Sunday School: Introduction to 1 Corinthians (1 Corinthians 1:1-3)

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on this podcast we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a

New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series. Here's Pastor Gabe. Open your

Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. We're going to start at the beginning of 1

Corinthians today. Do an introduction and an overview of our book.

And as requested, because I believe this is the translation that most of you have, I am reading from the

English Standard Version. So we're going to start today with the introduction. I'm going to read through the first, we'll say, nine verses here.

Paul's greeting to the church in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 1 verses 1 through 9.

This is the word of the Lord. I give thanks to my

God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in Him in all speech and in all knowledge.

Even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you, so that you are not lacking in any gift as you wait for the revealing of our

Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our

Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ, our

Lord. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, as we come into a new study this morning, as we begin a study of the book of 1

Corinthians, I pray that you would bless our time in this book as it's going to be through this semester and on into the next.

As we see and observe some of the problems, the conflicts, the divisions that had arisen in the church in Corinth, those things that Paul has to confront.

I pray that we would see in that an understanding of the unity that we should have in our own body.

As Pastor Tom preaches on that this morning as well from Ephesians 4 .1, and now we hear

Paul's urgency to the church in Corinth to be unified. So may we be convicted by your spirit to desire the same.

That there would not be any factions among us. We would not be divided, but desire unity in the spirit of the bond of peace.

And if there is any divisive way in us, may we come to recognize what that is so that we may root it out and be together in Christ.

We think about these things also as we come to the Lord's table today, that we be of one body in Christ Jesus, our

Lord, in whose name we pray, amen. So here at the very beginning of this particular letter,

Paul introduces himself. Of course, he is the one who is writing this letter. It says that he is with our brother

Sosthenes. That doesn't necessarily mean that Sosthenes was a co -writer here, but most likely the relationship is that Sosthenes is a scribe.

And so Paul is telling Sosthenes what to write and Sosthenes is writing it down. Who is

Paul writing to? He's writing to the church in Corinth, right. The name of the book is the recipient of the letter.

And this is actually not the first letter that Paul wrote to the Corinthians. Later on in chapter 5,

Paul makes reference to a previous letter that he had written to them. You know that when I wrote to you about these things, he says.

So this is not the first letter Paul wrote to the Corinthians, but it's the first one we have in canon.

So therefore we refer to it as 1 Corinthians. There's possibly another letter written between 1 and 2

Corinthians, which we also don't have record of. So God and his providence only preserve for us the two letters that we have here in the

Bible. And since these are the two that appear in succession in canon, that's why we refer to these two as 1 and 2

Corinthians. So Paul's saying to the church in verse 2, to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our

Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours, grace to you and peace from God our

Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. What words do you see repeated in just these few quick verses, just these three verses?

What did you see repeated in here? Called. That's right.

We saw called quite a few times, about three times at least. So Paul is called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus.

The church, those sanctified in Christ Jesus, are called to be saints together with all those who in every place do what?

Call upon the name of the Lord. So God has called Paul to be an apostle. He's called his church to be saints.

And then we together call upon the name of the Lord, both their

Lord and ours. You see kind of the church universal that is described here as well. So it's not just, not just the

Corinthians that Paul addresses. He says to those sanctified in Christ, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of the

Lord. That includes us. So even reaching across time, the

Holy Spirit by his wonderful word would have these words that Paul wrote to this church also be words to us that we may be convicted in heart and know the desire of God that we may live according to Christ even in our present age.

What else do we see repeated through here? There's something else that it's pretty obviously repeated, but it's so obvious, maybe you just don't think about it.

Jesus Christ. That's right. Jesus Christ's name. How often does that come up? Paul by the will of God called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus.

We see it again in verse two, Christ Jesus. And then at the end of verse two, Jesus Christ grace to you in peace from God, our father in the

Lord, Jesus Christ. Now, sometimes that said Jesus Christ, but the last two times is

Jesus Christ. The first two times it's Christ Jesus. What's the difference other than the words being flipped around?

Does anybody know the significance of that? So this is not Jesus first and last name, right?

Jesus, who is the Christ, meaning that he is the Messiah. So sometimes

Paul uses his title to refer to him as the Messiah, Jesus, and then other times referring to him first by his name and then recognizing that he is the

Messiah. There may be a particular reason for that, especially when you consider that one of the first things that Paul confronts this church with, which we get to later on in the chapter is that they're divided over which teachers they like.

