Introduction to 2 Corinthians

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I invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to 2 Corinthians 1.
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This morning we are beginning a new series of sermons through Paul's second letter, which we will learn later is actually
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Paul's fourth letter to the church at Corinth, and we'll talk about what that means in a moment.
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But we are going to examine this letter beginning today and do a verse -by -verse exposition.
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If you are relatively new to our church, this is something that we do here and is our standard practice to preach through books of the
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Bible. And so even though we had taken a short detour in the study of the five solas and we did a short detour on apologetics, we did so because we had just finished a long series in the book of Colossians.
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And anytime I end a book, sometimes I just need to breathe before I start a new one.
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And so we've had our time of rest in between books, but now we will begin again.
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People often ask me, well, how long do you think this book will take? And my answer is, I don't know.
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But I will say this, we did 1 Corinthians, which is 16 chapters, and it was 18 months in the study.
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2 Corinthians is 13 chapters, but it is a much different book.
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And so as I have sought to try to outline it and give an idea of how I might land each week, as I do before I set out on a study,
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I always sit down and look at the book in total and figure out sort of where my major points are going to be.
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I must admit to you, this book has been the most difficult I have done so far.
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And I've preached through several books of the New Testament in the many years over which I've been preaching, and this one is hard to outline.
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So we will go as the Lord leads, and we will go as long as He so desires. But we will begin this morning by reading the first two verses.
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So let us stand and read Paul's salutation to the church at Corinth.
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2 Corinthians 1, verse 1. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother, to the church of God that is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia, grace to you and peace from God our
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Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, as we embark on a new study,
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Lord, you know that I have prayed and I continue to pray that you would be with me as I give these expositions, that you would,
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Lord, keep me from error, anoint me for this time, open the hearts and ears of your people, and Lord, for the unbelievers,
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I pray they would hear the gospel by the power of the Holy Spirit that they would be saved.
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As a church, O God, I pray that we would hear this epistle afresh and hear the call of the apostle
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Paul to recognize the authority with which he was invested by Christ as an apostle.
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And therefore, when we read Paul's writings, we are reading the very word of God. Let us,
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Lord, submit not to the man Paul, but him who sent
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Paul, our Lord Jesus Christ. And we pray this in his name, amen.
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In 2019, we completed our 18 -month series in 1
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Corinthians, and the title of that series was A Church with Problems.
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If you've ever read 1 Corinthians or spent any time studying it, you will know that that is an apt description, because Corinth was a church with problems.
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And in Paul's first letter, he addresses a series of issues which had arisen in the church.
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He dealt with the subject of division. You'll remember in 1 Corinthians, where he says, some of you say
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I follow Paul, some say I follow Apollos, some say I follow
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Cephas, and some say I follow Christ. And Paul dealt with that division in the first few chapters of 1
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Corinthians. And then he dealt with deviation that had arisen in the church.
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Sin had reared its ugly head. There was a man who was sinning in the church, and the church had been unwilling to discipline him.
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He dealt with sexuality and marriage. He dealt with liberty and idolatry.
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He dealt with assembly and inclusivity and those who would mistreat others within the body.
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In fact, the longest exposition on the subject of the Lord's table in the
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Bible is in 1 Corinthians, and it is a rebuke, because he says, it's not even the
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Lord's table that you're eating. Because they were doing it in a way that mistreated
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God's people. And in 1 Corinthians, there was doctrinal confusion.
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Confusion over the gospel. Paul clearly articulates the gospel in chapter 15, and then explains that one of the things that is absolutely essential about the gospel is the doctrine of the resurrection.
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And without the resurrection, there's no hope. Understand this.
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The Corinthian church, in many ways, was being torn apart by sin.
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And the major thread that weaves through 1 Corinthians is this.
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Sin allowed ultimately divides the church. Sin allowed within the church that is not rebuked.
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Sin allowed that is not called to repentance. And sin allowed that if continued, does not lead to some form of discipline, will ultimately be the sin that divides the church.
