• Bible Studies, Chuck Smith

    Posted on January 28th, 2011

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    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 16

    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 16

    It is interesting how that in chapter fifteen, Paul talks about the resurrection. He is in sort of the height of glory, the work of Jesus Christ, His resurrection. Of what Jesus did for us through His death and resurrection, removing the sting of death! And ending with that glorious praise to God for the victory that we have in Jesus Christ!

    It is said concerning some people that they are so heavenly minded, they are no earthly good. That cannot be said of Paul. He takes you from this glorious height of Spiritual worship and adoration and in chapter sixteen, he sort of just comes, “bump”, now to practical matters. He starts dealing in the sixteenth chapter with very practical things.

    As a Christian, yes, we are lifted in worship into the heavenly. But the Christian life must be worked out in practical things, day to day living. Thus, Paul is able to turn now to very practical things in chapter sixteen. The first thing is the collection for the poor saints in Jerusalem.

    Now concerning (he said) the collection for the saints, as I have given orders to the churches of Galatia, so you must do also: 2On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come. So the church in Jerusalem has gone through some extremely difficult financial times. The people there in the church in Jerusalem are suffering. They financially, are hurting desperately. So, Paul now, is writing to the church of Corinth, asking them to lay up an offering for the church in Jerusalem. Do it in advance before I get there. I don’t want any offering or collections being taken while I’m there. But lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that when I come I can take your liberality to the church in Jerusalem.

  • Bible Studies, Chuck Smith

    Posted on January 27th, 2011

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    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 15

    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 15

    1 Corinthians, chapter fifteen, Paul declares, Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, I preached it! You received it! And you are standing in it! The gospel means good news. I preached to you the good news. You received the good news and you are standing in that good news.

    The gospel 2by which (Paul said) also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you–unless you believed in vain. Now there in the church in Corinth, there had developed some spurious practices, but there had also developed some spurious beliefs. So Paul is encouraging them to continue in the basic gospel, which he had preached.

    Here in chapter fifteen he is going to deal with some of the spurious beliefs that had crept in, those that were denying the resurrection. So this is why Paul is encouraging them to continue to hold in memory, the basic simple gospel that he preached. It’s sad and tragic that people try to make things so complicated. It’s sad that people get so enthralled or immeshed in semantics and fine, little points, that they become so critical of everything that they soon, the only fruit that they bear in their life is the fruit of criticism of finding fault. When a person gets to that place where all they can do is to find fault, they really have no value in the body of Christ.

  • Bible Studies, Chuck Smith

    Posted on January 26th, 2011

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    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 14

    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 14

    Let’s turn in our Bibles to 1 Corinthians, chapter fourteen, as Paul concludes this three chapter series on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In chapter fourteen, verse one, he sort of combines both the thirteenth and the twelfth chapter. The thirteenth chapter of course, is devoted to love.

    And he declares, Pursue (or follow after) love, and desire spiritual gifts, (Now in chapter twelve, he closed it by saying, earnestly desire the best gifts. Here he is saying desire spiritual gifts.)

    but especially that you may prophesy. Now he is going to compare the gift of tongues with the gift of prophesy. And as he compares the two gifts for the use within the church, the gift of prophesy is definitely a superior gift. So Paul said, desire spiritual but especially that you may prophesy.

    2For he who speaks in a tongue (the glossa) does not speak to men but to God, for no one understands him; however, in the spirit he speaks mysteries. The gift of tongues is the gift whereby God enables us to communicate to Him in the Spirit, bypassing the narrow channel of our intellect. So often, we find that words are inadequate to express our feelings that rise from the Spirit as we are grateful to God for His goodness, for His blessings, those things that He has done for us. So the Spirit helps our infirmities and the infirmity of human language and the infirmity or the weakness of our intellect. We can commune to God in the Spirit. Now God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship in Spirit and in truth.

