A Study

A study.
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,  so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” 
2Timothy 3:16,17
One thing I’ve discovered in my now forty years serving the Lord, no one is perfect. Because we are human with all our frailties we from time to time make mistakes or get into practices that are wrong.
Even individual church congregations and denominations need to address what they are teaching and practising from time to time to see if things do indeed line up to what the scriptures say.
This is why we must continually study Scripture to help us make corrections that bring us back to the basics teachings of the bible and our faith.
Something I have found of interest that seems to be coming popular in some churches, is the establishment of a group of well educated members of the congregation.
These groups are made up of a board members, bible study teachers and others well educated in the Bible from the congregation, along with the pastor.
These groups examine the teachings of the congregation and denomination. They look directly at scripture not at interpretations of scripture by any specific person.
They look to see that what is being practised and taught is truly in line with Scripture.
One Church congregation that seemed to have more than it’s share of problems during it’s day was the Corinthian Church to which Apostle Paul addressed at least two letters.
As a result of these letters and the fact the problems the Corinthians had are no different to what we have today we can learn a lot from Corinthians.
The writer of Ecclesiastes long before Paul was even born observed,
“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”
                Ecclesiastes 1:9.
That is why over the next while I will be posting material taken from Pauls letters to the Corinthians.
The authorship of the letters was attested to by Clement of Rome in 96AD and today virtually all scholars agree with this.
They were written around the year 55AD. At a time near the end of Paul’s two year stay in Ephesus.
Corinth from what I have read was, like many major cities today, a major trading place a crossroads for travellers from around the Roman world.
It’s culture was Greek who were deeply into philosophy placing great emphasis on wisdom.
Twelve temples have been found at Corinth although it is unknown whether they were all active in the time of Paul.
Still there was one temple to Aphrodite, the goddess of love, whose worshipers practiced religious prostitution. At it’s height there were believed to be over 1,000 priestess prostitutes serving in the temple.
So immoral was Corinth that  the Greek verb “to Corinthianize” came to mean “to practice sexual immorality.”
Now while you may not be able to say that of most major cities in the world are like that today. All of the sins of Corinth are still within our cities today to one degree or another.
Someone said to me the only difference between the citizens of Corinth and the citizens of any city, town of village in the Twenty-first century. Is that we can sit in the comfort of our living room and invite sin in through television, radio and the internet.
That is why I believe we need to study Corinthians for as Paul wrote to Timothy.
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,  so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” 
2Timothy 3:16,17
Think about it.