Some are saying, well, I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Cephas. And then there are others that say,

I'm of Christ. And it's not that it's not that their expression of that is a genuine devotion to Christ, but rather it's, it's like a game of one -upmanship.

Oh, well, you are of Paul, you're a Peter. Well, I'm of Christ. So how do you like that? Okay. So because that's coming up and Paul's going to confront that, he, he will put the title for Christ first at the beginning in those first two occasions,

Christ Jesus, he is the Messiah. And then the next occasion, recognizing that he is Jesus who is the

Christ so that they would understand their submission and devotion to Christ, not just as one of many teachers, but that he is preeminent.

He is Christ and Lord who is above all. So that's just very briefly looking at our introduction here.

And we come to understand some basic things about this letter as well, as Paul is going to be addressing the church in Corinth in these 16 chapters that we have.

And because this is a little bit longer book than we've studied here in the Sunday school class, it's going to take us two semesters instead of one.

So we're going to cover about chapters one through six in this particular semester. And then in the spring, we'll be covering chapters seven through 16.

Now it doesn't just work out that way simply because that's how many weeks we have between the two semesters. We have more weeks in the spring semester than we have in the fall, but that's also a clear dividing point in the book of first Corinthians.

If you'll notice, you'll just read through it. And I encourage you sometime this week, make it part of your devotions to read through first Corinthians.

You'll notice that when you get to chapter seven, go ahead and flip there right now. So I'll just show you the beginning phrase there at the start of chapter seven, right there at chapter seven, verse one,

Paul says, now concerning the matters about what, about which you wrote.

So Paul shifts gears at chapter seven in chapters one through six.

What is Paul doing there? He's actually confronting the church regarding some things that he's been told by Chloe's people.

That's talked about there in chapter one. We don't know exactly who Chloe's people are, could be

Chloe's household. Those who are associated with Chloe could be the actual house in which the church in Corinth met.

We don't know that for sure, but they were part of the Corinthian church. They come to Paul who is in Ephesus, by the way, at the time that he is writing this letter, he is with the

Ephesians and this would have been sometime around about 53 to 55

AD. He was in Ephesus for two to three years. So during that period of time that he was in Ephesus, he wrote both of these letters to the

Corinthians. While he is there, Chloe's people have come to him and they give him a report about some of the things that are going on in the church in Corinth.

So in those first six chapters, Paul confronts the church in Corinth about those things that have been told to him from Chloe's people.

In the next chapters, seven through 16, he then responds to a letter that has come to him from the

Corinthians. The Corinthians are asking him various questions about how they're doing things, certain doctrinal things.

And so Paul responds to those questions in the latter portion of the letter. Now it could be that Chloe's people, when they came to Paul, they brought that letter.

So they brought not only the letter that came from the Corinthians, but they also brought a report about what was going on in that particular church.

Or it could have been just by the providence of God that at the same time that Chloe's people come to Paul with a report about what's going on in that church, a letter came to Paul at the same time from the

Corinthians with them asking questions. And they're not really revealing the problems that they have, not intentionally anyway, but by some of these doctrinal questions that they ask,

Paul recognizes, oh well, we see and we understand the problems of where the division comes from here.

There are certain essential truths that you don't yet understand, even concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which

Paul lays out a glorious apologetic about the resurrection of the dead in 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

So in those latter chapters, 7 through 16, Paul is not only responding to questions that the

Corinthians have asked of him, but even in those chapters you're still going to see him tie back into, see, this is why there are divisions among you.

This is why you need to grow up in the faith. This is why you need to mature and not just be infants any longer, but you need to move on from some of those bedrock doctrines that have already been laid down for you and you need to grow up.

But because you are still immature, because you are still in the flesh, because you are still needing milk instead of the meat of the word,

Paul will get to that in chapter three, then that's why there's these divisions. That's why there's these factions, because you're still behaving as a person who is worldly rather than someone who is born again by the spirit of God.

So this is a very confrontational letter. We're coming right after Romans in canon.

Romans was not confrontational of the Romans. That was a very friendly letter. In fact,

Paul starts that letter by talking about, I desire to come to you. He'd never been to that church in Rome yet, but I desire to come and bless you and that you may also be a blessing to me.

