Latest / Woodlands Church Academy's Podcast / Summer'26 Bible School - 1 Corinthians- Session 1- Dan Viner, Tim Dobson and Jonny Warke

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Summer'26 Bible School - 1 Corinthians- Session 1- Dan Viner, Tim Dobson and Jonny Warke · Woodlands Church Academy's Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_06: Did everyone get all that?
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_06: Everyone's clear?
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_06: There's quite a lot, isn't there, in 1 Corinthians.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_06: There's lots of detail.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_06: It's one of the longer letters in the New Testament.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_06: There's a huge amount of theology and practice, lots of cultural references, and there's just a huge amount there.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_06: You know, we won't have time to go through it all.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_06: Tim is going to talk through some of those chapters in a little bit.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_06: But I think it's really important, it's something that we do at the start of every kind of big Bible school series like this, is just to talk a little bit about what's happening in this culture, in this place at this time, to make sure that we are not misreading, misinterpreting, or bringing our own perspectives to the letter that wouldn't have been, you know, things that people thought at the time.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_06: It's a little bit like, you know, we're literally reading someone's post, aren't we?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_06: You know, we've got one half of a letter, but we don't have the full conversation, we don't have the letters that came back the other way.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_06: And just like if we were reading a letter to, you know, so someone writing to someone at Bristol or to London, we'd have a few things baked into our heads knowing about the culture or the city that they're writing to.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_06: And if we don't have that in our head when we read 1 Corinthians or Romans or Exodus or any other book of the Bible, we're gonna miss out on some things.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_06: We might misinterpret some things.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_06: So we're gonna make sure that we have a bit of a grounding of what's going on in this culture and this context at the time before we get into the actual contents of the letter.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_06: We're also gonna have a quick look at a very brief overview of the structure of the letter, where we're gonna go for the next few weeks, and I'm gonna give you just a couple of tools to just have in mind that as you read this yourselves over the next few weeks, as we read through it together, just to have in mind, ah, that's the thing we talked about earlier.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_06: It can just help to unlock some of the pieces of the letter.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_06: So this is where we're gonna go.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_06: Um, sorry, I'll move out of the way.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_06: This is where we're going.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_06: Um, we've got you know a bit of talk about you know the world, Corinthians, you know, the place, Corinth that Paul's actually writing to, what's going on there, the city and the culture.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_06: We obviously have the story in Acts, it's in Acts 18.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_06: We see when Paul goes to Corinth in the first place, he's obviously writing to the place that he was in that time.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_06: A bit about the church, who are they, what's Paul's context, and then, like I said, a bit of an overview uh of the letter itself and where where we're gonna go.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_06: So this is Corinth, the city.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_06: Who could confidently point out Corinth on a map?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_06: One, two, three.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_06: Anything particular about where Corinth is that you might want to tell us?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_06: Anything that's interesting about this location?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_06: It's coastal, yeah?
• 2:27
  unknown: It's next to that ancient Corinth.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, that's pretty good.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, that's all really useful information.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_06: Anything else you want to add?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Sort of in between Rome and Turkey, so it's like a on the trade routes.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_06: Yes, that's another really good point.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_06: Anything else to add, anyone?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_06: But there you go, we've got a room of 50 people there, and sort of two, three people have put their hands up, and so you know, we don't know anything about this place as a group, really.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_06: Well, this is where it is.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_06: This is the Roman Emperor.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_06: This is the Roman Empire, sorry, at its height is about 80, 100, but you know, take away 50 years, you kind of lose this bit down here and a bit of Turkey.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_06: So this is where it is.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_06: But what's really key, and and you mentioned it, is the specific location, it's right here.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_06: So modern-day Corinth is about there, ancient Corinth is a couple of miles away, just further south.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_06: But what is really, really important to notice is it's right here on this strip of land, which is one of my favourite words, which is an ithmus, which is a tiny thin piece of land with two large bodies of water either side of it connecting two larger bodies of land.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_06: So you're totally right, it's connecting the trade routes.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_06: Rome's about here, you've got Turkey over here, Ephesus is down there, you know, that's the two part half of the Roman Empire, it's connected through this piece of water, and then also north and south trade in Greece.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_06: This is Achaea down here, and this is sort of Macedonia up here.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_06: So Corinth is right in the middle.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_06: It's absolutely crucial, it's a strategic location.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_06: Trade flows through it in all directions, both land and sea.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_06: In the time Paul's writing about AD 50, um, when he was there, AD sort of 53, when he wrote a little a little bit later, it is a really big place.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_06: It's probably a third city in the Roman Empire after Roman Alexandria.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_06: There's about 100,000 people live in the city and the metropolitan area, so it's not a small place.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_06: It is massive.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_06: It's a capital, it's a Roman uh province, key trading post, and it is the largest city that Paul has been to yet.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_06: So as he writes, you know, we see in you know in uh chapter 2, verse 3, he said, I came to you with fear and trembling.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_06: He's actually a bit nervous.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_06: Coming here.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_06: He he's a bit anticipatory, you know, he's just a dude.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_06: And he's coming to a city of a hundred thousand people to try and bring the gospel.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_06: That's quite intimidating.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_06: It's like going to, I don't know, where's a hundred thousand people?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_06: Watford or something like that.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_06: You know, and you're saying, right, I'm gonna I'm gonna convert all of Watford solo.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_06: 20 years after Jesus.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_06: It's not there's not a big movement behind him.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_06: Um, interestingly, you know, it's a very new city.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_06: That's something that's quite important as well, is that basically it was the the big um Greek city-state capital, there were lots of different Greek states, they all rose up against Rome and they got squished basically.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_06: So Rome destroyed the city in about 146 BC, roughly 200 years before Paul was there.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_06: It spent 100 years in ruins, Julius Caesar rebuilt it about 40, 50 BC, and then you know it's had 80 or 90 years to build up to where it is now.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_06: So it's gone from naught to absolutely loads very quickly, which means also that there's no traditional aristocracy, but there would be in like a lot of heritage cities like Ephesus or Rome.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_06: It's all kind of nouveau riche, it's lots of you know social climbers, it's people who've got a lot of money but have got it quite quickly, it's all trading and merchants and commerce.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_06: That's the that's the flavour of the city, and so everyone is kind of used to climbing over one another to get to the top.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_06: That's the kind of culture that we've got going on here.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_06: So, like I said, that the location shapes the culture.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_06: There is a very pluralistic society, as you might expect.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_06: It's north-south, it's east-west trade, everyone's just meeting in the middle, and they're they're crossing over, they're coming through, it's a very transient population.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_06: And so, because of that, there's lots and lots of different gods.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_06: There's worship um of Greek pantheon gods, you know, there's worship of the emperor, the imperial cult, worship of Egyptian gods like Isis, there's just a lot going on here.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_06: Um, but there are a few a few gods to particularly reference that are um Aphrodite, um who is uh the Greek goddess of love and sex, and there's a massive temple to Aphrodite in Corinth.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_06: A bit like in um in Athens, there's the Acropolis, temples on the top, there's something called the Acro Corinth, which is like a big mountain just on the edge of the city, it's like you know, 1800 feet high.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_06: It's got a massive temple to Aphrodite on the top.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_06: And basically, the the way that you worship Aphrodite is you have sex with a prostitute at Aphrodite's temple.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_06: There are about a thousand prostitutes, uh temple prostitutes in in the Aphrodite kind of temple complex.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_06: And they basically, you can go up there and you have sex with them, or they come down to the city and they just sort of you know come down to the town at night and people have sex with them, and that's part of the culture.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_06: So when Paul talks quite often about prostitutes in Corinthians, it might it's a bit strange to us, it's not something he mentions a lot in lots of other letters, but it's a key part of the culture, so that's one reason he he references that.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_06: And likewise, Apollo is the Greek god of music and song, but he is also the kind of the pinnacle of uh like masculine beauty, kind of a young, physically attractive man, and he basically represents you know a kind of a homosexual icon as well in the city.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_06: So there's quite a firm and an embedded culture of homosexual love and homosexual acts in the city.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_06: So again, Paul touches on that in his letter because that's a really key part of the culture that he's speaking into.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_06: Like I said, it's also it's also a very competitive and commercial culture, like I mentioned.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_06: It's all about getting money, it's all about getting one up on the person next to you, climbing the ladder to get to the top.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_06: Because currently there's not really anyone at the top, there is no kind of elite, there's just lots of rich people, and they've all got rich quite recently.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_06: So there's a lot of social climbing, and you know, there's no historical identity there that people are trying to tap into.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_06: They're all building their identity at the same time.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_06: And it's interesting as as we, you know, the next few weeks as we look through the letter, you'll see a lot of these traits emerge that Paul's talking about.