Bern Leckie and Owen Lynch share thoughts and feelings about Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians and both of his letters to a young leader, Timothy.

After stressing to believers in Christ the importance of freedom from the law, why does Paul seem to be setting a lot of rules for the church in Corinth? Positioned at the intersection of lands and cultures, there were competing voices of authority in this early church, along with practices which failed to show the love Paul expected to see from growth and maturity they should have been developing in Christ.

We can learn a lot from what Paul writes, but it can be difficult for us to decide which of Paul’s teachings to adopt and which to leave as a result of the early church and their society being different from ours.

Could we have adopted our own unhealthy ways of looking at this, and is the “conservative vs liberal” paradigm an example of something we need to change? If so, what can we swap it for? What, if anything, could be a way of seeing the world and making judgements like this which brings us closer to Christ?

As many instructions as it contains, could the main focus of 1 Corinthians really be the expression of Christ’s work in and love for us? Paul’s famous passage about love, often quoted at weddings, is found here in the middle of his teaching about spiritual gifts and the power God provides to build people up. As our understanding grows, about God, his power and his world, should fixing rules be as important to us as learning how to adapt to others’ needs, change our plans and increase in love?

In next part of our boxset, we’ll return to the Old Testament story of Israel and see what happened after David in the first part of the book of Kings. Listen along at your own pace at severnvineyard.org/bible.