I am sitting here going crazy waiting on a video to download for this Sunday so I thought I would post something. BTW, I am excited for this Sunday because in honor of Father's day our band is going to do the Creed song "Arms Wide Open." It will be awesome.
Anyway, staring June 20th, my esteemed colleague, Mike Moseng and I will be teaching an 8 week exploration of 1st Corinthians. As I was preparing for the first lesson it is so easy to see the relevance of that book to our age. In the first lesson I will basically be talking about how Paul brings everything back to the cross. The Corinthian church was located in a culture that valued education, philosophy and rhetoric. Christians had adapted to their culture in some unhealthy ways by taking the Gospel message and adding to it to make it more acceptable to the people of their day. Basically they were saying that the Gospel was not enough, there needed to be more current philosophy and wisdom. Paul's words to them is that the message of the Gospel which in two words are the cross, is enough. You don't need to take anything away or add anything to it. It's enough! It's absolute, sufficient and fundamental. The message of the cross is where we begin and where we end.
It's interesting to me that as I was studying this today, my son was removing the nails from the crosses we used back in April at our Passion service. At that service, we called people to repentance at the cross by nailing sins to the cross. Hundreds of people responded by writing sins on a paper and then nailing those sins to the cross. It was so moving. I am still hearing from some about that experience. It strikes me that that experience is what Paul is talking about. The cross brings us to our knees. And the cross gives us the courage to stand. Everything rests on the cross. We don't need another philosophy to add to it, whether it is in some modern form like Dr. Phil or Oprah or an ancient one like Gnosticism or Hellenism. We only need the cross. I'm so excited to walk through this with Suncrest. If you are around Suncrest and can make it, please set aside June 20th and join us.
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3 comments:
hey now I can actually make a good comment here - i taught through I Corinthians a while back - I am sold out to the fact that Gordon Fee's commentary on I Corinthians is hands down the very best
he helped me put everything into perspective with the context
i tell you what many people really screw up texts like I Corinthians 9 and 11 and that passage on women in the church (i can't remember the chapter but man - good stuff)
if Fee doesn't help - go to Starbucks and await revelation
I found a great book on the divorce issue at the LCC bookstore. I think Greg bought a copy. Here's a link:
http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Brewer/PPages/DRC/
Thanks for the suggestions.
Lynn, thanks for the suggestion. That is always a huge issue.
Darin, share the love my man. Send me your stuff. Love to see how you shaped your messages/lessons. I think Fee plus Starbucks will be an unbeatable solution.
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