I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge — God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 1:4-9 are smothered in irony, in the light of all he will go on to write in the letter. But the note of thanksgiving and rejoicing, despite all their flaws and muddle and the agony of heart and soul they are causing him, reads as utterly genuine. There is not a hint of sarcasm or cynicism here.
And that is deeply challenging. When wounded or disappointed by others, when you see your hard work nullified, how easy it is to think or speak with clever sarcasm or stinging cynicism, but Paul does neither. In God's presence he lifts his heart and voice in praise, simply and sincerely. Because they have been genuinely saved to the great glory of Jesus and all their present struggles, all their sinful meanderings, will not - can not - erase what God has done. The reality is there, despite the smears. Jesus is yet at work "to present [them] to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless." (Eph. 5:27)
That is always a cause for thankfulness and confidence.