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Sin, in that sense, is like cancer. As it is allowed to grow and metastasize and begin to spread within the body.
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Cancer, where it begins, it never ends. And sin, where it begins, it never ends.
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And it spreads into the body and brings death. And Paul begins 1
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Corinthians with a call to unity. And then he spends the majority of the 16 chapters showing how sin destroys unity.
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Well, today we begin in 2 Corinthians. And while both letters are written by Paul, both are written to the same people, and both are written within a relatively short time of one another.
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Probably within at least two years. Probably within a year. But certainly within two years.
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And yet they are very different letters. 1 Corinthians is objective and practical.
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2 Corinthians is more subjective and personal. 1 Corinthians gives insight into the character of an early church.
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2 Corinthians gives insight into the character and ministry of Paul himself. 1
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Corinthians is deliberate instruction. 2 Corinthians is descriptive testimony.
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And besides the book of Philemon, 2 Corinthians is the most personal and autobiographical of all of Paul's letters.
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And because of the nature of the letter, it's hard to outline. As I mentioned in my introduction,
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I'm teaching Romans in Sunday school with Mike Ward. We share a class.
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And I love Romans because it's so structured. It's so didactic. 2
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Corinthians is intimate and somewhat disconnected. In fact, it is so disconnected that some scholars believe that it's not one letter at all.
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Some scholars believe 2 Corinthians is actually a combination of more than one of Paul's letters.
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Some even have argued that it's up to six different letters stitched together. I don't believe that.
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But I only mention it because it goes to the part of the fact that it's so many diverse things and so many diverse tones.
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But let me just say for a moment, there is a very strong belief among scholars that first nine chapters of 2
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Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 1 -9 is one letter, and 2 Corinthians 10 -13 is a different letter altogether.
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I don't believe that. But as we're studying through this, you may open your study Bible, and you may find a scholar who argues for that.
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Let me at least respond to that now. I believe 2 Corinthians is all one letter.
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And here's one of the major reasons why. There is absolutely no evidence in the history of the text of this book that it has ever been found in any place where it wasn't all one unit.
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There's never been a copy recovered that was only chapters 1 -9 or that was only chapters 10 -13.
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There's never been a conclusion to chapter 9 that's been found. And there's never been an introduction to chapters 10 -13 that's been found.
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It just doesn't exist outside of the mind of scholars. And in the first 1800 years of the church, we were willing to accept that this is just one letter with two tones.
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But in the last 200 years, with the rise of things like textual criticism and arguments from an eclectic perspective on the authorship of the
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Bible, there have arisen these new ideas of, well, maybe this was not all one letter.
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Maybe this was several letters stitched together or at least two letters stitched together. And I like Donald Guthrie's comment on this.
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He said, It must have been extremely fortunate that the two depleted fragments happened to join together or were skillfully manipulated to make a single epistle with at least the appearance of a while, enough to rate and elude suspicion for 1800 years.
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So, again, my argument stands that I believe this is one letter and therefore as I'm preaching it,
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I'm going to treat it as one letter, starting at verse 1 of chapter 1 and going all the way to the end of chapter 13.
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But I do want to mention this, and I hope this doesn't cause any confusion. Oh, by the way, the first sermon of any book is a lot of facts and information.
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This may feel like a seminary class, and if it does, good, because we need that. We need a lot less emotion, a lot more education, and we don't get it a lot of times.
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So put your thinking caps on and just hang with me because this is important. 2 Corinthians is not the second letter
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Paul wrote to Corinth. You have a Bible. You open it up, and it's 1
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Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, or 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. But the chronology of Paul's letters is more like this.
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Open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 5 real quick. You're in 1 Corinthians 1. Turn over to chapter 5 real quick.
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Look at verse 9. Excuse me.
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1 Corinthians 5 and verse 9. I'm sorry, we were in 2 Corinthians. I've got to go backwards.
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In 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 9, Paul says this. He says,
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I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. Let's just stop right there.
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I don't want to get into the argument Paul's making. I do want to make mention of this, though. What did he just say? I wrote to you in my letter.