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_06: They're they're very quick to sort of put one another down, to build themselves up, to push each other out of the way.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_06: And it's interesting that you know they are just adapting to the culture that's around them, they're very of the culture that they're in, probably more than a lot of churches that Paul's writing to.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_06: If you understand the Corinthian culture, we'll understand the church a lot better.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_06: So, what is the story that we actually have in Acts?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_06: Um, if you want to have a flick over to Acts 18, I can briefly summarize it now, but this is the story that we have, Paul's time in Corinth.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_06: Um, he arrives there part way through his second missionary journey, which is one of his biggest ones.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_06: He's been away for a year or two already.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_06: It's about AD 50.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_06: It's not very long after Jesus.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_06: You know, it's it's a few years after Paul's been around on the scene.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_06: And he he, like I said, he's really nervous to come to the city.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_06: He arrives with fear and trembling.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_06: If you think back to what's happened to him already, he spent time in Macedon, in places like Philippi, and he's been really, really physically beaten up.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_06: Literally, he's been there's been riots, he's been beaten, he's been imprisoned, he's been assaulted, people have tried to kill him.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_06: He is in a in a bad way.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_06: And that's in the smaller provincial towns.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_06: He's now coming to the biggest, most metropolitan, sort of money-focused, materialistic city he's been to yet.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_06: And he's he's nervous.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_06: And so he's really, really on edge.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_06: But God is really kind of on Paul's side in this in this time he has there because early on he meets um two people called Priscilla and Aquila.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_06: Uh they're a married couple.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, he's a Jewish tent maker, she's his wife, and he meets them in in the kind of the market very early on, and they are basically like his absolute ride or dies.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_06: They stick with him through the whole time he's in the city, and they then pop up all throughout the rest of his letters as key church leaders, both of them as well, not just one of them, they both appear and they kind of switch order and like who's most important in that moment, and they're great, and it's such an encouragement to Paul.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_06: And then Silas and Timothy also come along as well.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_06: Um, they come to sort of support him halfway through his time there.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_06: God gives him a vision, he says, you know, don't worry, you're gonna be physically safe in the city.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_06: I've got a load of people here that I want you to speak to.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_06: I've got a load of people in the city that I'm gonna reach through you.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_06: So Paul stays.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_06: He stays for 18 months.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_06: It's the second longest amount of time he spends anywhere.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_06: Um, after um, I think it's Ephesus, he goes to next where he stays for two years.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_06: But he's there for a really long time.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_06: He preaches to Jews and Gentiles, but then focuses particularly on the Gentiles, the non-Jewish people, after the Jews reject him.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_06: And he he builds a church, he builds probably a network of house churches, and that's the church in Corinthians.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_06: That's the church that um he's writing to in Corinthians.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_06: So this is you know, this is what he's left behind, this is what he's done.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_06: He then goes to Ephesus and then kind of comes comes to hear some stuff about the church that he's planted.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_06: So, what do we know about the church in Corinth?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_06: Well, quite a lot, actually.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_06: We're we're fairly we're fairly lucky in that he he's pretty explicit about some things that they're going through in both of the letters that we have.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_06: And you know, like I said, it's about 50 to 100 people.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_06: You know, there are a wide range of people from across society.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_06: And after he left them, they're visited by a guy called Apollos, he's another famous sort of traveling teacher, and that leads to factionalism, basically.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_06: Like I said, they're all about self-advancement, they're all about promoting their own their own good, and so they all kind of are falling in line behind their chosen, you know, special teacher, trying to advance their little sect against another sect.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_06: And that's you know, Apollos has not done that, that's just them, that's the way that they've done it.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_06: They have this this culture in in the in Greece in the time where people basically really like people who can speak well, it's called uh rhetorical culture.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_06: They basically line up behind a good teacher, and it's not like they're all just following and they're learning from each other, it's like a football team.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_06: My teacher's better than your teacher, and so that's what's happened, and Paul addresses that quite early on.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_06: They're also absolutely beset by issues stemming from the culture we've touched on a few already, but they are just completely beholden to the place in which they live.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_06: They're swimming in the water of the city, and they don't really realize how far that they've strayed from what Paul has taught them.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_06: You know, we'll we'll come on to it, but you know, there's issues of of theology, of character, of cultural influence, of you know, of misbehavior, of like really like significant sin.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_06: They are just all over the place, but they don't think that they are, basically.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_06: One thing that we'll learn about the Corinthians is they are just incredibly uh self-important, self-centered, and arrogant.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_06: They think they've got it.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_06: And a lot of their theology stems from the fact that they think they've actually achieved the highest level already and they can sort of do what they want, and that's something that Paul is really, really keen to address.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_06: They are also a very broad church.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_06: Um, unlike some of the other churches, maybe they are Paul from all cross-sections of society.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_06: There are Jews like Priscilla and Aquila, there are Romans that are mentioned, there are Greeks.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_06: They are a very broad church, and that's a good thing, but it does lead to issues as well.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_06: It leads to cultural tension and it leads to frustration between them.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_06: There are very wealthy and very poor people in this church as well, and in a culture, in a society where money is really important, where prestige is really important, that's being abused, and that's being used to the advantage of the wealthier people, basically.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_06: That focus on human power, on authority, accumulation of wealth, is obscuring the message of Jesus, and that is incredibly significant to Paul, and he is really, really keen to address that very quickly.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_06: So that's who who he's writing to, where they're based, what's going on with Paul, what do we know about him?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_06: If we can understand a little bit about his mindset, about his mentality, that's also going to help us to understand the meaning, the significance behind some of the things that he's saying.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_06: So he is, um, as I've said, he's he's probably in Ephesus, which is just in Turkey, just over the over the sea, as we we looked at that map earlier.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_06: He goes there straight after his time in Corinth.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_06: He's there for about two years, planting churches again.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_06: And so this is very, it's quite dateable for us actually.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_06: We're pretty confident uh that this is written about AD 53.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_06: He was uh he was in Corinth uh around the time that there was a certain Roman ruler there, he was there for a period.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_06: We know what what date that was, we know it was very soon afterwards, he's still in Ephesus, he says, so we know it's quite a short time frame.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_06: He's only left a couple of years before, maybe, if that.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, and he is still panic churches, he's still doing his work.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_06: But our later people, people from Chloe's house, he said, have come to him in Ephesus and they've told him what's going on.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_06: And they've told him that stuff's bad, basically.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_06: And so he gets really concerned and he decides to write them a letter.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_06: And that's one Corinthians that we've got.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_06: And I think what's interesting about this is that we have quite a range of kind of parts and styles of Paul himself in this letter as well.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_06: He's not just writing deep theology, it's not just a pastoral letter to someone that he's worked with before, it's a full range of Paul.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_06: He's a theologian, but he's also a pastor.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_06: He really deeply cares about this church.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_06: He's really passionate that they see the error of their ways.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_06: He describes himself as their father.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_06: He sees himself as directly responsible for their spiritual well-being because he's the one who helped to bring them to Jesus in the first place.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_06: He draws on his personal testimony, he he constructs theological points, he uses kind of logical arguments as well.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_06: It's a really, really broad letter, and there's a lot that's in it.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_06: So the letter itself is uh the first and obviously a pair of letters that we have in our Bible, one and two Corinthians.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_06: Interestingly, they are not the only Corinthian letters.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_06: You read the text, you can see that.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_06: You know, Paul says in my previous letter, and he references the letter that you wrote me.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_06: And then in 2 Corinthians he says, you know, the previous, you know, the letter I wrote, the sort of what's he called it, the um the kind of the severe letter.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_06: He writes them a letter in between these two.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_06: There's at least four Corinthians that there were.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_06: We actually only have two and four.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_06: So underlines it's really important for us to understand the context because we're we're not even getting half the conversation, we're getting like a quarter of the conversation, and we have to piece together what's going on.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_06: Now he does obviously reference things that he said.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_06: Um, he basically um found out that stuff was going wrong, he wrote them a little letter, and then they wrote him a letter back, basically, and they asked him a whole lot of questions.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_06: And this letter, 1 Corinthians as we have it, is in response to that.