And then Paul laying out this glorious doctrine of justification that we have throughout the book of Romans. First Corinthians, Second Corinthians, and Galatians, these are a lot more confrontational letters.

They are the most confrontational letters that Paul wrote. Surely there are things in other churches that Paul has to confront in some of these other letters that we read, but none nearly as harsh as what we read in these three particular letters.

And it's interesting to consider that when we get to Second Corinthians, if we do understand that letter as being the fourth one that Paul wrote to them, that they're still having issues.

All kinds of problems that are going on in that church with the things that Paul has to confront.

I remember Pastor Tom talking about, you know, if he ever feels like, if he ever looks around at First Baptist Church Lindale and we kind of hit those seasons where there's conflicts going on in different pockets of the church, sometimes you may be aware of one or two of those things.

We as pastors are aware of more like 12 to 14 of those things. Whenever we see those kinds of seasons happen in the church and Tom will feel like, oh, you know,

I'm, I'm struggling as a pastor here because I'm seeing all of these problems that are happening in First Baptist Church.

He says, I go to the book of First Corinthians and I see all the problems that are happening in a church that Paul founded and I don't feel so bad.

So yeah, indeed we find all kinds of conflicts happening in the church in Corinth, but those things are so incredibly relevant to our present day.

So as we go through this letter, may we also learn from this and be able to apply this even in our present context.

Now with regards to the lesson today, here's how we're going to break this down. First of all, we're going to, first of all,

I've already covered the first part, which was kind of a backstory and about the letter, a brief overview of the letter to the

Corinthians. Secondly, we're going to talk about the city itself, Corinth, where this church is and the backstory of the church.

So we're going to go there together to Acts chapter 18 here in just a moment. Thirdly, we're going to talk a little bit more about the occasion for the letter to the

Corinthians. Fourthly, I'm going to give you an outline to this letter so you can kind of see briefly how the whole letter lays out.

And then finally, we're going to talk about the central proposition of the passage. Like, what is the main point?

What is the main thing that Paul wants this church to know that they may grow up together in Christ instead of further apart from one another and further apart from the

Lord, especially because of the divisions that have erupted within them. So let's talk briefly again about this letter.

It is an epistle. We call it an epistle. Anybody know what epistle means? Letter. Letter.

There you go. Right. It is a letter that was written by Paul along with Sostenes to the church in Corinth between 53 and 55

A .D. while Paul was in Ephesus on his third missionary journey.

So if you have those wonderful maps in the back of your Bible, that'll show you Paul's first, second, third missionary journey.

Just trace where he was at that time and it ends up in Ephesus and it was while he was there in Ephesus that he wrote this letter.

Sostenes had been the leader of the synagogue and one of Paul's first converts when he preached the gospel in Corinth.

We'll see that together when we go to Acts 18 here in a moment. And then Paul planted the church there during his second missionary journey.

Though this is the first letter in canon, again, we have several other letters that Paul had written to the church in Corinth.

We have occasions in the New Testament where Paul will reference letters that we don't have record of.

For example, when you read in Colossians, Paul references a letter that he wrote to the Laodiceans.

We don't have that letter in the Bible. What were to happen if some archeologist somewhere were to find 0

Corinthians and 1 .5 Corinthians? What would we do with those two letters if they were to happen to surface in some sort of archeological dig?

Would they end up in canon? Should we make room, kind of change our Bible a little bit to make sure that they get in there?

Anybody have any opinion on that? No, why not? That's right.

God in his providence has given us canon. It's closed. There's a reason the Holy Spirit doesn't want us to know exactly what was in those letters.

So even if they were to come up, we already have the word of God fully confirmed. There would not be a reason for us to have to have those letters and feel like, ah, okay, well something now is more complete about the word of God that I didn't have before.

This is sufficient. This is for us and for our every need and we don't have to know what was exactly said in those letters to feel more complete or have the word of God more completely revealed to us.

This is wonderful what we have. Now about this city in particular that Paul is writing to Corinth was on an isthmus.

Those of you who are geography buffs, what's an isthmus? A sticky

Audi. So you're not really a geography buff. It's a, it's a narrow strip of land with sea on either side.

So whereas a peninsula would have sea on three sides, right? But an isthmus has sea on either side.