    Writing to the Roman church (Romans 8:26), Paul said, for the Spirit also helps our infirmities or our weaknesses for we always don’t know how to pray as we ought. But the Spirit will make intercession through us with groanings, which cannot be uttered because it knows what is the mind of the Father. So it’s a great gift for a person’s own devotional life in worshipping God, in praying and in His communication with God. So he that speaks in an unknown tongue really isn’t speaking unto men, but unto God, for no man understands him, howbeit in the Spirit, he is speaking divine mysteries or beautiful secrets, in a sense.

  • Bible Studies, Chuck Smith

    Posted on January 25th, 2011

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    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 13

    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 13

    Beginning with chapter twelve and through chapter fourteen, Paul the apostle, is going to be talking to the Corinthian church about spiritual. Corinth was a city that was given over to carnality. So people who were living in the midst of the carnality of Corinth, Paul is going to talk to them about spiritual things, about the Holy Spirit, about the manifestations of the Spirit, about the gifts of the Sprit. And so in chapter twelve, Paul lists many of the manifestations and many of the gifts of the Spirit in the believer’s life.

    As he talks about the various ministries of the Spirit within the church, he asks the rhetorical question, “Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Do all have gifts of healings? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?” And obviously the rhetorical question brings the answer, no. He has just talked about the body having many different members. Each part of the body functions in its place in the body. Thus every part is necessary but not all of us have the same part. There are diversities of gifts. There are diversities of administrations. There are diversities of operations, but there is the one body and the one Lord and the one Spirit and the one God.

    So he closes off the twelfth chapter with the declaration, “But earnestly desire the best gifts.” Last Sunday night we discussed that issue of what constituted the best gift and we discovered it all depends on what the need might be. But he said, “And yet I show you a more excellent way.”

  • Bible Studies, Chuck Smith

    Posted on January 24th, 2011

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    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 12

    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 12

    Let’s turn in our Bibles now to 1 Corinthians chapter twelve. It is interesting that the church in Corinth, Paul declared, did not come behind in any spiritual gift. And yet in the church in Corinth, there were many problems. Some of them involved the use of the gifts of the Spirit. So in chapters twelve, thirteen and fourteen, Paul is going to write to them about the gifts of the Spirit and their proper use in the church, warning them against the abuses that existed there in the church in Corinth. So here we have the Biblical teaching on the gifts of the Spirit and their proper use.

    So he opens the chapter by saying, Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant: You notice the word “gifts” is in italics, it was added there by the translators. It comes further down in the text, but in the original writings, it did not exist there in the first verse. But, they put the word, “gifts” to give you an understanding of the issue that Paul is going to be talking about. Talking about Spiritual gifts. I do not want you to be ignorant. There was a lot of ignorance in the church of Corinth, even as there is a lot of ignorance in the church today, concerning the proper use of the gifts of the Spirit. So as we look at Paul’s instruction, we will come to a proper understanding of how the gifts are intended by God to be used in the life of the believer and in the church.

    Paul said first of all, 2You know that you were Gentiles (pagans), carried away to these dumb idols, however you were led. At one time you were living in the flesh. You were without God and without Christ. You were without the Holy Spirit. The Spirit was dead. You were pagan. You were worshipping idols. And that was at one time. Now you have come into a new life. A life of the Spirit and this life of the Spirit is a total new life.

  • Bible Studies, Chuck Smith

    Posted on January 23rd, 2011

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    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 11

    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 11

    In those days in the Grecian and Roman culture, the woman was often treated as one level above a slave. She was considered often the property of her husband. They were definitely treated as second class citizens. As a result of the treatment of women, there developed a woman’s liberation, in those days, in Rome, several women’s lib movements. What we see today is really nothing new. It grew out of the abuse that women were receiving. So it crept into the church.

    And Paul now is talking about divined, ordained, order, and dealing with it from a Godly environment or atmosphere. But God has established an order, a divine order. Even as Christ is the head over the man, so God has established that the man is the head over the woman and God the head over Christ.

