Take a look at your shoes. A little worn, are they? If they aren’t, they will be. And your favorite sweater—how long before the elbows come out? Shoes, clothes—all this stuff—wears out if we use it. In ancient times, people didn’t have a closet full of shoes and clothes. They were lucky if they had one change of apparel.

And so it seemed significant, one day in the wilderness north of Mount Sinai, that a Hebrew sat down to rest and looked at his shoes and noticed that they were no more worn than they had been six months ago. Then he examined his clothes. They weren’t new, but they had not worn out when they should have. It seems like such a small thing, but something was going on here. Toward the end of the wilderness wanderings of Israel, Moses explained to them what had happened.

And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land; The great trials which your eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles: Yet the Lord has not given you a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day. And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes have not worn out upon you, and your shoes have not worn out upon your foot. You have not eaten bread, neither have you drunk wine or strong drink: that you might know that I am the Lord your God.

One very small, daily miracle. Your clothes didn’t show wear, nor did your shoes, for 40 years. It was a miracle they hardly noticed. It was a miracle that was taken for granted just like manna. And the lesson is that in your long trials, though they not be taken away, you are never left without encouragement—without evidence that God is with you. But you may have to stop and look for it. Chances are, you have been taking it for granted. For example, let’s look at this little play on words in Paul’s introduction to 2 Corinthians.

Of all the ceremonies that are connected in our mind to the Christian faith, there is probably nothing more fundamental than that ceremony we call the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion, or the Eucharist, or the Christian Passover, even. You would think that if something was so central to the Christian faith…that, at least, would be something we would not have any argument about. Well, you’d be wrong, because Christians do differ on many thing—on what they call it, when they do it, how they do it.

This is nothing new about this, though. In the first century, the apostle Paul had to write a letter to the Christians in Corinth to explain to them what they were supposed to do about this most important ceremony. I guess we should be thankful for the Corinthian church. If they hadn’t been so obstreperous—if they hadn’t been such a problem to Paul—none of these questions would have arisen, 1 Corinthians would not be written, and we wouldn’t have this very valuable information. In 1 Corinthians 11, verse 17, Paul says this:

Now in this that I declare unto you I praise you not, that you come together not for the better, but for the worse. For first of all, when you come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies among you, that they who are approved may be made manifest among you.

Paul seems to say that we need to have this kind of thing so we can tell the difference—so that God can look down here and see who is going to serve him and who is just going through the motions. Then Paul addresses what was going on when the Corinthians gathered together to observe that fundamental ceremony. From what Paul has heard, they were not celebrating the Lord’s supper—that re-creation of his last Passover with his disciples—but were doing it their own way…and he is not amused. But first, let’s digress and get a little background on the example they were expected to follow, in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 22.

The Bible is a very down-to-earth book. It is written for men and women who actually have to live every day in this world—who have to deal with human needs and human nature. High and lofty ideals are in the Bible, make no mistake about that. But most of us live most of our lives a long way short of the ideal. Does the Bible have anything to say to those of us who are struggling down here in the mud?

Does God care that we are often alone and depressed? Does he understand that when we have been deserted and left alone that we need someone? Did God make us with a sex drive and then tell us we can’t indulge it? Does God care that a woman has been left with two kids by a louse of a husband who ran off with a new cutie? Does he care that she cries herself to sleep a lot of nights, alone in an empty bed? What does God have to say about the real, down and dirty, problems we have to live with?

The biggest problem we have is not with God or the Bible. It is with the interpreters of the Bible who sit in ivory towers and hand down solutions that real people can’t live with. A good example of how God addresses real human problems is found in one of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians. When you read it, you realize that there is nothing new under the sun. Human nature hasn’t changed. Marriages came apart in those days, too, and people had to figure out how to live their lives from that day forward. So let’s take a look at 1 Corinthians, chapter 7.

We all know that we are sinners. And we know that there is no combination of our own works, our own efforts, that can save us. But having been saved by the death and life of Jesus Christ, does it make any difference how we live our life?

Now, common sense tells us that it does make a difference. We aren’t comfortable with the idea that a man can be saved, then go out and be a womanizer for the rest of his life, and be in the kingdom of God in the end. I know there are those who say that the womanizer never was saved in the first place, but I think that is merely a convenient way of disposing of a very troubling question.

We can say that when a man goes through the waters of baptism and is forgiven all his past sins, that he will then live a life of faith and obedience. Or we can say that he must live a life of faith and obedience. But in the end either way we have said the same thing—that a life of obedience and faith comes between conversion and the kingdom of God. That a Christian has to sit up and take notice, he must put some effort into the Christian life, he must make some choices. Listen to what Paul wrote the Christians in Corinth, beginning in chapter nine of 1 Corinthians.

Why do you suppose that Israelites, so very long ago, lived about as long as we do today with all our advances in science? The answer is pretty straightforward: Israel had a very down-to-earth law that dealt with prevention of disease rather than cure. And I think you will find that the major advances in longevity in civilized nations have more to do with sanitation than with medicine. For example, there was a law that said a man should have a spade with him when he went out to relieve himself. He had to dig a hole and cover it up. This simple regulation of sanitation accounted for a marked reduction in insect-borne diseases. Marriage, coupled with severe penalties for fornication, put the lid on STDs.

