 |
Corinth was a church in bad shape: with pride and factionalism, sex and immorality, full of know-it-alls and unwitting idolaters, with a shell of Christian spirituality masking worldly ways of thinking. The Apostle Paul was the spiritual father of the Corinthian church. He had heard the bad reports, and even received a letter from their own arrogant hands. So Paul wrote his own letter back, no holds barred, to rebuke their immorality, ridicule their factions, and re-establish the cross of Christ as the starting point and anchor of Christian wisdom and practise. |
In this long-running series, we work through 1 Corinthians to see how Paul re-establishes his basic teaching of Christ crucified, and then applies this genuine source of Christian wisdom to the various issues he had heard reported about them, and the questions they themselves have asked him. The topics range from knowledge to marriage, freedom to spiritual gifts, and gender roles to the Lord’s supper. 1 Corinthians is one of the broadest and most applied of Paul’s epistles, as he seeks to rebuild a church from scratch – from the cross upwards.
Week |
Passage |
Blurb |
Resources |
| 1 | 1 Cor 1:1-9 | Barry starts his series on 1 Corinthians with a look at the great depth of doctrine regarding the Church that Paul packs into the first three verses of the letter. |  |
| 2 | 1 Cor 1:4-9 | Barry talks about how the gifts of the spirit have been given to sustain the Church and make it thrive as we eagerly await Christ’s return. | |
| 3 | 1 Cor 1:9-17 | Drew picks up the series on 1 Corinthians with a look at how disputes should be dealt with in the Church in the light of the fellowship we share with one another. He highlights some areas where this could be applied to our situation. | |
| 4 | 1 Cor 1:18-25 | Phil Britton studies Paul’s assertion to the Corinthians that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing and teases apart the idea that it is the antithesis to the wisdom of this world. | |
| 5 | 1 Cor 1:26-31 | Barry continues through 1 Corinthians looking at the way that the divisions in the Church that Paul addresses are caused by pride. | |
| 6 | 1 Cor 2:1-5 | Prash warns against judging ministry based on human terms or relying on human strength, instead he repeats the call to place our faith in the power of Christ crucified. | |
| 7 | 1 Cor 2:6-16 | Jon speaks about the wisdom that comes from the Spirit, discusses how it comes with spiritual maturity and contrasts it with the wisdom from the world that might impinge on the Church. | |
| 8 | 1 Cor 3:1-9 | Jon speaks about spiritual maturity in terms of food: young Christians need milk for their spiritual teaching, while mature Christians need to move on to meat, otherwise they’ll face developmental issues. | |
| 9 | 1 Cor 14:26-40 | Barry speaks topically about what he terms “Body Life,” following on from last week’s exhortation to love, he looks at the dynamic fellowship experienced by the early Church animated by the Holy Spirit. He hilights the challenge of maintaining a balance between sound biblical theology and openness to the Spirit of God. | |
| 10 | 1 Cor 3:10-15 | Returning to the 1 Corinthians series, Barry expounds that we should give careful consideration to our contribution to building God’s people because the work that Christians do in ministry will be judged. | |
| 11 | 1 Cor 3:16-23 | Jon speaks about the futility of applying the wisdom of this world, explaining how it will face judgement by God, that it won’t deliver the things we seek and that we already have more from God than we could gain ourselves. | |
| 12 | 1 Cor 4:1-7 | Phil Britton explains Paul’s caution against judging based on human connections. God is the perfect judge and will expose the motives of the heart; humility has to triumph over pride because we are nothing without Christ. | |
| 13 | 1 Cor 4:8-13 | Jon discusses Paul’s comparison between the worldy wisdom that the Corinthians follow and the Apostles’ opposite direction. The Corinthians believe they have every reward, however, the Apostles have become the refuse of the world for the sake of the Gospel. | |
| 14 | 1 Cor 4:14-21 | Jon explains how the imitation of more mature Christians can be helpful; observing them can warn when we are heading off track and imitating them can help us to put Godly wisdom into practise in our lives. | |
| 15 | 1 Cor 5:1-8 | Prash studies the occurrence of sexual immorality in the Corinthian church, and explains how becuase holiness is central to fellowship that the right reaction to sin is powerful and solemn. | |
| 16 | 1 Cor 5:9-13 | Barry explains how Christians are only to judge those within the Church and not the unbeliever, and discusses what this means in a practical sense. | |
| 17 | 1 Cor 7 | Barry expounds Paul’s response to the Corinthians about singleness, marriage and sex. He discusses a variety of issues pertaining to being Godly in our relationships with the opposite sex whether single, dating or married and in our attitude towards our relationship status. | |
| 18 | 1 Cor 6:1-8 | Drew speaks on Paul’s dissertation about lawsuits amongst believers, underlining the importance of reconciliation because we are people who are a product of reconciliation, and that we are therefore involved in the process of reconciliation and thus proclaim the God who offers reconciliation. | |
| 19 | 1 Cor 6:12-20 | Phil returns to the “pulpit” to explain Paul’s statement that Christians do not engage in sexual immorality. He demonstrates that Christianity is not purely intellectual, but that the reality of our restoration involves our actions and corporeal beings.
