June 03rd, 2019

Paul writes, but knowledge puffs up while love builds up. Puffed up is a really colorful term. It's like inflating a balloon that wants to look really big and impressive on the outside but inside is just a bunch of hot air waiting to get popped. Envy is something you do. Boasting is something you do. Puffed up is something you are. Paul hits them with these problems, these words, over and over and over in this letter. You envy. You boast. You're puffed up. You envy. You boast. You're puffed up.

Paul writes, but knowledge puffs up while love builds up. Puffed up is a really colorful term. It's like inflating a balloon that wants to look really big and impressive on the outside but inside is just a bunch of hot air waiting to get popped. Envy is something you do. Boasting is something you do. Puffed up is something you are. Paul hits them with these problems, these words, over and over and over in this letter. You envy. You boast. You're puffed up. You envy. You boast. You're puffed up.

1 Corinthians 13 tells us, Love is patient. Love is kind. To everybody at Corinth, these are beautiful words. They're just basking in them. Then he puts the hammer down when he talks about what love is not. He says, And here's what love doesn't do. Love does not envy. Love does not boast. Love is not puffed up. In other words, What is love not like, Corinth? Well, it's not like you. In fact, love is the opposite of you.

There was an old TV sitcom called Seinfeld, and there was a character in it named George Costanza. Anybody ever know George Costanza? He's like this loser, such a loser that he realized one day, My life is nothing like what I wanted. My every decision is wrong. My every instinct is wrong. It's all wrong. So he lands on a new life strategy called "Do the opposite." Just whatever you would normally do, do the opposite. It works out great. Beautiful women are attracted to him. Finance and success begin to come to him, just from doing the opposite.

 Paul is not being subtle here. Paul is saying to Corinth in this chapter, You are like the George Costanza of churches. You are like the opposite of what love is supposed to be. In case anybody misses it (not likely), the next two items he has chewed Corinth out for are that they are self-seeking, egocentric (he uses that precise term), and then that they dishonor one another because of all this ladder climbing. The next two items in 1 Corinthians 13 that love is not are "Love does not dishonor others. Love is not self-seeking." In other words, deliberately...not once, not twice, but five times...Paul says, Love is not like you. Paul is saying this in love. He is saying this not in spite of but because of the fact that he loves the people of Corinth, loves them too much to let them wallow in the misery of an unloving life.

Love is not primarily about making people feel good. He doesn't want them to miss out on what matters most, which is growing toward the people God intended them to be and building a community that is the opposite of the way our world apart from God works. That's going to demand a strategy of "Do the opposite." That's kind of Jesus' message: "Do the opposite."

In other words, "Hey, guys. Here's the plan: do the opposite. Your every instinct is wrong. It's not working really well for our earth. So let's do something opposite: make our lives a joyful exercise in trying to serve, enhance, equip, give to the lives of other people. "You can't stop envying by trying really hard to stop envying. Spiritual maturity is not envy management. It's not through gritted teeth, repressing and stifling feelings so I'm miserable inside, but envy can be removed by love. Where love is present, there's just no room for envy to take root. It has to put down roots in the human heart, but a loving heart just has no place for envy to get rooted.

It was envy that claimed the life of Jesus, and he died and was buried. Normally, the earth keeps its dead. Normally, but on the third day the earth did the opposite. The tomb was empty, and love triumphed. Now you and I are invited into that circle of oneness at great cost. We don't have to be puffed up. We're loved. So we ought to do the same!
 
Timmy B