It connected the Greek mainland with the Peloponnesian peninsula in the

Roman province of a K a a time at times through a Paul's letters where you'll see him reference

Macedonia and a K a Macedonia was the, uh, the

Northern region. And then a K a being that Southern region, the, the same a grouping or same area of land where Athens, the capital of Greece would have been located as well.

Sin Cree a was immediately to the East of Corinth. They were like twin cities with one another with how close in Cree a was.

Athens was 50 miles straight East Sparta. If you're familiar with that city was about 80 miles to the

Southwest. The city of Corinth sits at the base of the Acro Corinth, which is a small but steep mountain, 1 ,886 feet high and a landmark for incoming ships.

If you've ever seen the logo for, uh, what is it, uh, uh, Prudential banking or, or whatever.

I don't even know what Prudential is. Is it a bank? What's that? Insurance.

Okay. Thank you. Uh, but you, you've seen that logo and sometimes you've seen like the, the real life picture of it.

Sometimes when they do the commercials and then the picture will dissolve into the logo. It's just like this big mountain right in the middle of the sea, right?

And that was what the Acro Corinth was like. So if the sailors were coming up on Corinth, they would see the

Acro Corinth before they would ever get to a port. And when they saw that mountain kind of jutting up out of the sea, though, it was just a small peak, but still very prominent in the location of where Corinth was.

They knew that they were near the port. The origin of the name of the city is unknown.

We don't know exactly where the name Corinthian came from or who named it, but according to Greek legend, it was founded by Corinthos who was claimed to be a descendant of the

God of Zeus. The temples to Apollo and Poseidon were built in 650

BC and those temples were still standing when Paul was there. So they were pretty old buildings at the time that Paul came and preached the gospel.

Later would come many other temples, including the temples to Hera and Octavia. Atop the

Acro Corinth was the temple of Aphrodite, which at one point employed a thousand priestess prostitutes.

This polytheism and the sexual immorality that was prominent in Corinth was even integrated into everyday life, including government and civic affairs, trade guilds, social clubs, festivals, and the economy.

All of it was full with this polytheism, this worship of multiple gods and sexual immorality.

And as you see what's becoming more and more prominent and rampant even in our world today with LGBTQism and the pride parades that they have and stuff like that, which is even in our own backyard.

I mean, they're doing pride parades in Tyler, Texas. So you don't have to go very far to see this kind of sexual immorality being celebrated in our world.

This was common everyday stuff going on in Corinth. This was the world that the church in Corinth existed in.

Very similar to the kind of culture that we live in today. Just as blatant, just as unashamed, the way that the pagans would carry on with one another.

You would see this just in the marketplace going down to do your grocery shopping in Corinth and there's just pride and all this sexual immorality and polytheism around all over the place.

That was what was experienced in Corinth also. The Romans had destroyed the city of Corinth in 146

BC and then they rebuilt it in 44 BC with a much more structured layout.

So it was kind of chaotic because at the time that Corinth was built they probably didn't anticipate it becoming this huge city so they didn't build it that way.

So it wasn't laid out well but when the Romans came and destroyed it and then rebuilt it they laid it out in a proper way and it became even larger under Roman control than it was when the

Greeks controlled it. However, though historians record that at the

Temple of Aphrodite there were a thousand priestess prostitutes that were employed there, that would not have been the case in the time of Paul.

Still a lot of sexual immorality going on in Corinth but there was not that kind of employment at the

Temple of Aphrodite anymore. So the way that that worked out for a

Greek or a Roman or anybody that even a visitor from another land that would come into port, of course because it was a port city there was all kinds of different ethnicities and cultures and things like that represented in Corinth.

If somebody wanted to go up to the Temple of Aphrodite and offer a sacrifice, Aphrodite by the way the goddess of love, then they would climb that mountain 1 ,886 feet.

They would climb that all the way to the top and by sacrificing to this false god they would have sex with one of these priestess prostitutes on one of the altars.

And that was a very popular thing especially among the sailors to do. So you get an idea of the kind of immorality that existed there in Corinth and that the

Christians there even in the church in Corinth they had come out of, they had once been engaged in these things.

And Paul talks about this when you get to chapter 6. He says to them, Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor the idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

And then he says in verse 11, And such were some of you, but you were washed.

You were sanctified, changed by the Spirit of God and by our

Lord Jesus Christ. So there were some in the church that used to be part of all of that, that was going on there in the city of Corinth, but they were washed.

