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.
DON’T DIG UP IN DOUBT WHAT YOU PLANTED BY FAITH Be strong, immovable, always work with enthusiasm for the Lord. Why? Because of the resurrection and because whatever you plant in faith will grow and produce a harvest. The promise of eternal life should make us fearless in our focus. It should make us immovable
PASSING ON THE GOOD NEWS Paul made it clear to the Corinthians that the gospel he passed on to them was the same one that had also been passed on to him. This is the gospel by which he was saved and by which they too would be saved, if only they would believe. This
WHO ARE WE THAT GOD MAKES SO MUCH OF US? Job doesn’t accuse God of being absent, but of being too present. He doesn’t blame his suffering on being forsaken by the Lord as most would do. No. He questions why God would be so interested in such weak, temporal things as man. Out of
TAKE MY HAND, PRECIOUS LORD, LEAD ME ON David trusted the Lord to guide and direct him. He had no doubt that the God of the universe had interest in the details of his life. He had learned that God not only delighted in directing him, but the Lord was also always present to lift
WATCH YOUR WORDS How many have wished they could take back their words? Yet, once said, they linger on. If only there were a delete button to erase ill chosen words. Instead, the more poorly spoken words tend to linger the longest. Better to keep quiet and stay out of trouble. Begin to fill your
FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS Esther, whose name means, “star,” won King Xerxes’ beauty contest and was crowned as his queen. She went from being a Jewish orphan to a Persian queen. Her relative, Mordecai, who had raised her as his own when her parents died, asked her not to forget her people and
SELF-EXAMINATION AND THE LORD’S SUPPER Paul rebuked the Corinthians for coming to the Lord’s table without treating one another as members of the Lord’s body. Their disunity and selfish behavior flew in the face of the sacrifice of Christ which the Lord’s Supper represents. He challenged them to first “examine” themselves before taking communion. Self