These are simple enough. Some are not quite so obvious. Take the sacrificial laws, for example. One of the objects of these laws, after the object of worship, was to get the slaughtering of animals under control. The law regulated where the animals could be killed, which animals could and could not be eaten, and specifically forbade the eating of blood. I don’t think anyone at the time these laws were given understood the principles of blood-borne diseases. Their science was not far enough advanced, so God just told them what to do and they did it. Only now, in the modern age, have we have come to understand the science behind many of those old laws. Have you ever wondered what else there is in the Bible that could save your life? Maybe you ought to give it a read.

Well, I can hear someone say, That was all well and good for a primitive people, but with all our scientific advances, we don’t have to worry about all that stuff. It is true that we have more knowledge today than they did. But one can only wonder about the things we do not yet know. (I can remember when we knew nothing about AIDS, a disease that got its foothold through direct violations of Old Testament laws.) The Apostle Paul encountered the same argument in the first century gentile churches. All those old laws are okay for an ignorant people, but we have knowledge they didn’t have. The Corinthian church advanced this argument to Paul, and he replied in 1 Corinthians 8.

How does it feel to walk up to someone, put out your hand and say, Hi, my name is Bob, only to have the other person simply turn his shoulder and walk away? It is pretty hard to get very far in life without getting snubbed once or twice, so most of us know what that feels like. It is an embarrassing moment, but when it has happened to me, I generally feel embarrassment for the other person, not for myself. I figure I was brought up better than that.

But there is a more serious thought connected with this. God reveals Himself to man as one who has approached us and put out his hand, saying, Hello, my name is Jesus. And I suppose it is fair to say that God knows precisely what it feels like to be snubbed. Paul, in his second letter to the Corinthians, drops a hint.

We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that you receive not the grace of God in vain. (For he says, I have heard you in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I helped you: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)

It is almost as though God is saying, What do you mean, I’ll do it tomorrow? I am here right now. Right now is the day of salvation for you. The grace of God is the extending of his hand, and right now is the time to take it.

If a man die, shall he live again? That is the question isn’t it? Is this all there is? We live out our lives, we return to the dust and oblivion forever.

It was a man named Job who asked the question, and he had good reason to ask whether life was even worth living. He had lost everything he owned. All his children had been killed when a storm collapsed house around their heads. He was in constant pain from boils on every part of his body. And his wife’s best encouragement was, Why don’t you just curse God and die. He wanted to know whether this is all there is to life. There is a marvelous passage in Job 14, where he muses on the question that troubled him and still troubles us.

1 Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.
2 He comes forth like a flower, and is cut down: he flees also as a shadow, and continues not.
3 And do you open your eyes upon such a one, and bring me into judgment with you?
4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? no one.
5 Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with you, you have appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;
6 Turn from him, that he may rest, till he shall accomplish, as a hireling, his day.
7 For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender shoots thereof will not cease.
8 Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stump dies in the ground;
9 Yet at the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth branches like a plant.
10 But man dies, and wastes away: yea, man expires, and where is he?
11 As the waters fail from the sea, and the river decays and dries up:
12 So man lies down, and rises not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.
13 O that you would hide me in the grave, that you would conceal me, until your wrath is past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!
14 If a man dies, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change comes.
15 You shall call, and I will answer you: you will have a desire to the work of your hands.

Job doesn’t cite Scripture, because there probably was no scripture when he wrote this. There is reason to believe that Job is actually the oldest book of the Bible. But Job knows one very important thing. He knows God. And once you allow God into the play, once He is on the stage, everything changes. Everything has a point, an objective, a purpose. Job knew that he was the work of God’s hands, and it was plain to him that God had a purpose beyond what he had experienced. Up to this point, life in the flesh was enough. But when that life began to fail, Job tried hard to peer beyond it. The Answer to Job’s questions lies in the person of one Jesus Christ. Who died. Who was raised from the dead. And that brings us back again to Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, in chapter 15.

One of the truly sad things in the history of religion is the hostility that persists between Jews and Christians—sometimes it even becomes hatred. It’s very old, of course. It dates from the very beginning of the Christian faith—not only in the conflict between some Jews and Jesus, but even in the Book of Acts, among the followers of Jesus who wanted to maintain the faith of Jesus as a Jewish sect and not admit Gentiles. It is almost as though there were a jealousy between Jew and Gentile over Jesus.

And as Paul took the gospel to the European synagogues, that jealousy persisted. Jealousy is a powerful instinct in man, and getting religion doesn’t wipe it out. It just gives it a new field to explore. And so it was that when Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, he had to address a matter of jealousy that had arisen. He starts the 12th chapter of 1 Corinthians this way:

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. You know that you were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as you were led. Therefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Spirit.

There is a funny thing about this verse. It doesn’t seem to fit here in a discussion of spiritual gifts. And one would think it possible for a person to say that Jesus is the Lord and not mean it. How does it fit in this context of spiritual gifts? I can’t think of any class of person who might say that Jesus is anathema except those Jews who rejected him as Messiah. This suggests an ongoing conflict between the Jews and Gentiles as the Gentiles accepted Jesus (who was Jewish) as the Messiah.

So what is Paul talking about here? Once again, we have to realize that we are reading someone else’s mail, and without understanding the dynamics that existed on the ground in Corinth, it is easy to miss the import of what Paul is saying. Perhaps we can read between the lines and understand the conflict a little better.