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_06: So essentially, he um he gets a letter from them and he sends one back, and and spoilers, 1 Corinthians does not go down well.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_06: They are very frustrated by it, they don't like it, and so he sends when when Timothy, who's taken this letter, comes back to him, he finds out that it's not gone well.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_06: Paul goes back to Corinth, he speaks to them, and that goes even worse, and there's a big falling out, and so he writes them a really angry letter, and then is really worried about it, basically.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_06: He's he's kind of gone in, he's really gone in hard, and then eventually 2 Corinthians is when we find out that things have kind of reconciled.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_06: But there's a lot of backwards and forwards that we don't have here, so we need to be really clear about what we do have in these letters.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_06: Essentially, there's there's lots and lots to unpack, but basically, what happens in this letter is two main things.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_06: He's answering their questions and he's taking them to town on a load of problems that he's been told about.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_06: It is, you know, it's quite obvious when he's doing each thing, you know, he uses little phrases to highlight each of them, but it's a forceful, authoritative layer.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_06: He's not having a debate, he's saying this stuff is wrong, and here's why.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_06: Because of how long it is, because of how significant the theology in it is, you know, we've obviously there's a lot of contentious issues that he touches on as well.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_06: It's so important to have that context when we're reading it, because we don't want to bring our preconceptions, our cultural biases, there's probably 50 different ways of viewing the world in this room, and we're all bringing that to a letter that's 2,000 years old.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_06: We need to be really clear on what's going on at the time whilst we're reading it.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_06: Because he talks about a lot of quite specific things, cultural practices, religious perceptions, you know, theological understanding that was specific to their time, and we need to appreciate that.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_06: But the flip side is that doesn't mean that we shouldn't pay attention to what he's saying or take it seriously.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_06: This understanding just helps us to have a nuanced perspective.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_06: It is you know helping us to separate specific practice from eternal principle.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_06: There is eternal principle here, and we should try and access it, but we need to make sure that we're not confusing the two, basically.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_06: The letter itself, they're they're written here.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_06: There are five topics, basically, five main sections.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_06: Tim's gonna go through them in a minute, but they're they're broadly disunity, sex, food, church gatherings, and the resurrection.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_06: There's like uh almost like five little mini essays that the the letter is broken up into.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_06: He starts by addressing the problem, says, This is what's going on, this is bad, don't do it.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_06: And then the second half of each section, he kind of brings in some gospel and says, Don't be disunited because we're united in Christ, etc.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_06: And brings that through.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_06: So the whole letter as a whole, the theme of it is really about examining every part of life through the lens of the gospel, seeing Jesus, seeing the gospel in everything.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_06: So as we go through this letter, we we have a few things that we can hold in our minds to to sort of help us to unlock a little bit of meaning.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_06: Sometimes it's it's tricky to read a big letter, read a big book of the Bible, and just sort of feel feel your way through it.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_06: It can be quite intimidating, it can be quite tricky to understand what's going on if you don't have all this information in your head.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_06: So here's a few things that we can just have in our mind to unlock a little bit of meaning for us, to maybe get below that initial layer of meaning.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_06: He uses uh a lot of tone shifts.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_06: He speaks in lots of different tones of voice in this letter.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_06: He uses sarcasm quite a lot, and that is a slightly weird thing to see, but he's it's quite clear when you when you notice it, he's like, uh, what does he say?
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_06: He says, Already you've got all you want.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_06: You're kings already, that's amazing.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_06: You've become kings without us even helping you, how wonderful! And it's like he's just dripping with irony.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_06: Everything that he's saying is just like, guys, you're so wrong.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_06: You've not got it at all.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_06: But he's just he's using almost mockery, almost this sort of sarcastic tone of voice to highlight that.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_06: But then he also shows tenderness, he shows frustration, he shows joy, he shows fury, and a lot more.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_06: He's really feeling his feels as he's writing this letter.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_06: And I think we shouldn't, we should be careful not to just read it straight through, not to read it just word for word and not recognize those different tones of voice as we're reading, because that will get us a bit confused sometimes.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_06: Like I said, there are also lots of question responses in this letter.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_06: There are at least six that we can see that are obvious, there might be more.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_06: Um, but basically, there are a lot of times where he says something like, Now, about this, or about the letter that you're about the thing that you wrote to me about.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_06: And that means that he's directly responding to something they're asking him about, not necessarily talking about a general principle.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_06: There are general principles in there, but we need to be clear that he's speaking directly to their question rather than to something else.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_06: And these help to provide sort of useful transition moments as we go through the letter.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_06: And the final thing is that he he repeats their slogans back to them quite a lot.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_06: And if we're not catching that, it sounds confusing, it can sound like a weird sentence, but there are you know six or seven of them at least throughout the letter that he says, you know, I have the right to do anything.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_06: Food is good for the stomach, and the stomach for food, you know, we all possess knowledge.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_06: He's basically repeating something back to them and then instantly critiques it.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_06: He's presenting their best version of wisdom and saying, guys, you got it wrong.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_06: It's really you've really got it wrong.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_06: And so we've got a whole lot of information there that we don't have to remember all of that.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_06: We don't have to hold all that in our heads the whole time.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_06: But as we go through the letter, hopefully some of those things will pop up and help you to contextualize and think through what we're reading in a different way than if we just read it cold.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_06: Are there any questions or anything about all that stuff that I've I've thrown at you or are we happy to happy to move through?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_06: Fantastic.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_06: I will I will hand over to Tim now to start taking us through the letter.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_08: Um one of the things I I I trained as a as a as a scientist and as a and was a physics teacher for a while, and so I quite like looking for structure.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_08: Um and uh I think in some of the books of scripture you you can find a structure, and sometimes the what we call the innate structure uh can help you to understand a book where as the kind of when the monks sat down to write out the book the scripture, they they they put on chapters and and verses.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_08: Actually, they weren't there when the the text was originally written.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_08: Um but some sometimes the writers have a kind of structure in their mind of what they're trying to uh get as they put a book or a biography, or or even as they write a letter.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_08: And in some of Paul's letters you can see there was a bit of a structure.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_08: Um this letter's a little bit longer and kind of it kind of just it meanders a bit, but probably, as Dan said, it probably is structured around um uh five five issues that they were facing.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_08: Actually, there's five uh challenges that um Paul wanted to address because he wanted the church to be a vibrant expression of the body of Jesus uh in that particular part of the world.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_08: And and and he knew that actually if disunity was there, or if kind of inappropriate sexual activity, uh if there was um you didn't look out for one another, and and things like do with massive conscience, like food off to idols, if you didn't get that one sorted out, or your if your church gatherings were kind of chaotic, um, or if your theology, um particularly about the hope that they should have in the resurrection, some of them were thinking the resurrection already happened.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_08: Actually, Paul wants these issues to be tackled, and so um, in some ways, the the uh the book is kind of parceled around answers to those uh those questions.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_08: So um they can be seen by little comments that Paul makes in the book.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_08: So uh in chapter 1, verse 11, my brothers and sisters, uh some from Chloe's household, that's they live in in Corinth, uh have informed me that there are quarrels amongst you.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_08: Um what I mean is that one of you says, I follow Paul, another says I follow Apollos, another says I follow Cephas, that's the name for Peter, and still another, the very spiritual ones say, I follow Christ.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_08: Actually, ah, I've I've heard this, and and from what he's heard, he says actually that's it's not good enough for the body of Jesus, that isn't good enough.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_08: And he then kind of explains some things around that issue.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_08: Um in chapter five, it starts off again.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_08: He's heard something.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_08: Uh is it is actually reported that there's a there's sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even the pagans that do not tolerate.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_08: A man is sleeping with his own father's wife.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_08: Um and again, like Dan said, there was sexual activity there that was fairly free, but actually within the church there was sexual activity that even those guys that were kind of quite way out there on their sexual kind of expression thought was nothing you shouldn't be sleeping with your dad's wife.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_08: Um and it was happening in the church.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_08: So again, he he takes a report that he's heard and says, actually, this should not be happening in the church and uh expands on what how we should respond.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_08: Um uh again, kind of be careful, however, that you exercise your rights does not become a stumbling block for the weak.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_08: Actually, kind of those thought, oh I I've got this knowledge, I've got this, I've got this understanding around food offering to idols, and it's not going to touch me, and there's people with slightly weaker consciences, and it is really affecting them, and and oh, I we don't care.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_08: And Paul says, actually, you you have to care, you've got to be careful about kind of how people treat uh issues that are again for some they feel it's definitely I'm following Jesus, and this is definitely the case, and some people say, Well, I'm following Jesus too, and I'm not quite sure it is the case, and and how do you handle that kind of tensions?