    It’s unfortunate that there is an endeavor to change to order. The issue and subject is not equality or ability. The issue is divine order. It is true that women are qualified for many things. In many cases, a woman working on a job is smarter than her boss. In many offices, the women sort of handle the business, while the boss plays golf. I mean he would be lost without her. It’s not a matter of ability that we are talking about here. We’re just talking about the way God created things, the divine order. And in the divine order, the man is to be subject unto Jesus Christ. The woman is to be subject unto the man. And Jesus Christ is subject to the Father.

  • Bible Studies, Chuck Smith

    Posted on January 22nd, 2011

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    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 10

    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 10

    Let’s turn in our Bibles now to 1 Corinthians Ten as we continue our through the Bible study. Paul said, Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware (It’s interesting that most of the time when Paul says that, it is because we are ignorant. When he starts to talk about the Spiritual gifts, when we get to chapter twelve, again he said I don’t want you to be unaware or ignorant. Yet it is one of those areas where there is so much ignorance as far as the gifts of the Holy Spirit, how they are to operate and all.)

    So now he doesn’t want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, 2all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, He is talking about the children of Israel coming out of the bondage of Egypt. You remember that God provided for them as they were journeying through the wilderness, a cloud by day. The cloud guided them. The cloud was to be to them a shelter from the sun. Throughout their wilderness journey there was this cloud. That was the way that God directed their ways. It’s interesting that the cloud led them to the Red Sea where they were really trapped by the Egyptians. Yet God opened up the Red Sea.

    Paul likens that unto baptism. The baptism of the end of the relationship of the old life, the life in Egypt, that was a life that was mastered by the flesh. Egypt is a type of living the life of the flesh in sin. Bondage to our flesh. All of our lifetime is subject unto bondage, Paul said. That is the bondage of the life of the flesh, the hold that a flesh has over a man, the power of the flesh. Whereas Paul, speaking about the power of the flesh said, that which I would, I do not, but that which I would not, that I do, oh wretched man that I am. And we all know what power the flesh can have over our lives. Egypt is a type of slavery to the flesh.

  • Bible Studies, Chuck Smith

    Posted on January 21st, 2011

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    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 9

    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 9

    Shall we turn in our Bibles now to 1 Corinthians chapter nine. Paul asked a series of rhetorical type questions, which he is really not expecting an answer. But the answer is so obvious, it needs not to be answered. Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? Now to be an apostle in those days, you were required seeing the risen Christ. Paul in another place as he talked about his apostleship, said have I not seen the risen Lord? They also had to have works that manifested the fact that they were apostles, most generally, the working of miracles through their lives, through their prayers. So Paul declares that his works among the Corinthians was a witness to his apostleship.

    He said, 2If I am not an apostle to others, yet doubtless I am to you. For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. You are my witnesses of the apostleship. You are my living epistles that are known and read of all men. Your faith in Christ, the work that God did there in Corinth, though others may not look upon me as an apostle, the work that I did while I was there with you is certainly a testimony to my apostleship.

    Now, he said my answer to them, 3My defense to those who examine me is this: Evidently in the letter that Paul received from Corinth, there was a challenge by some of his apostleship.

    It’s an interesting thing, there is this kind of a doctrine or tradition of the apostolic succession of the laying on of hands. The Catholic Church and the Episcopal Church make a big issue over this. When a man is ordained to the ministry, the bishops or the elders lay their hands on that man to ordain him for the ministry. But the man, the bishop, who lays his hand upon you, had hands laid on him by his bishop, who had hands laid on him by his bishop, who had hands laid on him by his bishop, back, back, back, back, back, who had hands laid on him by Peter, the apostle. So there is this apostolic succession of the laying on of hands as the bishop lays hands on you sort of like dominoes, back to Peter. So you see the apostolic succession, you see all these hands coming from Peter to you. Thus the anointing comes from Peter. So it’s an important thing. So they often will question, well who gave you the authority to minister? Who gave you the authority to baptize people?