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What letter? This is the first letter to Corinth? No. This is the second letter to Corinth.
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Because Paul has already written one letter which we no longer possess. So if you look at my chart that I have created for you all, you're welcome.
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I have it outlined as this way, and I got this from F .F. Bruce, a great scholar who wrote on the life of Paul.
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He said there was likely four letters that Paul wrote to Corinth. The first one we call
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Corinthians A, and that's the letter that Paul mentions in chapter 5, verse 9, the letter that he wrote that we no longer have.
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And then we have 1 Corinthians, which is actually Corinthians B. And then if you look in 2
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Corinthians, go to chapter 2, and look with me at verse 3.
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He says, And I wrote as I did so that when I came, I might not suffer pain from those who should have made me rejoice, for I felt sure of all of you that my joy would be the joy of you all.
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Okay. So right there we see Paul references having written to them another letter.
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Now some people believe that that's a portion of this letter. Remember I said some people believe it's stitched together, so some people believe that's part of 2
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Corinthians. I don't. I believe that it's an additional letter. Some people believe it's 1 Corinthians.
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Again, that argument could be made, but I believe there's a letter between 1 and 2 Corinthians sometimes referred to as the severe letter because Paul was writing a severe rebuke to the people.
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And again, we don't have it. And then, of course, Corinthians D is 2
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Corinthians. So now if you're thoroughly confused, which is not my intention,
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I want to simply mention this because a lot of people will hear this and they'll say, Oh, wait a minute.
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We have missing books of the Bible. No, we don't because not everything
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Paul wrote was inspired. Paul probably wrote a grocery list at some point.
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It wasn't inspired, and it wasn't part of the Bible. Paul might have written a personal letter to two or three different people that we no longer have record of, and it was not inspired by God and therefore not made part of the canon.
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Understand this. There are books that were written in the first century that weren't part of the
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Bible. You hear people all the time, Oh, what about the missing books?
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What about the Gospel of Judas and the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene? Have you ever read those nutty works?
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Those books have no place in the canon of God's Word and the people of God have known it since they were written.
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Now, maybe I should clarify and say I'm not saying the first and third letter of Paul were nutty. I'm just saying they weren't inspired.
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God is the ultimate editor of Scripture and He's the ultimate one who brings together what we are to have and God by His providence and by His mercy has given us two letters that Paul wrote to Corinth which we call
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Sacred Scripture and there are two, possibly two letters that are not and that should not bother us and if it does, then here's another whopper for you.
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There's at least two letters that Corinth sent to Paul that we don't got either because Paul's response letters he says pertaining to what you wrote to me and guess what we ain't got?
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We ain't got that either. Have you ever heard somebody I've told this story have you ever heard somebody talking on a cell phone and you can only hear their side of the conversation and you can't hear what the other people are saying but you kind of know what the other people are saying based upon the answers that are being given and the statements that are being made by the person on this side of the phone?