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_08: And we find those tensions still in the church today, and how do we navigate those and how do we make sure that we don't become a stumbling block for those that uh um have got issues?
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_08: Um uh yeah, chapters 11 to 14.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_08: Um, in the following directives, I have no praise for you.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_08: You know, you guys kind of I've heard this, and I've I've got do you know what?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_08: I've just lost I've got nothing nice to say about you.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_08: I've got no praise for you.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_08: Uh your meetings are doing more harm than good.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_08: Do you know what?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_08: Your church is supposed to meet together and you're supposed to bless one another, encourage one another.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_08: And do you know what I've heard?
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_08: It's chaos, and people are gonna be leaving church on Sunday in tears.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_08: They're kind of actually it's doing more harm than good.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_08: What on earth is going on?
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_08: Let me give you some advice.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_08: And again, he'll then explain some of the things that uh how a church gathering should should work that people uh are noticed and cared for and aren't overlooked and aren't marginalized.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_08: Um, and then uh when about theology.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_08: Um uh chapter 15, verse 12.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_08: How can some of you say that there's no resurrection from the dead?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_08: Go, ah, how did you reach that conclusion?
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_08: Let me tell you some things around what's gonna happen when the resurrection happens.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_08: And again, there's chapter 15, it's a great little chapter uh about death and resurrection and the impact of Jesus' life as first fruit uh for us.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_08: So um as we go through uh this uh these four weeks, uh you notice there's there's five um uh five things there.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_08: Uh uh we're gonna do disunity today, we're gonna do uh uh sex and food off to idols next week, we're gonna do gatherings uh on the third week, and we're gonna look at um uh resurrection theology and particularly an emphasis around love that uh appears towards the end of the book.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_08: Um other little kind of motifs or other little phrases that appear, um uh like Dan said, kind of Paul five times says, now about this, kind of now about virgins, now about food of tribal, now about spiritual gifts, now about the collection for the for Jerusalem, now about our brother Paulus.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_08: And kind of there's obviously a little bit of the conversation going on, and uh he says, in the way the letter goes through, he wants to make sure that he doesn't miss some points.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_08: So, oh yes, I finished that.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_08: Now about this, and now about this, and now about this, and and uh there's things that he wants to try and communicate.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_08: So again, look out for little phrases like that.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_08: Um and again, um this phrase occurs ten times.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_08: Uh don't you know?
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_08: Don't you know?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_08: Don't you know, don't you know?
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_08: Actually, I I was there, I helped plant the church.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_08: I thought I'd made it clear, and don't you know that there's that this is supposed to be what Christians follow Jesus should do and should be believing, and um so uh those ten places uh say particularly in chapter six, he goes on a bit of a uh rant on you should be knowing this stuff and you're not.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_08: Um so uh again, a little clue as you read through the book that helps us to see what Paul is trying uh to communicate.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_08: Um to say that uh if you want these notes, uh we'll email them through uh on Thursday.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_08: Uh if you want them, I know some of you have signed in.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_08: Uh if you haven't signed in, I'll put a QR code up at the end of the session.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_08: And if you sign up, if you click the QR code, sign up, uh then the audio and the notes from each session will uh we'll email them to you uh on the Thursday afterwards.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_08: So um again, if you miss one of the four, uh hopefully you'll be able to catch up.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_08: It's okay.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_08: Um so that's kind of the any structure that there is, that's kind of the structure there is to the to the book.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_08: Um any any questions that you talked about in your little group before we uh dig into those first four chapters or any comments.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um they after one day after.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: And they were left as we found.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_08: So so there's a council, well, a number of different councils.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_08: Um uh and w when the Christianity spread through the kind of the the Roman Empire, um uh different churches held different kind of writings as as sacred.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_08: Uh so they had a number of councils where they kind of got people from the the kind of all over the the then known world and said, uh, in your particular church, which bits of things do you think are God inspired?
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_08: And they just kind of went right everybody and and kind of to cut a long story short, probably the bits that everybody regarded as God's word were taken to be God's word.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_08: And bits that kind of oh you you look at the gospel of Thomas, so no no, we don't look at Thomas and actually kind of okay, we won't count Thomas as as uh inspired, but we will, because every church thinks that this letter or this gospel is uh dates back to the near the time of Jesus and uh its its authorship can kind of be vaguely kind of ratified, um uh it came down to the uh 27 uh uh books that we we have now in the New Testament.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_08: Uh so Corinthians would have gone through that kind of process as well.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: Does that, sorry, just following on from it, does that then mean why perhaps the the first and the third letters of the Corinthians actually weren't included because actually it was considered that maybe the two and four were the the real meaty ones?
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, or it could be or or or like I said, maybe they they just kind of got got lost.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_08: And and whereas kind of if someone writes a letter and there's something about it that is got inspired, it probably has a resonance to it that you think, actually we need this is God's word to us.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_08: Actually, we need to keep hold of this.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_08: Whereas if there was a letter that was, and particularly when the his angry letter kind of that thing, actually, ah, we ought to kill this one, or or maybe there wasn't something.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_08: When Paul says, sometimes he says, I say this and it's the Lord, and I say this and it's and it's me.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_08: Um, and I think even for Paul, he felt sometimes that when he was speaking, he was f he was inspired by when he was speaking.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_08: Sometimes he was just passing on some general good common advice, and uh, and maybe it was kind of the the bits that were held, particularly for those two or three hundred years, actually maybe the bits of people felt, oh no, that's it this kind of resonates with what we know about Jesus and uh and what we kind of uh understand in our relationship.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_08: This is kind of the Holy Spirit probably, and there was probably a bit of that going on, but it wasn't just a an intellectual exercise.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_08: Any other questions or comments?
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_08: Yes, yeah.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_08: Um it is quite it's quite early on.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_08: Um uh again, the the gospels, I mean obviously Luke travel with Paul, so Luke who wrote the Gospels, kind of so uh there was obviously something going on uh with the Gospel accounts that particularly Luke had gathered together that that was being put together even when Paul was was on his missionary journeys.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_08: Now, whether it wasn't published or wasn't recognized until uh a few a decade or so later, uh I I think those gospels were starting to do the rounds uh even at this time.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_15: Um secondly, are there sort of many old copies of printing?
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_08: Sorry?
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_15: Are there many old copies?
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_08: I I must know I I I don't know.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_08: I don't know about that.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_08: Uh something you can ask ChatGPT or something.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_08: Um great.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_08: Okay, folks.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_08: So what we're gonna try and do is for the next kind of 20 minutes or so, we we're just gonna try and do those first four chapters.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_08: Okay, 20 minutes, four chapters, five minutes a chapter.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_08: We're not gonna go super deep.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_08: Is that okay?