  • Bible Studies, Chuck Smith

    Posted on January 20th, 2011

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    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 8

    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 8

    Shall we turn in our Bibles to 1 Corinthians, chapter eight, as we continue our journey through the Bible. Paul had established the church in Corinth, but after Paul left, a lot of problems arose. There developed divisions within the body of Christ. It is always a sad thing when the body of Christ becomes divided. Paul, speaking about the things of the ministry, the pressures that he had, the various experiences and difficulties, he said, and beside all these, the care of all of the churches that I have daily. So when he heard of the divisions and all, in the church in Corinth, it was just a burden on Paul’s heart.

    There were several issues. There were the issues of the abuse of the gift of the Spirit, which we will be getting to in chapters twelve and fourteen. There was the mixed up teaching concerning the resurrection and the division over the belief in the resurrection. He deals with that in chapter fifteen. There were marks of carnality. These divisions were a part of the marks of carnality. There was an abuse of the Lord’s Supper and he deals with that.

    Now there were divisions as far as Christian liberty is concerned and this is one of the things that he deals with in chapter eight. The divisions that had come because some people had felt a liberty to do anything, where others felt that certain things were wrong to do. Now the Lord hasn’t in the Bible, spelled out every activity. In other words you don’t find anything in the Bible that says you shouldn’t go to movies. Why? It was because they didn’t have movies in those days.

  • Bible Studies, Chuck Smith

    Posted on January 19th, 2011

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    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 7

    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 7

    First of all, Paul is responding to a letter that he received with questions concerning different issues with regard to marriage. Corinth was a very sensual city. It was a city that was given over to debauchery. If a person lived a very wild, proliferate life, the saying was, he lived like a Corinthian, because it was a seaport town and thus filled with all kinds of immorality and vice. There was there at Corinth on the acropolis above the city a great temple that was built to Aphrodite. There were over a thousand priestesses. They were called holy or sacred slaves, devoted to Aphrodite. They would come down into the city of Corinth at night. They were prostitutes. Thus, there was that constant invitation and availability for sexual immorality, impurity. It was rampant in the city of Corinth.

    Also about this time there were the beginnings of the persecution of the church by Rome. Things were uncertain for the future of the church because of this persecution. People were beginning to be put to death because of their faith in Jesus Christ.

    So with that as a background, Paul seeks to answer their questions concerning marriage and whether it is proper to be married or better to be unmarried. This is the kind of a background that you have for chapter seven as Paul writes to them on the subject that they were questioning in their letter to him. Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Celibacy.

  • Rob Robinson

    Posted on January 18th, 2011

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    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 6

    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 6

    Open your Bibles now to the sixth chapter of 1 Corinthians, where Paul asks, first of all, the question, Dare any of you, having a matter against another, (This “another” is a brother in the body of Christ. As Paul will declare in verse six, “But brother goes to law against brother”, so if you have a matter against your brother, (another), dare you go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? The Greek society was a very litigious society. Everybody it seemed was involved in court issues, many times during their lives. People were ready to sue over anything. And when sued, you were first of all provided an arbitrator, each side who would listen to the case and a third arbitrator would also be involved, and they would seek arbitration to come to an amicable settlement. If it could not be settled that way, then you would again go to court and this time before a jury. They had large juries of a hundred or so. I don’t know how they ever came to a solution or a conviction, you know. It’s interesting, of course, just recently the aspects of the legal system have surely been exposed. The jury system, it seems extremely strange how that one jury can declare a man innocent and another jury declares him guilty, with both of them with unanimous kinds of decisions. It only points up that the worldly system is faulty at best. So Paul is sort of rebuking them for taking the issues that they have with another brother to a Pagan court. He is saying that these issues between a brother and brother in the church, ought to be resolved in the church by those within the church and not in the heathen courts.