Now note there in 1 Corinthians 6 .11 that Paul says, Such were some of you, right?

Meaning what? Some of them still needed to be washed.

Still needed to repent of their sin and not be worldly anymore, but turn from that to the

Lord Jesus Christ. Some of the things that Paul has to confront with this particular city in this letter.

So being a bustling port city, of course, many cultures, religions mingled in Corinth as well as being a favorite spot for public orators to establish their philosophy and rhetoric classes.

This was a popular thing among the Greeks. They loved their great speakers, their great philosophers.

So if somebody had a new philosophy that they wanted to introduce, Corinth was a great place to be able to do that.

And that's behind some of the confrontation that Paul makes even here in the first chapter. Corinth was renowned for its artistry, for bronze, for wealth, religion, philosophy, and of course, as mentioned, their wanton sexuality.

Much of the reproof Paul gave the Corinthians was about living less like the world around them and more like Christ who saved them.

So remember that and keep that in mind as we go through 1 Corinthians. What's at the heart of these rebukes and these confrontations that Paul makes of the

Corinthians? He wants them to live less like the world around them and more like Christ who saved them.

Now, even though there are some harsh things that Paul has to confront, and sometimes that language can be pretty abrasive, still we recognize that Paul loves this church, right?

We saw that in the very beginning, that Paul expresses thanksgiving. I give thanks to my

God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus.

Why is he thankful for the church that is in Corinth? Because it is a demonstration, this church is a demonstration that the grace of God has come not just to Jews but to Gentiles.

For indeed, although there are many problems going on in this church that Paul has to confront, there are many genuine believers who are there.

This is not a church that is absent of the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is there.

If there were not genuine believers there, then Chloe's people would not have come to Paul with a report about some of the things that were happening there that were concerning them.

Because Chloe's people were spirit -filled and they were from this church. And having to tell

Paul, we're troubled in spirit because of some of the things that we see going on in the church.

Unbelievers that are there that shouldn't be there, Paul confronts that in chapter 5 and even in chapter 15.

Basic doctrines that they don't yet understand, misuse of the Lord's table. These are just some of those things that Paul is going to confront.

So let's go on to the occasion for the letter. During Paul's three -year stay in Ephesus, a report had come to him from the household of Chloe about the problems in the

Corinthian church. This is chapter 1, verse 11. Not only did the Corinthians fail to follow the instructions

Paul gave them in his first letter, they became increasingly divided. About the same time, a letter came to him from the

Corinthians displaying doctrinal confusion over matters such as marriage, divorce, spiritual gifts, and the resurrection of the dead.

At the heart of their problems was worldliness. So once again, remembering that Paul wants them to live less like the world and more like Christ.

So there's this worldliness that's still among them. You are still of the flesh,

Paul says in chapter 3, verse 3. The church needed to divorce themselves from the culture and otherworldly influences and be united to Christ and therefore to one another.

So as I said at the beginning, the letter could be divided into two main parts. Chapters 1 through 6 are a response to the oral report.

Chapters 7 through 16 are a response to the letter that Paul received. But some of those main themes are found, are included throughout the letter.

Now before I get to those main themes, I jumped out of order. I said we were going to go to Acts chapter 18 and I forgot about that.

You just need to snicker at me enough, Sonia, and I'll get the clue. So let's go together.

Before we get to the main themes of the letter, let's continue in our backstory. Let's go to Acts chapter 18.

So we'll see once again here in Acts, Paul's first visit to Corinth and how this church came to be planted.

And this will help you understand a little bit about the city and the people that are there as well. So this is

Acts chapter 18, beginning in verse 1. After this,

Paul left Athens and he went to Corinth. So first of all, he comes to the capital city that is there in Achaia, and that is

Greece. We read about that in Acts chapter 17. That's the very famous sermon on Mars Hill or at the

Areopagus. So that famous sermon that Paul gave there in which he said,

I see that you are a very spiritual people. You even have this altar to an unknown

God. And that which you say is unknown, I say is known. And then proclaims to them the gospel.

That God is going to come and judge all, and he is going to show the one by whom he will judge by raising him from the dead.

Talk about the resurrection of the dead. The Greeks were like, you're crazy. This is ridiculous. But some of them said, you know, we want to hear a little bit more about this.

