1 corinthians on Christian Character

It is a phone call no parent wants to receive. “Jerry,” Bethany said, “Catherine’s had a little accident.” “Accident! How bad?” “She’s going to be okay. You want to talk to her? We’re in a kind of am...

Some years ago, the syndicated newspaper columnist Sidney J. Harris shared an interesting anecdote from one of his friends. Each evening, this friend would stop at the same newsstand to buy a newspape...

Each one of us is called to live the truth of our unrepeatable uniqueness. We are not meant to model ourselves after others, however wonderful they may be. A delightful Jewish parable makes this point...

Introduction Sometimes verses 1-4 are separated from 5-10 in preaching. N. T. Wright points out, however, that in both sections, the need for humility binds the passages together. A teacher must prac...

Introduction Our lectionary text is inextricably linked with the five verses that precede it. For that reason, I’ll give a summary of verses 1-4. It’s possible the lectionary authors chose to separat...

The Servant Leader The servant leader is the hero of this text.  And the example,  par excellence,  is the Apostle Paul. He has never shied away from holding himself up as a person to be imitated, as...

Our faith is not a matter of our hearing what Christ said long ago and “trying to carry it out. The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself....

preaching commentary The Servant Leader The servant leader is the hero of this text.  And the example,  par excellence,  is the Apostle Paul. He has never shied away from holding himself up as a pe...

Preaching Commentary A Christmastide Community A recent podcast reminded me that there is no such thing as a “neutral” marking of our time—our minutes and our hours, our days and our weeks, our mon...

Context Reading Someone Else’s Mail Paul first visited the city of Corinth in south-central Greece during his 2 nd missionary journey (Acts 18:1-18). Paul in 1 Corinthians is responding to a letter...

Context Reading Someone Else’s Mail Paul first visited the city of Corinth in south-central Greece during his 2 nd missionary journey (Acts 18:1-18). Paul in 1 Corinthians is responding to a letter...

In his seminal work, The Cross of Christ , British pastor and author John Stott describes the unique, upside-down kingdom instituted on the cross: ‘Irresistible’ is the very word an Iranian stude...

The Transitive Property of Welcoming In elementary school math you learn various basic principles of working with numbers…the commutative property, the associative property, the distributive property...

A Christmastide Community A recent podcast reminded me that there is no such thing as a “neutral” marking of our time—our minutes and our hours, our days and our weeks, our months and seasons reflect...

Giving Matters In 2 Corinthians 9:6-15, Paul provides us with four crucial lessons on Christian giving: 1) How we give; 2) What we give; 3) What happens when we give; and 4) Why we give. How We Give...

Preaching Commentary Context Matters If you have ever taken an introduction to exegesis course, you may remember one of the most important rules for properly understanding a given text: look at wha...

preaching commentary The Transitive Property of Welcoming In elementary school math you learn various basic principles of working with numbers…the commutative property, the associative property, th...

Context Matters If you have ever taken an introduction to exegesis course, you may remember one of the most important rules for properly understanding a given text: look at what comes before and afte...

Introduction to First Corinthians and Chapter 12 G. K. Chesterton wrote that original sin is the “only only part of Christian theology which can really be proved,” because we simply “see it in the ...

Does it matter who’s right? I’m not so sure anymore. Right or wrong: we all seem to lose something in this equation. I’ve come to this temporary conclusion because I’ve reflected on Paul’s letters t...

A Tough Way to Start Ministry You don’t have to spend much time on Twitter or Facebook to be reminded that schadenfreude (taking joy from another's misfortune) is alive and well. Depending on w...

preaching commentary A Tough Way to Start Ministry You don’t have to spend much time on Twitter or Facebook to be reminded that schadenfreude (taking joy from another's misfortune) is alive a...

The Protestant Reformer John Calvin (1509-1564) arrived in Geneva to lead the city’s church in 1536, but not, as we might imagine, to universal acceptance. Rather, there was significant resistance and...

An elderly master carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer of his plans to leave the house building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family. He w...

Kevin Vanhoozer draws on 1 Corinthians 4 to argue powerfully for reading and teaching the Bible as drama. As Paul talks about his apostolic ministry, he says this: “For, I think, God has exhibite...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Corinth: "Young, Scrappy, and Hungry" Corinth was an up-and-coming city with an up-and-coming attitude. The Romans had conque...

Ancient Lens What’s the historical context? Background Structure This Psalm of David is unique. “It is the only hymn in the Old Testament composed completely as a direct address to God.” [1] It e...

The first type of fool in the Bible is the character that might be called the fool proper. Folly in a fallen world is obviously partly relativistic, and we are always wise to say, “Says who?” Differen...

Baptism is the prime sacrament, the foundation of them all…There are two things which baptism signifies, namely, death and resurrection…We call this death and resurrection a new creation, a regenerati...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Corinth: "Young, Scrappy, and Hungry" Corinth was an up-and-coming city with an up-and-coming attitude. The Romans had conque...