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_08: Just in case you wanted to go for a verse by verse, we're we're not gonna have a chance to do that.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_08: And when we decided to do one Corinthians and realised 16 chapters, uh, we weren't gonna be able to do kind of every verse, every bit.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_08: Um, but what we want to do is give you enough for each bit for when you go away and read it for yourself, you think, oh yeah, I can see why this hangs together, I see why this bit is here.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_08: So so uh for these first four chapters, I'm just gonna give you sort of a little bit of something that will help you to navigate.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_08: So when you go to study for yourself, like that workman that knows how to handle the word of God correctly, actually, here's a few little tips and few little hints that will help you.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_04: Excuse me.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_08: So I I read from the NIV because it reads quite nicely.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_08: Well, when I study, actually, I've got a study Bible that it's not within, but I I use the NASB um uh New American Standard version.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_08: Um again, it it's it tries to be a bit more um consistent to the original languages, but it doesn't scan so well in the so I tend to use the uh NRB part there, which which will be the the the the what will be on the screen as well.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_08: Um okay so um the first ten verses of chapter chapter one are an introduction.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_08: Um so it's kind of when you write a letter, there's a little introduction before you get on to the to the main kind of content of what you want to say.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_08: And I suppose in that introduction, you kind of set um you set a tone, you set the scene for the rest of the book.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_08: Um and again, I I'm not a super um biblical scholar, but I I do like, I do love the Bible.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_08: And uh one of the things that I do when I come to study a book is are there any words that appear very frequently in a Bible passage?
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_08: Because if if a particular word appears a lot of times within a few verses, actually that's probably what the person is trying to get at.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_08: So even if I can't understand exactly what's being said, if I look for common words within that, I'll probably get, oh, that's probably what you're trying to say.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_08: So in these um uh first few verses uh of chapter one, actually uh you'll notice that Christ Jesus uh appears um uh I think it's nine times within the first ten verses.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_08: Um if he talks about Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus uh nine times in ten verses, actually he's probably wanted to talk about Jesus Christ.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_08: So uh so sometimes, again in my Bible, I I will uh if I find words that appear frequently, I'll just kind of underline them.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_08: Uh so that when I come and read it next time, I'll think, oh, why is that underlined?
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_08: Oh, it's because Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus, appears so much.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_08: Actually, he must be wanted to talk about Jesus.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_08: Um he talks about uh he's an apostle of Christ Jesus, that uh we are sanctified, kind of uh in Christ Jesus.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_08: We uh we are the ones who called on the name of Christ Jesus.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_08: Actually, uh grace and peace to you from who?
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_08: The Lord Jesus.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_08: Uh grace that is given to you in Christ Jesus.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_08: Um, again, through from 7 through 11, another four times um we eagerly wait for who?
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_08: Our Lord Jesus uh to be revealed.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_08: Uh that you'll be blameless on the day of the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_08: Uh you're called into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ, and I appeal to you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_08: So as he introduces this thing, actually, the main thing that's on his mind is Jesus Christ.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_08: Now you might think as you go through the letter, the main thing in his mind is putting them right.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_08: The main thing is correcting all their bad, naughty behavior.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_08: Actually, at the start, he wants to say, actually, why I'm writing this letter, it's because of Jesus.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_08: Jesus who I love, Jesus who I kind of thought that you loved, Jesus who I'm trying to follow, I'm trying to imitate.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_08: Um, he says later on in the letter, follow my example.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_08: As I follow the example of Christ, actually, there's something about following Jesus that's the most important thing.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_08: Now, if you get following Jesus right at the start, right at the beginning, then all the practical things I'm going to be talking about in this rest of this letter, actually, they're in the context of it's Jesus.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_08: It's not about a certain code, a certain practice, a certain religious way of doing things.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_08: Actually, there's something about who Jesus is, what Jesus has done for you, all that was achieved this death and resurrection, that actually that's what I'm obsessed with.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_08: Actually, that's what you should be obsessed with.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_08: And if you're obsessed with Jesus in the same way, and you follow the example that I'm setting you as I'm trying to follow Jesus my whole life, uh then here's some of the consequences of a life that's yielded uh to Jesus.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_08: Um and I think for me that's just probably one of the most important things in the book is when I read it, does it draw me closer to Jesus, or does it just give me a moral framework to try and navigate my life a bit better, to be a nicer person?
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_08: Actually, is there something about this book that's that when Paul starts off is actually I I so desperately want you to follow Jesus?
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_08: Even just look at me and just my frail example, as I follow Jesus, just follow kind of a bit of what I'm doing, because that's the way to live.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_08: And he knew that there were certain strategic cities like Ephesus and like Corinth, that if the um if the life of Jesus ceased to be active there, then the impact of the gospel through the then-known world would be reduced.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_08: Because of the trade that was going north to south across that thin bit of land, and the trade that was going east to west through the harbours, through that bit of land, actually, if the life of Jesus was so visible and evident in the life of those believers, then just naturally, as tradespeople went past and they encountered Jesus through that church, actually the good news of Jesus would migrate by osmosis through the then known world.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_08: But that was dependent on the church being following Jesus, a Christ-like, Jesus-honouring kind of church, and it seemed to be it wasn't.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_08: So his first introduction is, guys, it's about Jesus.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_08: I'm not going to try and tell you off and put you right because you've upset me.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_08: Actually, it's because of who Jesus is and what Jesus is up to.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_08: And so the deal is that kind of when we look at the first thing, actually, the deal's about Jesus.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_08: Why have you got factions in your church?
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_08: Why is the church disunited?
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_08: Why do some people do?
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_08: I really love when Dave Mitchell preaches, or I really love it when Claire preaches, or I kind of, and and and and of course we can have our different preferences, but actually when those preferences become a following, when actually now, well, I'm definitely uh this kind of I'm definitely kind of uh an independent free evangelical, I'm definitely New Frontiers, I'm definitely vineyard, I'm definitely kind of, and and I follow Terry Burger, or whatever it is that you kind of there used to be a lot more factions around the new church than there are fortunately now.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_08: But actually what was happening was that you should be the church that's loving Jesus and following Jesus, and and and and Jesus prayed for the body to be united and to be one, and and you're not expressing that.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_08: In fact, you've you've gone after your own little popular heroes, and and somehow you're setting one up against the other, and and actually they're all apostles who are trying to just do their best to serve Jesus, and somehow you've made them into being uh people that they shouldn't be, and you're dividing.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_08: And so disunity was something that actually that's really important.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_08: It was one of Jesus' prayers, kind of in the last kind of uh week of his life, he just prayed that the church be one, why, that the world might know that uh God sent him into this world, and here they weren't one, they were disunited, and and so his first thing when we're talking about Jesus is actually his body needs to be united, and you're disunited.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_08: Now, what's again fascinates me is that when he talks about disunity, you might think, well, okay, what's the solution?
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_08: Uh what theological point will he make to counteract disunity?
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_08: And it might think, well, he's he's going to talk about bearing with one another, he's going to talk about having the same mind in Christ Jesus.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_08: Actually, he again, if you look at the passage, um uh, and again I've scribbled under words actually in my Bible, actually the word power, the word wisdom, actually occurs at so many times during in this passage.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_08: It talks about About the foolishness of the cross.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_08: But to us who are being saved is the power of God.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_08: The wisdom of the wise.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_08: Where is the wise person?
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_08: Okay, in Corinth, where there's all these different groups that you would follow, different debaters and rabbis that you would kind of gather around, and oh, he's wisest, and he's the best, and he's the one that ever.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_08: Well, kind of, where's the wise person?
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_08: Where's the teacher of the law?
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_08: Where are the philosophers of this age?
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_08: Kind of, kind of, um, has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_08: Uh for since the wisdom of God, uh for since in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased with the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believed.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_08: So why, and um again, haven't got time to go through it all.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_08: But when you talk about disunity, why did he spend the best part of two chapters talking about wisdom and foolishness and power and weakness?