And so you have Paul's first converts there in Athens. So even what we see from the personality of the

Greek people in Acts chapter 17, you can translate that into 18 as well, because the Corinthians were very much like the people of Athens.

So Paul left Athens. He comes to Corinth, chapter 18, verse 2. And he found a

Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife

Priscilla. Because Claudius had commanded that all the Jews leave

Rome. So this was Claudius's exile of the Jews from Rome that we've talked about at various times.

And you've probably heard these names, Aquila and Priscilla, before. Later on in the book, it is

Aquila and Priscilla that help Apollos to understand the gospel rightly.

Apollos only understands the message of Christ up to his baptism by John. But then

Aquila and Priscilla say, hey, there's more to the gospel than this. And then tell him about his death and his resurrection, his ascension into heaven and his coming again, so that Apollos may continue to preach the gospel more rightly.

So this is this couple that Paul becomes acquainted with, even becomes co -workers with them, not just in the mission, the missions work that they do, but they're co -workers even in their occupation.

What was Paul's occupation? He was a tent maker, right? So he and Aquila and Priscilla, they would make tents together.

So they work together in this way. So Paul went to see them.

That's the end of verse 2. In verse 3, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and worked for they were tent makers by trade.

See you read ahead and you got the answer from that, right? Verse 4, and he reasoned in the synagogue every

Sabbath, and he tried to persuade Jews and Greeks, tried to persuade them of what?

That Jesus is the Christ, right? So and what is Paul teaching from when he's there in the synagogue?

What's that? Yeah, the Old Testament, right? He's using the Old Testament scriptures. That's why

Paul would go to the synagogue. Now when Jesus commissioned his disciples to go out in the book of Acts, Acts 1, 8, or 9, where he says, you will be my witnesses, where first?

In Jerusalem. And then where next? Judea and Samaria, and then?

To the ends of the earth. Right. So the first people that Jesus' disciples would go to would be the

Jews. Why the Jews first? Well, Paul says in Romans, because they had received the oracles of God.

They had the word of God. They had the scriptures. So Paul would go to the Jews first to show them, to whom the scriptures came, that Christ is the fulfillment of all the law and the prophets that have been given to you.

But then what would inevitably happen? The Jews in those synagogues would reject it.

And so Paul would go from that synagogue then to the Gentiles that were in that area, fulfilling the mandate that Christ gave to his disciples.

You'll be my witnesses to the Jews and then to the ends of the earth. And so Paul does that here in Corinth as we continue to read.

Verse 5. When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul had another assignment from them.

They come back to Paul, tell him about how the churches are doing there. Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the

Jews that the Christ was Jesus. And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them,

Your blood be on your own heads. I am innocent. From now on, I will go to the

Gentiles. What's a Gentile? A non -Jew, right?

So in the eyes of God, there were two kinds of people.

There were Jews and there were Gentiles. The Jews were the chosen people. God chose to reveal himself to the

Jews. And then it was through the Jews that the testimony of God would even go out to the world. But it was still a mystery as to how

God was going to reconcile Jews and Gentiles to himself. And that mystery wasn't answered until Christ came.

Christ being the fulfillment of that ultimate plan of redemption that God had for mankind.

Not just from the Jews, but even to the Gentiles. Now this statement that Paul makes here in verse 6, where he says,

Your blood be on your own heads. I am innocent. He's not just coming up with a catchy phrase. He's actually quoting from Ezekiel 33.

So in Ezekiel 33, the Lord says to Ezekiel that he is bringing a sword against the land.

And when the watchman sees the sword coming and warns the people, sounds the alarm, then the watchman will not be responsible if anybody should die by the hand of the sword that is coming.

Because he sounded the alarm and the people did not listen to it. The alarm being essentially repent and turn back to the

Lord. And if the people don't listen to that alarm, then the watchman is not guilty.

But if the watchman sees the sword coming and doesn't sound the alarm, then everyone who dies when the judgment of God comes, his blood will be on the watchman's hands.

And so when Paul says to the Corinthians, your blood is on your own heads, what he's saying is,

I told you everything. I warned you. I gave you the full counsel of God and you won't believe it.