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Well that's what we have. We have one side of a correspondence one side of a conversation
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Paul's side and God has so seen fit not only to inspire this writing but also to preserve it down through the ages so that we would have it and understanding this understand
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I know it may seem like I'm getting into some of the minutiae here understanding this helps us to understand the book because this provides for us a context in which the book is written and if you understand anything about the science of hermeneutics and the science of hermeneutics is the science of biblical interpretation if you understand anything about the science of hermeneutics it must be this context is king to whom, about which and when a book was written is the key to understanding the book and if you don't know those things then you will likely arrive at a wrong conclusion about the book and this is the most dangerous thing in the world because most preachers in the world don't preach verse by verse through books now it's getting more popular expositional preaching is rising in popularity it's one of the great when
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I teach my church history class I say in the last hundred years this is one of the blessings as we see this arising in the last generation it's a good thing but a lot of guys will just pick a verse here pick a verse there pick a verse here and I mean and sometimes they're right about what they say because it's you know the text is clear but without the context you're missing so much and without knowing what came before and what's coming after and being able to go and follow the train of thought it's almost impossible to be certain that you're arriving at a proper biblical conclusion so today we're gonna look at four things from the book of Corinthians as our introduction we're going to look at who the
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Corinthians are we're going to ask the question what are the issues that they are addressing we're going to look at the history of Paul's relationship with them and his correspondence with them and then we're going to ask a simple question why does
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Paul or what is an apostle and why is Paul defending his apostleship so let's look first at who are the
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Corinthians if you have your Bible turn to Acts 18 Acts 18 is when we are introduced to the
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Corinthians Paul is on his second missionary journey you remember
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Paul had three missionary journeys Paul is in Acts 18 in his second missionary journey and he enters into Corinth so let's read this narrative of what happens after this
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Paul left Athens and went to Corinth and he found a Jew named Aquila a native of Pontus recently come from Italy with his wife
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Priscilla because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome and he went to see them and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked for they were tent makers by trade and he reasoned in the synagogue every
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Sabbath and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks when Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia Paul was occupied with the word testifying to the
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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
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I am innocent from now on I will go to the Gentiles and he left there and went to the house of a man named
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Titius Justice a worshiper of God his house was next door to the synagogue I always love that I don't want to stop too much y 'all don't want to hear me
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I'll go next door and preach walls weren't real thick back then just so you know so he went next door and preached
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Christmas the ruler of the synagogue believed in the Lord together with his entire household and many of the Corinthians hearing
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Paul believed and were baptized 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 so Paul was in Corinth for 18 months but when
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Galileo was pro -council of Achaia the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal saying this man is persuading people to worship
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God contrary to the law but when Paul was about to open his mouth Galileo said to the
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Jews if it were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime oh 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
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I refuse to be a judge of these things and he drove them from the tribunal and they all seized
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Sosthenes the ruler of the synagogue and beat him in front of the tribunal but Galileo paid no attention to any of this and after this
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Paul stayed many days longer and took leave of the brothers and set sail for Syria and with him
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Priscilla and Aquila so we'll stop there in the middle of verse 18 it goes on to talk about Cancria and how he had cut his hair but the point is this is
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Paul's introduction to the Corinthian people he goes into this place which was the capital of the area known as Achaia and it was the third largest city in the
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Roman empire in the first century the only two bigger cities were
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Rome and Alexandria it had a population of 200 ,000 imagine that a city back then 200 ,000 people it was about 20 times the size of Athens it hosted the famous Ithmian games every year which rivaled the
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Olympics as far as popularity and people traveling to compete it was the center of worship for Aphrodite who was the goddess of love whose temple was filled with thousands of sacred temple prostitutes which is one of the issues that Paul deals with in 1
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Corinthians and because of this Corinth was known for its sexual immorality as early as the 5th century
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B .C. to be a Corinthian or to Corinthianize meant that you were a person of sexual immorality a
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Corinthian woman was synonymous for a harlot
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I always found it interesting that churches will name themselves you know first Corinthian church or something I wouldn't but okay
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Corinth was the vanity fair of its day and if you're familiar
