Category: First Corinthians

Knowing God

Knowing God It takes one to know one. I can identify another regenerate person because I know what God’s Holy Spirit has done to me. I know how He has changed me, so I can recognize similar changes in other…

House Cleaning

Paul said that many of the Corinthians had wrongly discerned the Lord’s body and that their faulty discernment caused many among them to be weak and ill, and many to die (some translations use “sleep”). To die or to sleep?…

Are You Worthy?

“Do this in remembrance of me,” said Jesus. The purpose of the Lord’s Supper is to re-member, to reconnect with the body of Christ. This remembering is not simply a matter of memory, but a matter of membership. It is…

Think Again

Until very recently in history families were considered to be a single economic unit. This is still part of the U.S. Tax Code. The word “economic” comes from the Greek word “oikos,” which means household. It did not mean that…

Accommodation

This psychological process of accommodation is the basis of the long strategy to make sin acceptable. The first time a Christian encounters sexual sin he is repulsed. It is dismissed without consideration because of the biblical prejudice against it. Make…

Freedom From Stupidity

Paul has been talking about our freedom in Christ, that in Christ people are free from superstition and godless cultural practices. He began this section in chapter eight talking about various food prohibitions and practices as an example of Christian…

God is Three In One

Just as God is identified as Trinitarian, so are His people, and so is His world. We have been created in God’s image, and God is Trinitarian. Christians are to understand the world through God’s eyes, and God’s eyes are…

Speaking of Tongues

I am arguing that the correct understanding of the miracle of tongues, broadly speaking, is the transmission of the gospel into one’s native language. That transmission can come in a variety of ways, through both extraordinary (Acts 2) and ordinary…

Pride

1 Corinthians 1:17-31 Paul wasn’t interested in baptism or fancy talk. He was not out to impress anyone with his knowledge or his communication skills. He didn’t give a hoot what the world thought of him or of his preaching.…

Purity & Peace

1 Corinthians 1:1-17 Paul called attention to the fact that he was “called by the will of God” (1:1). He was called to be an apostle, to fulfill a specific role in the Early Church. We need to take care…