TRUE PARTNERSHIP REQUIRES SAME FAITH Paul’s warning does not mean separatism. He is not advising that we avoid unbelievers. In the previous chapter, Paul had just written about being entrusted with the “message of reconciliation,” so this requires engaging with lost people. What he is warning against is being partners with them. This should inform
DOES YOUR WAY OF LIFE HELP OR HINDER YOUR WITNESS? Paul told the Corinthians that he and his ministry team were careful to live in such a way that wouldn’t cause people to stumble. He wanted his life to match his message. He reminded the Corinthians of this because they were so easily swayed by
HOW BIG IS YOUR GOD? After God answered, Job’s final response was brief. He basically concluded, “You’re God and I’m not.” This is not fatalism, but acceptance. For even though God’s good purposes are higher and better than ours, He still hears us and responds when we cry out. God is not afraid of our
LORD HASTE THE DAY WHEN OUR FAITH SHALL BE SIGHT Presently, we go through life believing in our risen Lord without actually seeing Him. Yet our faith is not without foundation. We believe because of at least three witnesses: 1) the witness of the Bible, 2) the witness of the saints who have passed the
STOP INVITING PEOPLE TO CHURCH Paul didn’t care what people thought of him as long as they heard him proclaim Christ as Lord. But the Corinthians were easily impressed by appearance and eloquent speech. Though Paul had been the one who had first preached the gospel to them, to which they believed and were saved,
NEITHER LEGALISM, NOR LICENSE, BUT LIBERTY In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, he taught them that true liberty came not from legalism, nor license, but from the Spirit of the Lord. The law is external to man, written on stone tablets, it has no power to overcome the sin nature. It reveals man’s sinfulness,
PREACHING FOR GOD’S APPROVAL ALONE The apostle Paul contrasted the authenticity and authority of his preaching team with those who preach for personal profit. The wealthy church of Corinth was apparently susceptible to the hucksters of that day. Paul wanted to protect them from these false teachers, who invariably show up to steal sheep when
DON’T LET SATAN OUTSMART YOU Paul instructed the believers in Corinth to forgive the man who had received church discipline. He does not name the man, but he may be referring to the incestuous person of 1 Corinthians 5. At any rate, Paul is making it clear that church discipline is intended to be corrective,
WHY DO GOOD THINGS HAPPEN TO BAD PEOPLE? Job’s friends kept challenging him to repent because their faulty assumption was that since evil had befallen Job, he must have done something to deserve it. After all, bad things had happened to Job, so he must’ve done something bad. Yet, Job continued to claim that God
WHERE ARE WIDE-OPEN DOORS FOR THE GOSPEL TODAY? From this passage it appears that Paul was living in Ephesus when he wrote his first letter to the Corinthians. Ephesus was one of the great cities in the Roman empire located on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor in the country we now know as Turkey.