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I don't mean the magazine Vanity Fair comes from the book Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan Vanity Fair was a place where merriment was the pursuit of everyone it was like Atlantic City and Las Vegas Corinth was the center of commerce it contained a world famous emporium world's first ever super Walmart it commanded the trade routes in all directions not only north and south but also east and west and I wanted to show you this because this is an interesting historical note here if you see where Corinth is you'll notice that there is that strip of land between Athens and Achaia and that strip of land that is
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I can't even say it is that strip of land if you wanted to get to the other side if you were in a ship you would have to sail 200 miles around the
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Ionian Sea there back down and around to get to the other side and the mariners would say no one does that without first filling out his will because it was a treacherous way to sail so what they would do is right at the narrow strip there in Corinth is they would have slaves pick up the ships and carry them from one side to the other because at the shortest point it was only like three and a half to four miles that they would have to carry the ship across and getting a group of men to pick up the ship and carry it the three to four miles was much easier than sailing the 200 miles and so that is what brought
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Corinth its fortune and fame it was a place where the sea was on both sides in fact one man in history
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Horace called Corinth Bimeris that was his name for it Bimeris means two seed because there were seas on both sides and along with Aphrodite being worshipped there
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Poseidon was also worshipped there because Poseidon was the god of the sea
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John Stott said Paul must have seen the strategic importance of Corinth if trade could radiate from Corinth in all directions so too could the gospel so Poseidon Paul understood the strategic importance of this place and as Paul left
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Corinth as I said a moment ago he had many correspondents with them
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Paul's relationship with the Corinthians spanned seven years from fifty to fifty -seven that's an estimate but you understand you remember the first century right
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Jesus is born we don't know exactly what year but Jesus is born and then we begin to count and so we say somewhere around the year thirty would have been the time of the crucifixion after that there is the birth of the early church and then the early writings began to be written the first books of the
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Bible that were written were most likely the letters of Paul possibly
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James but James may have been very early I put a very early date on James because of its
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Jewish nature and character and the people it was addressed to but I say James could have been as early as forty -four that's a very early date
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Galatians are first Thessalonians battle for who was first out of Paul's writings
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I say Galatians and I put Galatians in forty -eight for my own reasons but Corinth this relationship second missionary journey
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Paul begins his relationship around the year fifty and the last letter that we have second
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Corinthians is around fifty -seven so that's the sort of the historical picture of where Paul is and all this and when
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Paul sent his letter to first Corinthians the letter that we call first Corinthians he expected to follow up with a personal visit he wrote from Ephesus and he planned to stay there a few more weeks and then go to Corinth so he sent
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Timothy ahead of him and he asked the Corinthians to be ready to welcome him as they welcomed Timothy well after Pentecost in eighty fifty -five he planned to cross the
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Aegean Sea visit the churches in Macedonia stay in Corinth for the winter but soon after this he modified his plan and he told the
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Corinthians that he was going to come to them first stay with them then go to Macedonia then come back and then go to Judea with the money he had collected for the churches in Judea who were suffering persecution and Paul writes in the first part and we're going to study this when we get there in the first chapter of second
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Corinthians he actually says I had a plan and it didn't happen and some of the people were accusing
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Paul of being a liar because he had a plan to do a certain thing and it didn't happen and so Paul writes second
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Corinthians from Macedonia in northern Greece after his second visit after he had written a harsh letter and he's preparing them for his final visit you don't have to turn there but if you go to the end of second
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Corinthians he refers to his coming and this being his final visit first Corinthians was probably written around fifty -six second
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Corinthians probably written around fifty -seven and Paul's life is a flurry of ministry to sit down and map out everything that Paul did and everywhere
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Paul went is very difficult and much of the time that he's doing all this he's dealing with issues at Corinth as people like Chloe's people are bringing him reports of things that are happening and he knows the important strategic location of this church and the problems that are happening and so Paul's trying to address those problems and what are they what are the issues well in first Corinthians Paul's major problem was behavior doctrines and questions about his authority but in second
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Corinthians it's more of a defense of himself and his ministry he has to defend his doctrines he has to defend his character and he expresses sorrow over the
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Corinthians he expresses sorrow one that they question his integrity the whole thing about not coming and doing the thing you're questioning my integrity like my yes doesn't mean yes and my no doesn't mean no like I'm a liar he expresses sorrow that they that they don't reciprocate his love to them he says