  • Bible Studies, Chuck Smith

    Posted on January 17th, 2011

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    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 5

    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 5

    Paul begins this fifth chapter with the declaration, It is actually reported (That is, it is common knowledge. It’s not something that is secret and covered, but everybody knows. It’s common knowledge.) that there is sexual immorality among you, There is immorality. Pornea. We get the word, pornography, from that. There is sexual immorality among you.

    and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles–that a man has his father’s wife! Now in Roman law, it was unlawful to have a sexual relationship with your mother. That was Roman law. Now, your father’s wife may not of necessity, mean mother. It could be a stepmother, but still wrong. And even the Gentiles or the heathen do not approve of this. That is wrong within the society itself. Thus, it makes it doubly wrong that this is going on in the church, and being allowed and tolerated within the church.

    2And you are puffed up, (He said you are sort of proud of it. You are puffed up. You have an arrogancy.) and have not rather mourned, (Rather than having mourned, this should bring you to tears. This should break your heart that such a thing is going on. But you seem, you know, not only tolerant, but you are sort of proud of your tolerance. Sort of, you know, we can accept anything, any kind of condition. The toleration against this evil.)

  • Bible Studies, Chuck Smith

    Posted on January 16th, 2011

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    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 4

    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 4

    Paul said, Let a man so consider us, (Now he has been talking about himself and Apollos.) as servants of Christ (The word servants here is an interesting word. In the Greek it literally means, under rowers. Now in those old ships that used to sail the Mediterranean, they had slaves that were down in the galleys. They were the under rowers. When there was no wind or whatever these were the guys that had to row. They were the lowest of the slaves. Paul here says to account me as the lowest slave of Christ.) and stewards of the mysteries of God. (Now the steward was the servant that had charge over the household. He was the one that paid the bills. He was the one that ordered the food. He was the one that saw that the other servants did their jobs. Paul said that he was a steward of the word of God. That was his duty, dispensing God’s Word, the mysteries of God to the people, the truths of God that are now being revealed by the Holy Spirit. This was entrusted to Paul, so his duty as an under rower of Jesus Christ was to be a steward, a dispenser of the mysteries of God.)

    2Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful. That was the primary requirement of a steward, to be faithful to the master, faithful in overseeing the master’s goods. We have several parables in the gospels of Jesus concerning stewardship, those that were good stewards of the things that were entrusted to them. There are also parables about those who were not faithful stewards. They were punished because they were not faithful to the charge and the responsibility as a steward. To us as stewards of God, being entrusted by God, with the things of God. It’s important that we be faithful. Faithful in carrying out our duties as a steward.

  • Bible Studies, Chuck Smith

    Posted on January 15th, 2011

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    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 3

    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 3

    Turn now in our Bibles, to 1 Corinthians chapter three, as we continue this study through the Word. Now at the end of chapter two, Paul was talking about the natural man, that is the unregenerate man, the man of the world, a man who is not born again, a man who has the nature of Adam, the sinful nature and is governed by that sinful nature. And he tells concerning the natural man, that he doesn’t receive the things of the Spirit of God. They are actually foolishness unto him. He can’t know them. He doesn’t have any Spiritual comprehension. However, the Spiritual man, now the Spiritual man is the man who has been born again of the Spirit. His spirit has come alive. Paul said and you has He made alive who were dead in your trespasses and sins. God, in His grace has brought you into this Spiritual life. You have been born again by the Spirit of God into a Spiritual life. Contrasted with the natural man that doesn’t understand the things of the Spirit, they are foolishness unto him. The Spiritual man understands all things although he himself, is not understood by the natural man. So having introduced the natural man contrasted with the man who has been born again, the spiritual man, he now talks about the carnal man.

    And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people (That is unto the spiritual man, a man who is governed by the Spirit, walking after the Spirit. I couldn’t talk unto you as unto a spiritual man.) but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. The difficulty that Paul had. He wanted to write to them about spiritual things, but they weren’t able to receive it. He had to write to them the simple, baby, kind of things. As we go through the epistle of 1 Corinthians, we find that basically, it is a corrective epistle. Paul is correcting all of the faults that existed there in the church in Corinth. So one after another, he is dealing with the problems that were there in the church, because they were still babes. They should have grown. They should have developed. There should have been spiritual maturity by now. He’s writing four years after he had ministered to them. And yet they were still in a spiritual state of infancy. So Paul said, I couldn’t write to you as unto the spiritual man, but as unto carnal even as unto babes in Christ. The carnal Christian, the man who has received Jesus Christ, who has believed in the Lord for salvation, but he is still controlled by his flesh.