And so it's not my fault whatever happens to you from this point forward. Now recapping again, if you had been reading through the book of Acts all the way through it to get to this particular point, then you would have seen the warning that Paul gave the

Gentiles at the Areopagus. He said the times of ignorance God has overlooked, but now he's commanding all people everywhere to repent.

For the judgment of God is coming and the one through whom

God is going to issue judgment is the one that he has raised from the dead. The one who has conquered death,

God has given all authority into his hands. That's in the great commission, even in Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20,

Jesus saying to his disciples, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

So this is the one to whom God has given authority who will judge the living and the dead.

Paul is saying to the Jews, Jesus is the Christ. The Jews won't believe it. So now Paul goes to the

Gentiles to deliver the gospel to them. Verse 7, and he left there and went to the house of a man named

Titius Justice, a worshiper of God. His house was next door to the synagogue.

This is a man who feared God, but did not yet know the gospel, right? And so Paul shares with Titius Justice the gospel.

He believes it, though the men of the synagogue would not. Verse 8, Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the

Lord together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians, hearing Paul, believed and were baptized.

Paul mentions Crispus' baptism in 1 Corinthians 1. Verse 9, and the

Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent.

For I am with you and no one will attack you to harm you. For I have many in this city who are my people.

And he stayed a year and six months teaching the word of God among them. Verses 12 through 17.

But when Galileo was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal, saying,

This man is persuading people to worship God contrary to the law. But when

Paul was about to open his mouth, Galileo said to the Jews, If it were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime,

O Jews, I would have reason to accept your complaint. But since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves.

I refuse to be a judge over these things. And he drove them out from the tribunal. Verse 17,

And they all seized, who, Sosthenes. They seized Sosthenes, who was the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal.

But Galileo paid no attention to any of this. Even though Sosthenes went through this persecution, yet he became a follower of Jesus Christ.

And Sosthenes likely became the ruler of the synagogue because Crispus, back in verse 8, he became a

Christian. And the teachers of the synagogue were like, Ah, we can't have that. And so they removed him as ruler and made

Sosthenes ruler. And look at this. Two consecutive rulers of the synagogue become Christians, though the rest of the teachers of the synagogue rejected it.

So the Lord is working in a mighty way, even in Corinth, to bring people to Christ.

Notice the word of God, again in verse 9, God said, Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you and no one will attack you to harm you.

For I have many in this city who are my people. And those were the people who the

Holy Spirit filled and came to recognize and understand the gospel of Jesus Christ that was spoken to them.

So there's a little bit of the backstory of Paul coming to Corinth and planting this church and once again reiterating that there are good

Christians that are in this church, but there are many others that refuse to grow up. And it is those who have caused divisions in this body and Paul has to confront those things.

And so here are some of the main themes that we will see come up as we go through 1

Corinthians. I've got five of them for you. So number one, unity. Since the church is the dwelling place of the

Holy Spirit, the people need to strive for unity and building one another up.

And we hear that from Pastor Tom even this morning as he teaches from Ephesians 4 .1 that we are to be unified by the

Spirit in the bond of peace. Number two, second theme that we see is purity. Again being the dwelling place of God, the church needed to keep the body free from sin, both the corporate body and their individual bodies.

Now, you've surely heard the phrase that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. You've heard that phrase before?

It comes from 1 Corinthians 6. That's not the only place in this letter that Paul says that.

He says it first in chapter 3, but it's in two different contexts. In chapter 3, you are a temple of the

Holy Spirit is being spoken to whom? Body no. Not the individual, but the whole church, right?

The whole body. You're a temple of the Holy Spirit. Then in chapter 6, Paul says it to the individual.

Your individual bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit whom you have from God.

So there was a need to be holy in the body that is the church and in the body that is the individual person.

You can't just be holy in the body of the church and then have a bunch of unholy people walking around.

You don't have a holy body, right? So striving for individual holiness will even bring about the holiness that is in the church by the power of God.

So that's the second theme. We'll see purity come up in doctrine and even in deed.

A third thing is fidelity. Now this is really what ties in with doctrinal purity.

So Paul encouraged them toward doctrinal purity, faithfulness to the word. That's what fidelity is.

So a faithfulness to those things that have been taught to them so that they may believe and practice the truth that has been spoken to them.

So we have unity, we have purity, we have fidelity. A fourth theme is humility.

Much of the division among the Corinthians was because they were very prideful. They were full of themselves.