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_08: What's that got to do with disunity?
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_08: Two or three minutes in your groups?
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_08: Why do you think, when he tries to address disunity, why does he talk about wisdom and contrasting the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God and talk about the strength of God and the strength of the world and the weakness of God and the foolishness of the cross?
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_08: Why what's that got to do with the issue that's at hand, which is disunity?
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_08: See if you can come up with some ideas.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_08: Okay, two or three minutes in a small with the people near to you.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_08: If each of these sections, Paul raises an issue and gives a theological kind of answer to that issue, uh, why in the thing of disunity, why does he talk for the best part of two chapters about the contrast between wisdom uh and foolishness, uh power and weakness?
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_08: Any any thoughts that people had?
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_08: There's no right or wrong answers, just I I did hear you talking, so I can't I know you were saying something.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_13: I was saying that I think he he's making it apparent that because obviously if there's a faction, each faction's gonna think they're wiser than the other one.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_13: Yeah, and he's making the point that they're no wiser than each other, and God's wiser, and you should be following him, yeah.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_13: Think you're better than each other.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_08: So in the in the vying for disunity, actually, what tends to surf is that people think oh that they're cleverer, they're wiser, they've got some secret information, secret wisdom, whatever, and then they have, and and and actually he's just paused to say, actually, there's the only wisdom is God's wisdom.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_08: Actually, if you think you've got some wisdom of your own, actually it's foolishness, kind of so um, yeah.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_08: Any anyone else?
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, Johnny.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_12: I I wonder it's just a problem we see today, without having critical judgment uh of leaders, if you're a strong leader or a powerful leader, whatever you say goes, and you can you can easily influence people who aren't prepared to say, dang it, that's not what we were, that's not what we were taught.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_12: Is that is that right?
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_12: Yeah.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_12: Is that wrong?
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_12: Yeah.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_08: Yes, yeah.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_08: And sometimes the human power that's at work can on the dark side can be manipulative, can, and and somehow that they there can be a um, and I think probably the the culture there, eloquent speakers who had the rhetoric, who had the uh ability to hold a crowd, somehow there there was a a power that seemed to be with them that you think, oh they hold the crowd.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_08: Apollos, he's an eloquent speaker, it says that kind of uh uh oh yeah, we'd much rather have Apollos.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_08: When he speaks, it kind of moves my heart.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_08: And there can be a little a kind of a power to the oratory that's there.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, David, yeah.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_04: Uh yeah, so just to add to both those, in verse 10 of chapter one, it's the right brothers and sisters in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that you all agree with one another in what you say and there be no divisions.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_03: Some sort of common theory.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_03: Especially the early nature of the church.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_08: That's how that's yeah, that's helpful.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_08: Um I think it's interesting, isn't it, that uh to have the same mind as one another, um uh again ultimately that should be the the wisdom of God.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_08: That's the mystery that kind of actually, if you can somehow together discover the the mystery of God, and that's the the mind and the heavenly wisdom rather than the human wisdom that can be peddled, kind of so having the same mind is not having the mind of the most powerful speaker or the one who's got the cleverest way to argue a point.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_08: Uh it's actually how do we discern the a wisdom that's from heaven, that's that's a uh a heavenly wisdom rather than just a human wisdom that can can be to do with oratory or clever words or uh a great educational background uh that that comes with power of its own.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_08: Anybody anybody else got yeah.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_11: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_11: Yeah.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_11: Yeah.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_14: So it's it's it's but that's that that foolish message is what God's using to say the word.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_08: And when we yield to that foolish message, uh it's nothing to do with us.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_08: It's the it's the it's the the message that's kind of the the Jews looking for a sign and the Greeks want wisdom and and the cross kind of well it's uh it's offensive and it's foolishness, but actually there's something about when we find the reality and the truth of the cross, that should be the unifying thing.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_08: But it's it's a it's a it's it's mystery, it looks like foolishness, and we're in a culture that does clever well and does wisdom well, and actually we're we're uniting around a crucified messiah who who uh again the Roman execution of a of a peasant from nowhere, uh, and yet we're united around him that is that looks like foolishness, but actually the wisdom of God's been made known through him.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_08: Any other thoughts?
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um likening it to you know, the the the ways of the world is to say I'm wiser than you, yeah, I'm smarter than you.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I you know, that's I I'm better than you essentially.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_02: A bit like in in this culture out in the world, you know, in the sense of I've got a better house than what else what these guys are doing.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_08: Yes, you know, yeah.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_08: And and and and Paul said actually, unity you when you go for your own pride, your own wisdom, your own kind of, or even you put somebody up on a so I'm sure that that that Paul didn't want to have a faction following him, or that Peter didn't want to have a faction, but actually it's something about the human nature of the worldiness of what they were doing that Paul was trying to uh address.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_08: Um just because of time, so so when you get to read chapter one and two again, again, what yeah, wisdom and power, how do those two things work?
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_08: And how, when you have a right understanding, should it lead to a radically united Jesus-following body?
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_08: Um, and again, how do we need to rewrite something of what the world says is wisdom and what the world says is strength?
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_08: And we find the folly of God is better than any wisdom of a man.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_08: Um chapter three.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_08: Um chapter three, he he kind of he he takes kind of um you should be Jesus following, you've been uh divided, uh, and then he goes on and says to them, brothers and sisters, I I could address you, uh I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit, but as people who are still worldly, merely infants in Christ.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_08: I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_08: Indeed, you're still not ready for it, you're still worldly.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_08: And since there is jealousy and chorus amongst you, are you not worldly?
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_08: And and again, he's just trying to say, now I've I've given you some some theory, but actually, if you just look at your practice, if you look at your practice, actually it betrays the fact that Jesus hasn't sunk deeply into your heart.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_08: It's betrayed the fact that you just want the milk, you just want the good stuff.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_08: I want to be forgiven, I want to know God's Heavenly Father, I want to kind of have my past be put straight, kind of, but do I really want Jesus to be Lord?
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_08: Do I really want Jesus to affect my choices and my actions?
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_08: And actually, I just want the milk, I just want the love and I just want the grace, I just want the forgiveness, I just want kind of that stuff.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_08: And Paul says, actually, but no, you should be onto solid food.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_08: It's wonderful to know that Jesus, your Saviour, has rescued you, saved you, but there's a deal of Jesus being your Lord, which is a wrestle that you need to submit to him.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_08: And he's saying, actually, you're just going back for the milk.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_08: Now there's nothing wrong with the milk, but life is more than that.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_08: Stop being infants, don't be babies, grow up.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_08: Actually, and and the wrestle of how do I let Jesus be Lord of my thoughts, my dreams, my ambitions, my hopes, my relationships, my my money, kind of uh my career.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_08: Uh yielding to Jesus is where the solid food comes in because that's where we have to kind of really chew on God's word and how does it really work, how does it really happen.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_08: Um, so uh chapter three kind of he says so so the process of helping you to become more like Jesus to be growing up, actually, it does need people to help you to grow up.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_08: So I did plant seeds.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_08: There wasn't, I said, that was like seeds were planted in your life.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_08: Actually, when Apollos came and he did his he did his stuff, actually it was like he was watering some of the biblical Jesus seeds that I've put in your life.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_08: But actually, in the end of the day, it's not the person who sows the seed, it's not the person that waters and digs up the weeds, actually, it's God that causes the growth.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_08: And I I know that in my little garden, I know that.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_08: I can plant the seeds, I can water it, I can do, but actually I can do nothing to make those plants grow.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_08: It's God who does that.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_08: And so he's trying to say to them, kind of, um, of course there are ministries that happen, but don't big them up, kind of, or don't take factions.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_08: Actually, they they do happen, but actually, in the end, it is God.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_08: It's his wisdom, it's his life that's that's there.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_08: Um and again, we're not in competition, we're God's fellow workers.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_08: We are in, we are God's field, we are God's building.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_08: He moves from agriculture to temple uh imagery here.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_08: He says, actually, we we're all part of the harvest, we're planting seeds and we're seeing the growth, but actually we are God's building.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_08: Um and by grace that God gave to me, Paul says, actually, I did lay the foundations.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_08: Now, when the building's built, actually you don't see the foundations, do you?
