Bible, theology, culture, etc.
https://youtu.be/8Voll-QTS5g How many times a day do you blink? 100? 500? A thousand? You blink 14,000 times a day, so much that your eyes are shut for 23 minutes every day. Yet, you don’t even think about it, even though if you stopped blinking you would irreparably damage your eyeball in short order. Our body … Continue reading God, the Body, and Sex (1 Cor 6:12-20)
https://youtu.be/E-c3HrlsUqU What should we think about the tragedy going on in the Middle-East? The only other event in modern history where more Jews died was the Holocaust. But, equally tragic, even more Palestinians—many of whom do not support Hamas, and some of whom are our brothers and sisters in Christ—have died in Israel’s retaliatory strikes. Six thousand … Continue reading Such Were Some of You (1 Cor 6:9-11)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5kQ3X-TwjE&list=PLozY2MQXfssrW9AY-qSKNSTrPvIMHZkVs&index=11&t=5s When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? 2 Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? 3 Do … Continue reading Why Not Rather Suffer Wrong? (1 Cor 6:1-8)
1 Corinthians 11:2-16 is complex for many reasons. One of the most bedeviling difficulties for interpreters is discerning what Paul precisely means by “covering” in this section. Generally, there are two possible interpretations, each with serious merit. I will be preaching a sermon on this passage soon, but have found a number of complex issues … Continue reading What Is the “Head Covering” of 1 Cor 11?
https://youtu.be/qUxbFlat0Vg No one likes a hypocrite. We are frustrated when someone claims to be for something, but their actions prove otherwise. If a politician vows to be pro-life when candidating, but then recoils from enacting legislation when in office, his constituency is frustrated. If a business claims to care for the environment, but then dumps … Continue reading Who Are You to Judge? (1 Cor 5:9-13)
https://youtu.be/WG7Lic7kTns Ireland for a long time was the most thoroughly Christianized nations in Europe, retaining a much higher percentage of practicing Christians than any other European country. The authority of the Catholic church in particular was staggering, so much so that many assumed that to be Irish was to be Catholic. Yet, today, Ireland is … Continue reading Ought You Not Rather to Mourn? (1 Cor 5:1-8)
https://youtu.be/Q6Eoq_zYNlE Vincent Van Gogh, the renown Dutch painter, was one of the most prolific artists of all time. In only a short nine years of painting, Vincent created 860 oil paintings and 1,240 sketches, watercolors, and prints over his life, on top of his 900 letters he wrote. He averaged nearly a hundred paintings a … Continue reading Humble Confidence (1 Cor 3:18-4:5)
https://youtu.be/cOwqXuUyL8U What is the difference between “forced” religion, and true faith? I have found no better summary than the writing of Henry Scougal’s The Life of God in the Soul of Man: “Force and artificial religion,” he writes, “is commonly heavy and languid, like the motion of a weight forced upward: it is cold and spiritless, like … Continue reading You Are God’s Temple (1 Cor 3:1-17)
https://youtu.be/ghpcBXlH3uk And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and … Continue reading A Demonstration of the Spirit (1 Cor 2)
https://youtu.be/XFnrysxgr0w Mrs. Turpin, the main character in Flannery O’Connor’s 1964 short story Revelation, may be the most well-written, modern-day Pharisee in all of literature. Mrs. Turpin is a rural, Southern, church-going, landowner who owns a large farm, and believes that God has given her a little bit of everything and the good sense to know … Continue reading God Chose the Foolish (1 Cor 1:26-31)
Marc Sims 