So Paul encouraged humility toward one another and before God and to let their boasting be in the

Lord. You're surely familiar with the love chapter of 1 Corinthians, right? 1 Corinthians 13.

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not arrogant. It is not prideful.

And so Paul confronts their pride and encourages them toward humility. Lastly, a fifth theme that we have is maturity.

They were no longer to be infants in the faith, but they needed to grow up and they needed to be mature in Christ.

Now what does that mean to grow up in the spirit of God or grow up in Christ? We'll talk about those things as we continue in the letter.

So our five themes, once again, unity, purity, fidelity, humility, and maturity.

Now last of all, in closing, let me give you an outline of the letter. You get an understanding of how this particular book lays out.

So perhaps the most famous chapter in 1 Corinthians is chapter 13, which thanks to a certain heading in the

NIV Bible has become known as the love chapter. And you have to say it just like that, by the way, you have to say the love chapter.

Chapters 12 and 14 are among the most controversial chapters of 1

Corinthians, among the most controversial chapters in the whole Bible. What do we talk about in 1

Corinthians 12 and 14? I heard it's spiritual gifts.

That's right. So we're going to have all kinds of arguments about spiritual giftings and how the

Holy Spirit still works in us today when we get to 1 Corinthians 12 and 14.

By the way, I think there's what, six or seven other classes in our church going through 1

Corinthians with us as we're doing this as well. And so we all get to leave class and confer with one another about the different arguments that came up regarding spiritual gifts when we get there.

Chapter 15, as I mentioned, presents a masterclass in apologetics as Paul gives his arguments for the resurrection of the dead.

But overall, looking at the entire letter, we would understand 1 Corinthians to be laid out like this.

Number one, or let me, hang on. Oh yeah, I've broken this up into eight parts.

So we have these, these eight parts of 1 Corinthians. So first of all, we read the first part this morning,

Paul's thankfulness for the church. That's chapter one, verses one through nine. Second part,

Paul confronts disunity in the church that goes from chapter one, verse 10 through chapter four.

Thirdly, we see of confrontation of immorality in the church. That's in chapters five and six.

Fourth part is marriage in the church. We're going to talk about some marriage things when we get to chapter seven.

The fifth part is liberty in the church. This is chapters eight, nine, and 10, all the way to chapter 11, verse one.

And this is where we talk about more like liberty of conscience issues. What are we free to do as Christians, but still being mindful of one another in the body of Christ?

Sixth is worship in the church. And that's where we cover the spiritual gifts, but also the right practice of communion, the roles of men and women in the church.

That's in chapters 11 through 14. And in the middle there, we have the love chapter.

Number seven, we have the hope of the church, which is Paul laying out this apologetic for the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead.

That's all of chapter 15. And then finally, we have a charge to the church. That's number eight.

And that covers all of chapter 16 with Paul's final instructions and closing greetings to the church in Corinth.

That is our overview of the book of 1

Corinthians. And so once again, we come to understand that Paul is going to direct the church to look to Christ and follow him.

His desire is to heal the factions that are in the church in Corinth by focusing again on the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And so may we come to understand that same thing, whatever divisions there would be in us or even personal sins that we must repent of so that we may walk in holiness before God.

As we go through 1 Corinthians together, may we be convicted of those things and unified in Christ Jesus.

I just have two minutes left, so not enough time to answer questions. Let me close this in prayer and then we'll open with a little more discussion next week when we get to the first part of 1

Corinthians and do our exposition. So let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we have considered this book, as we have thought about these things,

Paul's letter that he is writing to the Corinthians, I pray that we would receive these words to ourselves.

Though written 2 ,000 years ago, this has relevance to us even now. That we may, as a body of Christ, we may grow close to God and that we would draw closer to one another as well.

These people that we sit among here in this class or in church as we come into our service and Pastor Tom is going to preach, these are not just people that are checking off their religious box along with us every week.

These are our brothers and sisters in the Lord with whom we are to grow and have affection for each other and desire to build up the body together in love.

So may that motivate us all the more to be engaged in this body that you by your providence have placed us in so that we might grow in sanctification together, growing one another in love and in holiness and in our relationship with God.

And through this constant declaration of the gospel, may we become mature men and women of faith.

It's in the name of Jesus that we pray and all God's people said, Amen. Thank you for attending today.