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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
The churches in the province of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord, and so does the church that meets at their house. All the brothers and sisters here send you greetings. Greet one another with a holy kiss.
I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand.
If anyone does not love the Lord, let that person be cursed! Come, Lord[b]!
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you.
My love to all of you in Christ Jesus. Amen.
1 Corinthians 16:19-24
This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
For the past four months, we have been looking closely at Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth. The letter was intended to address problems outside and within the church as well as offer encouragement to the Christian believers there, those Paul saw as his brothers and sisters.
As he gets set to close his letter, we find Paul coming back to a common plea he had for the Corinthian Christians, a plea to put their focus on love. Look again at his words here:
The churches in the province of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord, and so does the church that meets at their house. All the brothers and sisters here send you greetings. Greet one another with a holy kiss.
I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand.
If anyone does not love the Lord, let that person be cursed! Come, Lord!
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you.
My love to all of you in Christ Jesus. Amen. 1 Corinthians 16:19-24
As we have discussed through this letter’s study, Paul is writing to the Corinthians from Ephesus and as we see in the opening paragraph of his final comments, he sends regards from “the churches in the province of Asia”. While Corinth may have seemed distant from the churches to their east, Paul wanted the Corinthians know that they were part of a bigger family, the family of Jesus, a family consisting of all bodies of Christ, no matter the location.
You may recall from the study of Acts that Paul had met a Jewish couple, Aquila and Priscilla, when he visited Corinth. When he departed Corinth, Paul went to Ephesus and we read where Aquila and Priscilla went with him (Acts 18). The couple chose to remain in Ephesus after Paul moved on to Caesarea.
Now, having returned to Ephesus, Paul was once again in the company of Aquila and Priscilla, and since the couple was very familiar with the church and believers in Corinth, it is of no surprise that they would ask Paul to send their greetings in his letter.
With the greetings out of the way as Paul wrote in his own hand, a testament to him being the true author of the letter, we find Paul ending the rest of the letter on a love note.
First, he exhorted the Christians in Corinth to greet one another with a holy kiss. It was very customary for people to greet with a kiss, a custom that still exists in much of the world today. It was an important sign of respect for a person but even more so an outward display of love.
Speaking of love, it wasn’t just love for one another that Paul was espousing for we see him urging the Corinthian believers to love the Lord and experience the fullness of His grace. If they didn’t, Paul wished for a curse to be upon the person who chose to dishonor Him.
Finally, Paul expresses his love in Christ Jesus for his brothers and sisters in Corinth. By his own words, we know Paul longed for the day when he would be able to return to Corinth and share fellowship with the believers there. Before that would happen, Paul would write a second letter to the Corinthians and tomorrow, we begin that study.
I hope you’ll be a part of it.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
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