(Apologies for the small drop-out in the middle of this file) |
|
| 20 | 1 Cor 8 | Jon continues the series on 1 Corinthians, explaining why knowledge puffs up but love builds up. Christian freedom should not be flaunted before other Christians with less trained consciences if it causes them to stumble. | |
| 21 | 1 Cor 9:1-18 | In a similar vein to last week’s talk about freedom, Jon discusses Paul’s exposition about how he is not paid for his Gospel work though it is his right. Rights are given by God, but we are free to relinquish them for the sake of sharing the Gospel. | |
| 22 | 1 Cor 9:19-27 | Jon studies Paul’s pragmatic approach of being a slave to all people so that he can make the Gospel accessible to them as well as enslaving himself so that on the final day he may share the prize of being reunited with his brothers and sisters in Christ. | |
| 23 | 1 Cor 10:1-11 | Barry amplifies Paul’s warning to the Corinthians to avoid idolatry and sexual immorality. He warns us to be on our guard as they are strongly seductive and that we not put God to the test by seeing how close we can get to temptation. | |
| 24 | 1 Cor 10:14-22 | Barry continues to speak on Paul’s warning to the Corinthians to flee from idolatry because it is attractive and dangerous. When we participate in the Lord’s Supper, we put our faith in Jesus and our sins are cleansed by his blood, but when involved with idols, demonic influence can be encountered. | |
| 25 | 1 Cor 10:23-11:1 | Returning to the series on 1 Corinthians, Jon explains that Christian freedoms shouldn’t be put ahead of love, sharing the Gospel or glorifying God. | |
| 26 | 1 Cor 11:1-16 | This week, Jon tackles a controversial passage in 1 Corinthians about Propriety in Worship and head coverings. Clothing and the attitudes people dress themselves with can send strong messages, for the Christian, these messages need to glorify their “head.” | |
| 27 | 1 Cor 11:17-34 | Jon speaks about Paul’s rebuke of the way that the Corinthian Church approached the Lord’s Supper with the wrong attitudes. He considers what we declare in the manner we take Communion and cautions against forgetting that we eat and drink in thankful remembrance of the sacrifice of Christ, proclaiming our faith in his death as we do. | |
| 28 | 1 Cor 16:1-4 | Barry explains the biblical basis for regularly giving money proportionally to income in support of Christian people and ministries. | |
| 29 | 1 Cor 12 | Barry expounds Paul’s discussion of Spiritual Gifts, explaining that all gifts are valuable and contribute to the body of God’s people. | |
| 30 | 1 Cor 13 | Drew confronts us with the truth Paul puts to the Corinthians: that no matter how successful they appear, unless our ministries are built on love they are nothing and they achieve nothing. | |
| 31 | 1 Cor 14 | Barry amplifies Paul’s argument that the gift of prophecy is superior to the gift of tongues because it increases people’s understanding of spiritual things, whereas tongues is unintelligible and should not be used in public meetings. Tongues bring advantage to the speaker’s spiritual growth while everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort. | |
| 32 | 1 Cor 15:1-11 | Barry studies Paul’s exhortation to the Church at Corinth to hold firmly to the Gospel. For our souls to be saved, we must receive and shape our lives on the truth that Christ died for our sins and was raised again. | |
| 33 | 1 Cor 15:12-34 | Prash tells that we must believe in the resurrection of Christ because the ministry of the Apostles testifies to it and relies upon it; if we cannot accept the physical resurrection of Christ from the dead then we have no assurance of his power over sin or death. If we can comprehend the resurrection, then we understand our place in time and the significance of everything in our lives in comparison to Christ. | |
| 34 | 1 Cor 15:35-58 | This week, Jon studies how Paul deals with the question of how the resurrection will happen to Christians. He then goes on to look topically at common questions that people have about what the bodies we will have after death will be like and how that affects the way we should live now. | |
| 35 | 1 Cor 16:5-18 | Jon explains how the local church has a role as a service station to Gospel workers. Missionaries need support in various practical and emotional areas and churches need to provide somewhere for them to fill up and stop-revive-survive so that they can carry out their work effectively. | |
| 36 | 1 Cor 16:19-24 | In the final instalment in the series on Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, Jon points out that we can learn about the fellowship of the early Church from the greetings at the end of the letter: they value personal, meaningful communication and lovingly tell the truth. The letter ends with a greeting of grace, reminding that it is only by God’s strength that anything can be accomplished. | |
0 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.
You must be logged in to post a comment.