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I've shown you love I've given myself I've almost died for you and you question my love and my sincerity and you don't reciprocate but the most devious issue is the question of Paul's apostleship and so this leads us to the study of this first verse well the first two verses because a large part of this letter is chapters three through six and chapters ten through thirteen is devoted to answering the questions that have recently arrived because there is this group who
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Paul calls super apostles I didn't make that up that's what he calls them he calls them super but this group has come in and declared themselves to be super apostles at least that's what
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Paul calls them but he also calls them false apostles in chapter eleven verse thirteen and so in his opening salutation
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Paul gives a reminder of who he is and in fact
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I would say this I do I think this is true one thing we could say about second
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Corinthians is the whole book really is a defense of the first two verses because Paul says something about himself in the first two verses and then he spends the next thirteen chapters making a defense for it so that's what we're going to look at today is we're going to look at these first two verses
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Paul says Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus beloved what is an apostle the word apostolos in Greek means one who is sent with a message a messenger one who is sent by someone else and it's important to understand the history of this word this word is obviously a
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New Testament word because we're familiar with how Jesus referred to the twelve that he sent they were his apostles and we know the story that Jesus chose these men and he sent them out and he trained them and then when one of them became known to be a devil and hung himself
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Jesus or rather the apostles had to choose another and so they in the upper room chose
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Matthias to be the one who would take the place of Judas holding to that position of twelve twelve apostles similar to there being twelve
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Old Testament tribes but even in the Old Testament the word apostle is used it's used in the
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Septuagint which is the Greek translation and of the Hebrew word which meant someone who was going in the place of someone else if someone sent someone in a very in a very very real way
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Moses was was an apostle he was sent by God to to lead the people out of Egypt and so God sent him
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Jesus sends the apostles and something that I don't know which rabbi said it but it's it's in rabbinical teaching that the man being sent is as the man who sent so when
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Jesus sends the man it's as if Jesus is coming that's the idea of this apostolic office is these men spoke on behalf of Christ and when we talk about the apostles the original apostles the men we are talking about a very specific and unique office in the history of the church many people today will call themselves apostles and I will grant that there is times in the scripture where there are people called apostles who were not part of the twelve and we're gonna talk about Paul in a minute because he's obviously unique but even
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Barnabas at one point is called an apostle and so we have to consider that that there was a there was a generic use of the word apostle and so if somebody today if I meet a preacher and he says
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I'm apostle so and so I don't say no you're not and give you know I may think it but I don't say it because I'm not fighting that battle if you want to be little a apostle well not you but then if they want to be little a apostle that's fine as long as they recognize there was a unique position given to the early church apostles in fact what do we call the church of the first century we call it the apostolic church and the
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Bible says that the church is built on the apostles and the prophets
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Christ Jesus being the chief cornerstone that's not talking about generic apostles that's talking about the called sent apostles so when
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Paul identifies himself with this and I hate to use this word but I'll use it and you understand with this elite group and by elite
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I don't mean like Navy SEAL style elite what I mean is because their failures we all are failures and the disciples were failures the apostles were failures they failed too but they were in a position that was unique and therefore it was an elite only them but Paul identifies himself with this group and you say how there's twelve tribes there's twelve apostles who is
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Paul some people believe that Matthias was inappropriately put in to replace
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Jesus and Paul was really the twelfth apostle I don't believe that but I do know that Paul tells us about how he is an apostle and if you have your
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Bibles turn just two pages over to 1st Corinthians 15 and just look with me very briefly here it's what
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Paul says in 1st Corinthians 15 about himself he's talking about the gospel he says in verse 1 he says
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I would remind you the gospel I preach to you what you received in which you stand and by which you're being saved if you hold fast the word
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I preach to you unless you believed in vain for I delivered to you his first importance what I also received that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures he was buried he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures he appeared to Cephas then to the twelve that's the twelve then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time most of whom are still alive though some have fallen asleep then he appeared to James then to all the apostles last of all as to one untimely born some translations say born out of season he appeared also to me now what's
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Paul talking about he's talking about when he was on the road to Damascus and Jesus blinded him with the light of his radiance and he said
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Saul Saul why do you kick against the goads remember when
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Jesus appeared to Saul of Tarsus and in that miraculous visitation
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Jesus called Paul as an apostle born out of season a different type of apostle for Saul's mission
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Saul's work would be that he would become the apostle to the
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Gentiles we read about that a little while ago in Acts remember when he was with the Jews I tell you what