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_08: You'll see the building.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_08: And so actually, it might be that if Apollos built on Paul's foundations, actually you might think, oh great, Apollos, he did this, but actually Paul said, I laid the foundations as a wise builder.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_08: Actually, and someone else has built on it.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_08: Um, but actually, but we're both doing the work.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_08: We're both doing the work of building uh the temple.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_08: And um and and again, you are the temple.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_08: Again, this image that Paul quite often refers to, don't you know that you yourself are God's temple, God's spirit lives amongst you.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_08: If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_08: Now, who was destroying the temple at the moment?
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_08: It was the disunity, it was the faction.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_08: If they together were the temple, living stones together, and they were being pulled apart, it was those people.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_08: Paul said, actually, it's you that kind of, and don't you know that God will destroy the person?
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_08: For God's temple is sacred, and you together are the temple.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_08: So don't go around being disunited, it's like you're kind of tearing the building apart.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_08: Um uh chapter four and chapter nine, uh just kind of little kind of slide uh where he talks about the role of an apostle or his his rights as an apostle.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_08: So chapter four and chapter nine, when we'll look at that in a couple weeks' time, he he does say about the role and the state of the apostles there in this victory prep sessions.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_08: They were the last kind of at the back of the of the of the crowd.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_08: And he talks about um uh not having many fathers in the faith.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_08: But I I I planted the church, it was cast right there when the church gave birth.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_08: I was right beside you.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_08: Uh uh, it was me that kind of looks like a father.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_08: Um, and again, he finishes by saying the kingdom of God is not a matter of talking, it's not eloquence, it's not clever words, actually, it came with power.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_08: When I preached the gospel, it I kind of came slightly nervous, and but when I preached, actually there was power.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_08: There's power maybe with signs following, with miracles, but certainly the power of lives that were transformed, lives that were set free from darkness, lives that encountered God for the first time.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_08: Uh, and so he finishes this chapter on disunity by saying, actually, disunity is often around talk.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_08: What's your particular theological view on this, and what's my particular particular moral stance on this?
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_08: Actually, it's the kingdom's not to do just talking, it's to do with is there is the power of Jesus at work in your life?
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_08: Is the power of Jesus at work amongst us to rescue, to save, to heal?
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_08: Uh and if it's just talking, we've got an issue.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_08: The Kingdom of God's not to do with that.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_08: Um chapter one to four.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_08: A little help maybe when you're going to read it.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_08: Um any questions or comments um before we do our little meditation reflection a bit?
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_08: Anything on those first four chapters that people would like to ask at all?
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_07: Sorry, is there is there other interpretations for the DL?
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_08: Um I I think I think Paul does mention in a number of his letters the fact that like like we're we're being built together like a temple.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_08: So that the temple in the Old Testament was the place that God who's everywhere was somewhere.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_08: And they built a tabernacle and then they built a temple.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_08: And and people knew that although God was kind of everywhere, they knew that when they went to the temple, God was definitely there.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_08: That was like his home.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_08: Um, and when Jesus was on the earth, the God who was everywhere was somewhere.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_08: Jesus was there, and and he said that destroy this temple and I'll rebuild it again in three days.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_08: But he wasn't talking about the stones, he was talking about his own body.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_08: And but then when Paul says that now we are the temple of God, actually, it's kind of where is the God who's everywhere?
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_08: He should be somewhere.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_08: Actually, he should be where we meet together.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_08: When we meet together, people should come in and say, God is amongst you, because we are like in our relational connections with one another, in our fellowship, kind of we should be being built together to be a space where it's a temple.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_08: It's like the God who's everywhere is somewhere.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_08: People who wander in through those doors on a Sunday, you hope they're going to encounter God because we're worshipping and we're loving and we're caring and we're uh fellowshipping in a way that represents the life of Jesus.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_08: So, in some ways, that that imagery of people being built together to form a spiritual house is one that Paul does refer to in other letters as well.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_08: Good.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_05: Um hi guys.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_05: Uh so yeah, just as Tim said, I think 10 minutes now, um, I'm sure lots of this has already kind of hit your heart.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_05: Um when we open God's word, that that's often what happens.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but yeah, an opportunity maybe for us to get some of that head stuff uh into our heart.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_05: And I want to start with a question.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_05: Have you guys ever had a moment where you've seen someone do something and you've thought that's kind of strange, or not really sure why they're doing that, and you've thought, do they know something I don't?
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_05: Do they know something that I should know?
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_05: Is there something behind as a reason why they're doing that?
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_05: Um and when I when I was a teacher, uh I uh used to take a group of 70 year sevens, I say used to, like I did it all the time, it was two years, but uh a group of year sevens over to Normandy um on a school trip, uh, and we'd go on the ferry over on the ferry on the way back.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_05: And on the ferry on on the way back last time, I we got on the ferry, and immediately I was like, I'm going up outside onto the top deck.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_05: Sitting outside, it was raining uh and wet and cold, and I'm pretty sure all the kids thought, what is Mr.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_05: Wark doing?
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_05: This is crazy, why is he doing that?
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_05: But I knew something that they didn't.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_05: I'd been there the year before, I'd been on this exact ferry and this exact route, and I knew it had a nickname.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_05: It was called the Vomit Rocket.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_05: And so there was a reason I went straight up to the deck outside, and one by one, after they'd filled themselves with sweets and the sweets had come back out again, they would make their way up to the top deck and start to realise, oh, that's why you were sitting out here.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_05: And I tried to warn them.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but they should have asked, does Mr.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_05: Wark know something that I don't?
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_05: And as followers of Jesus and as the church, I wonder, should we be living in a way or should we be giving off?
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_05: Thanks, Tim.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_05: Uh the the way we act, should that be making people ask?
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_05: Should do they know something that I don't?
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_05: Do those people in that church, do they know something I don't?
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_05: And as 21st century Christians reading this letter, what we've just kind of looked through, um, a letter where Paul is saying to the to the people in that church, you're living in a way that is assuming to this culture, you're living in a way that you shouldn't be.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_05: What do we need to take from that?
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and I want to suggest it would be great for us to be able to ask, what does it look like to follow Jesus in a way that makes people ask questions?
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_05: And as we've already covered a bit off, I think Paul gives us some some clues in that, it's being unified in Christ and being wise in Christ.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_05: So, as again, Tim's already picked up on a big theme throughout these chapters is unity.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_05: It's it's church is being divided and they're quarreling, they're saying this leader's the best, this leader's the best.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_05: And there's a real challenge for us and a real encouragement for us here as well.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_05: I think the challenge is is Jesus the highest authority in our lives?
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_05: Is Jesus the one we're looking to for all the answers?
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_05: For the church in Corinth, I could imagine that if that question was put to them, the gut reaction answer would want to be, yeah, of course it is.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_05: But clearly, according to Paul, this church, some of these people, they're more worried about being in the right theological camp or the following the right leader.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_05: And Paul's saying, it's not really Jesus that you're following, it's me, or it's Apollos.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_05: If Jesus is the highest authority in our lives, we won't divide ourselves from other Christians over secondary issues or over opinions like that.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_05: Are we able to say with full honesty that I love, I care for, I pray for that church over there, those Christians over there?
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_05: Or do we secretly find ourselves thinking the way they worship is a little bit crazy?
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_05: Or they're a little bit stiff, or their theology is a bit off.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_05: And I don't know about you you guys, but for me, the issue isn't so much within Bristol wanting to love or loving the Christians here, but it's when I go online and I see stuff that Christians are saying online or posting, uh, that's when I think this challenge hits home for me.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_05: Because I think so often I see something and I and I'm thinking, thank you God that I'm not like that, rather than there's my brother and sister that I want to pray for.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_05: So is our posture one of wanting to be united with every Christian, despite our disagreements, or does unity look like everyone agreeing with me?
