C-C-Courage

(1 Corinthians 16:13) Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.

This pointed exhortation of Paul comes at the end of his first letter to the saints in Corinth, and his target audience would have included men and women, young and old. And this being true, why did he exhort them all to “act like men”?

The Corinthian church existed in a cesspool of idolatry, sexual immorality, political corruption and violence (sound familiar?) In his letter, Paul had already called the saints in Corinth repeatedly to live lives characterized by holiness, purity, justice, righteousness and above all love. But given how counter-cultural these virtues were, Paul knew without the virtue of courage, they would fail miserably in their attempts to follow Jesus in holiness. So, at the end of his letter, Paul called them to “act like men”; in other words he called them to exercise the virtue of courage. Indeed.

"It is curious—curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare." (Mark Twain)

"Courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other. (Samuel Johnson)

 "Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear." (Ambrose Redmoon)

"Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty or mercy which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was merciful till it became risky." (C. S. Lewis)

But, as we all know, courage is not something that we can simply choose to exercise. It is rather the result, or by-product of trusting in the power and goodness of our God, and the conviction that what we are endangering ourselves for is more important than our own personal safety and well-being.

And that is one reason that we assemble to worship week after week. We worship God to be convinced afresh and anew that our He is powerful, able to provide; able to save, and delights to exercise His might on behalf of those who rest on Him by faith. And we assemble to be re-convinced that His awesome plan to “unite all things together in His Son Jesus Christ” is worth risking personal comforts and safety for. And we do this trusting that the courage requisite for the exercise of all other virtues will be the result.

GH