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I will go to the Gentiles and we know that he identifies himself as the apostle to the
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Gentiles so going back to 2nd Corinthians going back to chapter 1 when he writes of himself he says
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Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus he's not saying apostle in the generic sense but he is saying
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I am one sent by Christ I am one who has apostolic authority and I really want to stress this to you this morning brethren that that is something that even to this day people question have you not yourself heard people say well
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Jesus didn't say that Paul said it how many of you have ever been talking to somebody about women preachers and somebody say well
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Jesus didn't say that Paul said it how many times have you been talking to someone about the sin of homosexuality and somebody said well
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Jesus didn't say that Paul said it or how many times have you been talking about divorce and remarriage or something like that and say well
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Jesus didn't say it Paul said it let me share this with you this morning beloved if Paul said it in the word of God it is from Jesus Christ Paul spoke as one sent and the one sent is as the man himself
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Paul speaks on behalf of Christ and so when the church is questioning his authority what the church is really saying is we don't believe what
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Christ has to say you understand that's what many churches today say is we are better off doing it our way it doesn't matter what
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Christ has said it's like the man who sat on my couch and I've told this story many times man who sat on my couch looked me dead in the eye he said well
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I don't believe the whole Bible is true I said okay you're in the wrong church he was a member of this church he looked me dead in the eye
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I don't believe the whole Bible is true then you are in the wrong church I can throw a stick and hit fifteen churches that believe like you
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I'll help you find one but we believe the word of God is all from God and we believe when the apostles wrote they were writing with the inspiration of God and therefore what we have from them this is why
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I say 1st and 2nd Corinthians did Paul write other things yes but this is what God had for us and therefore he has preserved it protected it provided it to us down through the ages
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Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus and notice what he says by the will of God if there was one man who didn't want to be an apostle of Jesus it was the man who was on the way to Damascus to enslave and persecute
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Christians and put them into prison but the will of God is stronger than our will amen an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and notice he says and Timothy not apostle but our brother
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Timothy is an important man Timothy is Paul's protege he is his son in the faith but he is not an apostle he doesn't say from the apostles
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Paul and Timothy he says from Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and Timothy who is our brother who is important who we love but he is not an apostle this office is specific this office is unique this office is fit by 12 plus 1 and no more to the church of God that is at Corinth with all the saints do you realize you if you believe in the
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Lord Jesus Christ are numbered among the saints sainthood is not something given to unique people in history by some ecclesiastical magisterium but sainthood simply means ones who are set apart by God in Christ Jesus and therefore if you believe in the
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Lord Jesus Christ you are saints you are his church and we are the church of God and he says grace to you and peace from God our
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Father and our Lord Jesus Christ we don't write letters like this anymore we begin with the name of the person and we end with the name of the sender but letters in the first century began with the name of the sender and the audience and Paul's audience was the church at Corinth grace to you he says and peace from God our
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Father and the Lord Jesus Christ beloved are we are we ones who continue to be willing to hear from God's apostles to continue to be willing to hear from the word of God to continue to submit ourselves to the authority of God's word or are we like those who we will see in Corinth who are constantly calling
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God's word into question how many of us have said well
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I don't know if I like that or if I don't know if I believe that or I don't know if I will submit to that my prayer is throughout this study that we will become even more willing and have an even greater desire to submit ourselves to God's word may he be blessed let us pray father as we consider the opening of this book and how this course begins for us a new journey of study as a church and how in the weeks to come we're going to be looking at Paul in his suffering and we're going to be looking at Paul defending his ministry and apostleship and we're going to be looking at Paul as he explains himself as a minister of the new covenant and what it means to be part of this new covenant and as we see these beautiful verses like God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us that we could become the righteousness of God in him as we see all of these things
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Lord in the weeks to come Lord prepare our hearts cause us to be submitted to the word of God cause us to not say to ourselves oh this is just Paul and not
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Jesus but help us to say this is the word of the living
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God father as we now turn our attention to the table and we are reminded of what
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Christ has done for us which was so articulated so clearly by this very apostle who we have referred to today when he tells us let every man examine himself and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup
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Lord let us now examine ourselves have we been unwilling to be submitted to the word of God have we been unwilling to repent and trust in Christ have we held ourselves back because we are satisfied in sin rather than being satisfied in the