  • Bible Studies, Chuck Smith

    Posted on January 14th, 2011

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    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 2

    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 2

    Open your Bibles to the second chapter of First Corinthians, as Paul begins the subject that he started in chapter one, the subject of the cross of Jesus Christ. To the Greeks, foolishness, to the Jews a stumbling block, but unto us, it’s the power of God’s salvation, to the world, foolishness.

    I was reading of Dr. Ironside, who was speaking at an outdoor meeting. There was a man in the crowd, well dressed, distinguished looking, who came up to Dr. Ironside, as soon as had finished talking, and he handed him his card. Dr. Ironside recognized the name on the card. It was a man who was well known for his agnosticism. In fact, he was going around and lecturing on his agnosticism and ridiculing the Bible. On the back of the card, there was a challenge for Dr. Ironside to come the following Saturday night and debate him in an open forum. He announced the place where he would meet him and debate him on agnosticism versus faith in God. So Dr. Ironside stepped again to the podium, there were several hundred people there. He read to them the card and the challenge to come and debate the man concerning agnosticism and faith in God. He said I would like to accept the challenge to come and debate, on this condition: that this man will bring with him one person, one man whose life has been destroyed by alcohol and by wild living, who had really come to the end of the road of his life, but went to hear one of the lectures by this man on agnosticism and as the result of the lecture, found that his life was changed and now he is living a worthwhile life. If he will bring one woman whose life was destroyed by prostitution and by drugs and all, who went to one of his lectures, heard him talk about his agnosticism and it transformed her life and now she is living a very wonderful, clean life. And I promise to bring a hundred men whose lives have been transformed by the message that I preach. I will bring a hundred women whose lives have been transformed. And the fellow standing there just sort of shrugged his hand and walked away, knowing that he couldn’t produce one who had been helped by the agnosticism, the wisdom of the world! It doesn’t change lives. It doesn’t lift the fallen.

  • Bible Studies, Chuck Smith

    Posted on January 13th, 2011

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    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 1

    Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 1

    Let’s pray. Thank You, Father, for this privilege and opportunity of being with Your people. What a blessing, Lord, the family of God, as we gather together in the unity of the love of Jesus Christ. To spend time, Lord, worshipping You, learning more about Your plan and Your purpose for our lives, so Lord, while we wait upon You tonight, we ask that You would move by Your Spirit in each of our hearts. Open up our hearts to receive, Lord, from You tonight, those things that You would have us to know and to understand and guide us in those things that You would have us to do. Lord, it is our desire that our lives would be pleasing unto You in all things. So we commit now ourselves, this service, this time. May You use it, Lord, to enrich us in our walk in Jesus Christ. In His name we pray. Amen.

    Now to 1 Corinthians, chapter one, as we continue our “through the Bible” study. In the eighteenth chapter of Acts, we find the story of the founding of the church in Corinth by Paul. We are told there in chapter eighteen, that one of the chief men of the synagogue, Crispus, believed and his family. We are also told concerning another ruler of the synagogue in Corinth, whose name was Sosthenes, that he brought a complaint before the court against Paul and how that Galileo, the Roman judge, dismissed the complaint. He said if it were a matter of Roman law or whatever, I would listen to you. But it is just an argument over words and religious concepts and you know, this is no place for that, so Sosthenes, the ruler of the Synagogue who brought the charges, was beaten by the crowd. Galileo, the Roman judge, didn’t care anything about that. He was interested in Roman justice. So the origin of the church. Now Paul remained there in Corinth for a period of time, establishing the church, because the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision and said I have many people in this city.