So, we have, again, a big chunk of text, but it's all driving to the point at the end of this chapter. So, we read this one big chunk as we see that it moves us towards this idea at the end. Paul is willing to do anything to be able to preach the gospel. He is willing to go to all kinds of people and try to understand the world as they do in order to be able to preach to them.

The message of the cross.

Well, this is another passage that we've read that has you wondering what all is going on in the church in Corinth, right? Clearly, a bunch of problems have been occurring there, but now we come to food offered to idols. Now, we don't have this as a category. We don't have to worry about whether or not we eat food that's offered to idols, but clearly this was a huge issue, or Paul wouldn't have brought it up, in the church of Corinth.

 Alright, we land in another passage that is difficult for the format we're using here, right? This is a lot of text. It's not saying really specific things that it's worth digging into deeply, but it's not really something that you can explain in short order. So, I'm once again going to do my best to sort of explain what's happening here in this text.

Well, this is another packed section. There's a lot to see here and there's some interesting stuff to look at. There's a lot to be looked at there with marriage and the conditions of marriage and all of that. But there's more detail that we can get into in devotional thoughts, right? It's so dense.

It's so thick. There's no way I could explain it properly in this format. So maybe we'll get to First Corinthians sometime in the future for Sunday mornings.

Alright, so we see Paul finishing up some of his thoughts regarding sexual immorality and his, his conclusion here is to flee this. Now, it seems like maybe Paul is quoting here some ideas that maybe were common in Corinth and maybe in the Roman Empire as a whole. This idea that, well, I can do whatever I want.

Well, Paul's saying not everything is helpful. Paul says, yeah, I am free to go out and do what I want, but, but I don't want to be dominated by anything. I don't want anything to run my life the way sinful things can. And then there's another spot where we feel like Paul is quoting something here, some idea within the culture.

Again, we land in another passage where our devotional approach here doesn't really help us out too much because there's just too much to dig into here. But I'm going to do my best to keep this within a limited time frame, but still give us something to ponder for our own lives. So, as we look at this, we're seeing Paul addressing something that's going on in the church there.

 Well, this is a little bit of a difficult passage to do for a devotional thoughts. Um, really to understand it, you have to do the whole chapter, uh, could really break it down. And plus, this is for devotional thoughts, not breaking it down verse by verse and really understanding it. So I'm going to do my best here to explain a few of the things, but then to actually try to apply it a little bit and to get the whole thing done.

All right, so as we look at chapter four, Paul is uh being pretty savage with the Corinthian church here, isn't he? He is kind of letting them know what he thinks about their attitudes and so He starts off by saying this is how one should regard us as servants of Christ and stewards of the mystery Mysteries of God moreover is required of stewards that they be found faithful.

So, as we continue through chapter three today, we're seeing Paul continuing to develop this idea. Remember on Friday, we looked at the beginning of chapter three where Paul talked about how he had planted, Apollos had water, but God was the one who brought the growth. And Paul is continuing with this.

And so, he's saying that that according to the grace that God gave to him, uh, like a skilled master building, he laid a foundation. He put a foundation down. So, he's going from this idea of planting to an illustration of a building here. And we saw that, uh, at the end of verse nine here, he said, you are God's field, God's building.

So, we come to a really awesome passage today, or at least it's awesome in my opinion. In fact, I read this this morning earlier when I was doing some Bible and commentary reading, and I just, I read it twice. I was excited to read it a third time as I read it for you today. This is just a great piece of scripture for us to understand how God works and just to understand the depth of what God has done for us in giving us this gospel.

So, we arrive here in the second chapter of 1 Corinthians, and we see Paul once again getting to the point of what his message is. Notice what he says. I didn't come to you with the lofty language. The wisdom that you expect from a great orator when I came to you. No, that wasn't my message. This thing he's been talking about, chapter 1, the, the, the gospel being the power of salvation.

What we have read today continues some of the thoughts from what we read on Wednesday. But I want us to take a look at where this is all leading. Look at that last line in verse 31. Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.

All of this idea that Paul is putting forward here is this idea that God is taking those who can't do for themselves and he is doing for them and he is raising them up to be his people. And so, I'm drawn back to an idea that Martin Luther taught. The idea of the theology of the cross versus Theology of glory.

This is an amazing passage, an important one for us to understand. Look at how we started out today. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Think about that. You know, if you do not understand the cross, it's going to be foolish to you.

Wait a second. You're saying, you’re saying that God took on human flesh and suffered and died and was humiliated. And this is how you're saved? That's just going to seem off to somebody who is perishing. But to those of us who understand, those of us who have been given the gift of faith by the Holy Spirit, we're going to understand that this message is the power of God unto salvation.

 So, as we land in this section of chapter one of first Corinthians, we see some of the issues that are that are boiling under the surface here. In the church in Corinth, there seems to be a lot of division. And so, we see Paul saying, I appeal to you to, to have unity. Now, what is his appeal in? It's in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The book of 1 Corinthians starts out in a very interesting way. Notice what it says here. To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul is saying that these people in Corinth are set apart, that they are saints, and so are all of those who call on the name of the Lord Jesus.