Recalibrating Love
Faith in the Mundane
As Paul finishes his letter to the Corinthians with what seems like a whole host of randomly connected, mundane thoughts and greetings. It would be easy to skip over as merely housekeeping, but there is a sense in which the mundane greetings and thoughts make the message of 1 Corinthians more accessible to us, people who live most of our lives in the mundane.
Resurrection Hope
There has been plenty of debate about the validity of the Christian faith or the benefit of the church to society, but when it all boils down to it, the validity of Christianity hangs and falls on one event… the resurrection of Jesus. Pastor Ben unpacks the difference this primal truth makes to our lives.
A Plea for Order
The Corinthians thought that gifts like tongues were the pinnacle of spirituality and that randomness and chaotic ecstatic behaviour were markers of the Spirit’s presence. But following on from last week, Paul wants to teach them that this chaos is not loving or spiritual.
A Plea for Love
As Paul continues to unpack the Corinthian worship gatherings, he cannot help but call them to a more excellent way than the self-promotion and power-hungry way in which they were acting… the way of love.
Spiritual Gifts
The Corinthians have been dragging elements and attitudes of the their broken culture into the church in order to create division. This week we see how they were elevating some gifts of the Spirit over others in order to gain ascendancy and esteem. Pastor Joe unpacks how the church is called to participate together in the power of the Spirit.
The Lord’s Supper
Paul continues to address the way in which the Corinthian church gathered together. In this section of the letter he uncovers a worrying attitude with the way they shared the Lord’s Supper. It seems the Lord’s supper had become nothing more than another cause of division. Pastor Ben unpacks Paul’s challenge for us.
Women, Men & Worship
Many modern thinkers see passages like 1 Corinthians 11 as evidence of the archaic misogyny of the Bible and Christianity. So many of us within the church probably wish these verses weren’t in our Bibles. But let’s be brave together and wrestle with this passage because it is actually nothing like the misogyny we fear… it is actually a far more captivating vision of gender than anything the world has to offer.
A plea to abandon idols
Right throughout this letter, Paul has been challenging the Corinthian propensity to chase after the ideals of their city rather than clinging to Christ alone. Well in chapter 10 Paul uncovers the worrying reality that their attraction to the city was more than surface level; it was idolatry. pastor Joe unpacks Paul’s warning against idols.
A Plea to Abandon our Rights
Pastor Joe picks up our 1 Corinthians series after the Easter break by examining Paul’s passionate defence of his ministry. In this defence, Paul shows himself, and the gospel, to be radically different from the way things are done in Corinth. This message will challenge the way we think about our engagement with our world today.
Resurrection Sunday
The joy of Easter is not merely that our God died for us on Good Friday, but that He rose from the dead on Sunday morning. Pastor Ben unpacks the glorious implications of Jesus’ resurrection for those who put their faith in Him.