Paul’s journeys to cities and towns around the Mediterranean Sea are well documented and you can find maps and notes in any good Study Bible. Even Google know about Paul’s missionary trips. Most of the details from his trips come from the Book as Acts and Paul’s letters.
This bible study and sermon series looks at the five sections that we find in 1st Corinthians. Paul writing in response to a letter that he received from Corinth – (7:1 Now concerning the matters about which you wrote). Paul’s letters to the church in Corinth are corrective and instructional to the church that he had establish on his missionary trips. They are like letters from a Bishop – ‘do this, stop that, this is correct, that isn’t’ … and also some notes of encouragement; ‘well done, good job, keep it up.’
We only have Paul’s letter and not the original letter he was responding to, but by reading a little deeper you can work out what Paul was responding to. It is like first speed limit for cars, which was 10 mph (16 km/h) introduced in the United Kingdom in 1861. Why did they post a speed limit? Easy – somebody was driving too fast. This first letter to the Corinthians was written to correct behaviours and some wrong thinking about faith and actions.
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There are 5 main sections of things Paul is correcting:
- There are divisions within the congregations in Corinth.
- Next is the problem about sex. People doing whatever they felt like and thinking it was all was fine because they were free in Christ and God’s grace is bottomless, so they thought it didn’t matter what they did.
- Then there is food. What are we allowed to eat and does it matter if you were born Jewish or not?
- There were issues at their weekly worship gatherings – we might call that worship wars today.
- The last issue was that some people were saying the resurrection was ridiculous and it wasn’t important. As you can imagine, Paul reacts to this BIG time.
This five week sermon series tackles each one of these sections in turn. While I have picked a relevant set of verses to read at our worship, I will be using the whole 1st Corinthians text for the bible studies.
So join us live on Wednesdays for Bible Study, and then again for Sunday worship posted Saturday evening.
Schedule
1 Corinthians – Problems: Session 1 Divisions | Chapters 1-4
22 April – Bible Study 2:00 to 3:00pm (Eastern)
26 April – Third Sunday of Easter | On-Line podcast | Sermon Series
1 Corinthians – Problems: Session 2 Sex | Chapters 5-7
29 April – Bible Study 2:00 to 3:00pm (Eastern)
3 May – Fourth Sunday of Easter | On-Line podcast | Sermon Series 1st Corinthians
1 Corinthians – Problems: Session 3 Food | Chapters 8-10
6 May – Bible Study 2:00 to 3:00pm (Eastern)
10 May – Fifth Sunday of Easter | On-Line podcast | Sermon Series 1st Corinthians
1 Corinthians – Problems: Session 4 Gathering | Chapters 11-14
13 May – Bible Study 2:00 to 3:00pm (Eastern)
17 May – Sixth Sunday of Easter | On-Line podcast | Sermon Series 1st Corinthians
1 Corinthians – Problems: Session 5 Resurrection | Chapter 15
20 May – Bible Study 2:00 to 3:00pm (Eastern)
24 May – Seventh Sunday of Easter | On-Line podcast | Sermon Series 1st Corinthians