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Power of God

Sometimes I like to talk. I know it is just “all talk”. I don’t have any intention of doing anything. I have not asked God what he wants. It is just mere talk.

Our life in Jesus is much different. It is not about words alone. God’s goal for us is to live an empowered life. Jesus has sent the Holy Spirit to give us that power for what we cannot do on our own. Everything starts with “if it is the will of God.” That is the main thing about the main thing.

May we follow the way of God and live an empowered life in Jesus the Messiah.

18 Some are arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. 19 But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power. 20 For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power. 21 What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness? [1]

1 Corinthians 4:18-20

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some … as though I would not come—He guards against some misconstruing (as by the Spirit he foresees they will, when his letter shall have arrived) his sending Timothy, “as though” he “would not come” (or, “were not coming”) himself. A puffed-up spirit was the besetting sin of the Corinthians. Alford translates, “But come I will”; an emphatical negation of their supposition.

shortly—after Pentecost.

if the Lord will—a wise proviso (Jam 4:15). He does not seem to have been able to go as soon as he intended.

and will know—take cognizance of.

but the power—I care not for their high-sounding “speech,” “but” what I desire to know is “their power,” whether they be really powerful in the Spirit, or not. The predominant feature of Grecian character, a love for power of discourse, rather than that of godliness, showed itself at Corinth.

kingdom of God is not in word—Translate, as in 1 Co 4:19, to which the reference is “speech.” Not empty “speeches,” but the manifest “power” of the Spirit attests the presence of “the kingdom of God” (the reign of the Gospel spiritually), in a church or in an individual.

with a rod, or in love—The Greek preposition is used in both clauses; must I come in displeasure to exercise the rod, or in love, and the Spirit of meekness?[2]

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[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 1 Co 4:18–21.

[2] Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, vol. 2 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 271.

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