)

So Eve added to what God had said. She had somehow become confused about it. The Corinthians too, must have forgotten or become unclear about the message of Christ.

To me, this means that the careful study of the word is necessary in order for us to ensure we are following in the footsteps of our Lord. We should not be always looking for an intermediary: a priest, a prophet, an oracle, a preacher to interpret God's word for us. We have been given minds of our own and should be challenged to use them to understand God's word.

These are the Corinthian apples which they had bit into...

Created 10 months ago