Sermon Notes for Eighth Sunday after Epiphany

In Praise of Grey Haired Lions: The Need for Spiritual Fathers
1 Corinthians 4
Eighth Sunday after Epiphany
February 27, 2011

• “Where have all the fathers gone?”
• ‘Hey man, no one here gets married anymore.’

When Paul writes to the Corinthians his letter does not arrive with the clang of a directive from the management team, or even the detached accuracy of an ecclesiastical bureaucrat. He writes as a father to sons and daughters, taking literary liberties because he not only has the right to do so, but because love compels him to speak and act. This also provides the root system for his unflinching insistence on Church discipline that he will make in the next
chapter, telling the leaders they must not only repent of their laxity in dealing with the sin of unrepentant Christians, but actually get on with the unpleasant task and offer some tough love. He’s not afraid to say, “I love you”, but neither is he afraid to utter the other most important words any parent can say: “Knock it off!” And no wonder - that’s how one speaks to immature children, which is exactly what Paul says the Corinthians are.

Yet there is more to it than such simple imperatives. Paul speaks as a wise, older father, the persuader of older children and not simply the commander of the young. He has the example, the wounds, to match the rhetoric, the years and scars to command attention. He has the grey hair that goes with the capacity to render counsel and judgment.

• No Powdered Wigs
• No Grizzled Grouches, No Grumpy Old Men



I. Corinthian Adolescence - 1 Corinthians 4:6-13, 18-20
A. Arrogant Judgment Masquerading as Discernment
B. Confusing an Inheritance to be Treasured with a Treasure Gained to be Boasted of.

* The Look of Love
* You’ll know when you’re older


II. Pauline Parenting - 1 Corinthians 4:1-5, 8-17
A. The Correct View: Stewards and Servants not Idols or Employees
* First Apostles, Last Apostles
* Ways and Doctrines: True Spiritual Sons
- “Follow me!”
- “He who has seen me...” - Jesus, John 14

III. Embraced by the Father’s Love
A. Revealing the Life of the Trinity
B. Called to be sons and fathers
C. Called to be sons through the Son by whose Spirit we cry out, “Abba”