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_05: And as uh Tim has helpfully pointed out there, Paul mentions Jesus Christ nine times.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_05: We know that means that he's saying for him, Jesus is the highest authority in my life.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_05: Jesus should be the highest authority in ours too.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_05: So that's the challenge, and it's challenged me uh reading this.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_05: The encouragement, I think, is as the church, if we get this right, if we get unity right, what a witness to the world.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_05: Because I don't know about you, but I think what everyone is experiencing in the world, maybe particularly in the West right now, is fracturing division.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_05: Um take it on the authority of a Northern Irishman who's we are experts in division.
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_05: Uh this is what division looks like.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_05: This is just a day going on the news, and you you know what it's like.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_05: At the moment, things feel like a bit of a nightmare.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_05: But what would it look like for someone outside the church to be looking on this and saying Western politics is so divided?
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_05: To be saying people can't.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_05: Seem to agree over who's the right politician.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_05: People can't even seem to agree over whether we should be going to war or not, or what side to be on.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_05: But what are the church doing?
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_05: The church are loving one another.
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_05: What if what people, the first thing people saw about the church was they love one another?
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_05: And that's what Jesus wanted, isn't it?
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_05: We we know this verse from John 13.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_05: By this everyone will know you're my disciples.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_05: It's not that we're deep in scripture every morning and night, it's not that we're our we've got our hands high in worship or we're kneeling or we're always at church.
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_05: It's you love one another.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_05: So what does it look like to follow Jesus in a way that makes people ask questions?
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_05: I think one thing it certainly looks like is unity in a world of division.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_05: And how can we actually be united?
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_05: And this is, I think, why Paul goes on to talk about being wise in Christ.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_05: It seems like a diversion, or it seemed to me when I first read it like a diversion into, oh, he's talking about unity, now he's talking about wisdom.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_05: But again, as Tim was saying, it's a train of thought.
• 1:07:13
  SPEAKER_05: Rejecting the wisdom of the world and embracing the wisdom of God is part of what unity looks like.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_05: If we pull up uh those verses again that Tim was was looking at, um Paul says, whatever they're doing over there, whatever they want, we preach Christ crucified.
• 1:07:31
  SPEAKER_05: That's the core of the gospel, Jesus on the cross and what he's done for us, and we unite over that.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_05: And to the world, as I think someone here was saying, that looks crazy, doesn't it?
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_05: It looks absolutely crazy that we worship a God that came down to be a human, died on the cross, and we say that's who we want to follow.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_05: But we know something that they don't.
• 1:07:57
  SPEAKER_05: We know the cross is the center point of all of history, it's the one point the redemption of all of creation turns upon, where everything turned, it was going down and now it's going up.
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_05: And Paul's demonstrating something in these verses really quickly that I absolutely love about the gospel.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and I don't want to just give you more information, uh, but I can't help myself.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_05: I love that he's doing something called that we now call subversive fulfillment.
• 1:08:25
  SPEAKER_05: I'm sure he didn't call it that.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but this is something that the gospel is always doing, the cross is always doing.
• 1:08:31
  SPEAKER_05: It's taking our longings, the things that we want, the things that the world wants, and it's saying, you're looking for that in the wrong place.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_05: And actually, the way you're expressing that is wrong, but you can find it in Jesus.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_05: It says the Jews demand signs, they're looking for a power to be demonstrated.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_05: Jesus says, You're not going to find signs the way you want them.
• 1:08:55
  SPEAKER_05: That's not true power.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_05: It's not people riding in with an army.
• 1:08:59
  SPEAKER_05: That's not where your salvation's coming from.
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_05: It's the powerful one dying on the cross for the weak.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_05: He gives them power.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_05: The Greeks want wisdom.
• 1:09:09
  SPEAKER_05: Jesus says it's not philosophy and eloquence.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_05: He shows it's not philosophy and eloquence.
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_05: He fulfills their longing in giving them true wisdom, which Paul says at the end of this little section is our righteousness, our holiness, and our redemption in him.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_05: And I think we need to ask the question that's what the Jews and the Greeks were looking for.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_05: What are people looking for today?
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_05: And how does Jesus fulfill that?
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_05: And there are so many things we could do.
• 1:09:39
  SPEAKER_05: One thing I want to suggest is I think people are looking for inclusivity.
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_05: They want to feel included, they want to be told you're part of our group, but at the same time, they want to stand out for who they are.
• 1:09:53
  SPEAKER_05: I think people want to say, I want to be authentically me, but I want you to accept me as I am.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_05: And for those people submitting to a crucified Jesus, joining a group of people who recognize that there are things about us that need to change, and so we're gonna die to that sin and lay it down, and we're gonna change, and we're all gonna come under this one name of the Lord Jesus, that looks like foolishness.
• 1:10:18
  SPEAKER_05: There someone who says, I want to be me, and I want you to accept me for me.
• 1:10:24
  SPEAKER_05: But we know something they don't.
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_05: We know that the church is the only truly inclusive community that says, no matter what your sin is, doesn't stop you coming here.
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_05: It says, Christ crucified has opened the door for you.
• 1:10:39
  SPEAKER_05: The church is the only community who loves you as you are, but loves you more than that, loves you enough to want to not leave you as you are.
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_05: And people are longing for many other things and encourage you to keep thinking over that.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_05: What does Jesus say in that situation?
• 1:10:57
  SPEAKER_05: So we need to be unified in Christ, we need to be wise in Christ.
• 1:11:01
  SPEAKER_05: I think that is how we can stand up, out, stand out.
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_05: And the crux of this, Paul brings it through that we didn't really look at there.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_05: And at the end of chapter two, he talks about the spirit so many times.
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_05: It's like spirit, spirit, spirit, spirit.
• 1:11:14
  SPEAKER_05: I think it's the most amount of times that the spirit is mentioned in a little section in scripture.
• 1:11:19
  SPEAKER_05: Because I think he's saying it's only by the spirit that we can see the power and wisdom of God.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_05: And I love this, because it so crucially he finishes chapter two with this little line in verse 16, that we have the mind of Christ.
• 1:11:38
  SPEAKER_05: So we thought about this earlier.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_05: We want to be perfectly united in mind and thought.
• 1:11:43
  SPEAKER_05: How else could millions of people, the global church, who don't even know each other, be perfectly united in mind and thought, except we have the Spirit who gives us the mind of Christ, who helps us to see all things through the lens of the cross.
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_05: So, what does it look like to follow Jesus in a way that makes people ask questions?
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_05: It probably looks like lots of things, but one thing I think it definitely looks like is living by a wisdom that says a crucified man on a cross is the most powerful moment in all of history.
• 1:12:17
  SPEAKER_05: And we want to live like that.
• 1:12:19
  SPEAKER_05: We want to live lives that look like we are serving being crucified for others, to die to ourselves every day.
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_05: And if the church is living by this wisdom, if we're humble and our eyes are fixed on Jesus and the spirit is uniting our minds, because we have the mind of Christ, then people are gonna look at us and they're gonna think, they are fools.
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_05: But we hope that they also might look at us and think, do they know something that I don't?
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_05: I'd love to finish uh by praying, but that's okay.
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_05: Lord Jesus, what can we do but thank you for the cross?
• 1:13:03
  SPEAKER_05: What can we do but thank you for the ultimate picture of love?
• 1:13:08
  SPEAKER_05: And the ultimate picture of power and wisdom.
• 1:13:13
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you for giving us the spirit that gives us the mind of Christ.
• 1:13:18
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you that it is possible for us to disagree and still be unified.
• 1:13:24
  SPEAKER_05: And thank you that we don't need to worry about looking like fools to the rest of the world because we have the wisdom of God.
• 1:13:33
  SPEAKER_05: And Lord, we pray that our friends, our family, our communities, that they would look at us, look at our church, our churches, and say, Do they have something that's making me question?
• 1:13:47
  SPEAKER_05: Do they know something that I don't?
• 1:13:51
  SPEAKER_05: All these things in your name we pray, Jesus.
• 1:13:54
  SPEAKER_09: Amen.