1 Corinthians 9:19-27: Paul’s sacrifice to win souls
What would you be willing to do to save someone else’s soul? Nick asks, working through Paul’s own radical flexibility, becoming all things to all people, so that some might be saved.
1 Corinthians 9:15-18: Paul’s motivation
We’re fascinated by motivated people, Nick says, pointing to the single-minded focus of an Olympic athlete as the kind of drive we all admire. He works through what actually motivated Paul to preach the gospel...
1 Corinthians 9:1-14: Paul’s rights
This may be one of the most challenging chapters in the New Testament for anyone tempted to think they’re doing fine spiritually, Nick says. He works through Paul’s willingness to give up his own rights...
1 Corinthians 8:7-13: On Being a Stumbling Block
Part of parenting is training children to make wise decisions, Nick says, weighing not just what’s technically permissible but what’s actually wise. He applies that same logic to Paul’s teaching on becoming a stumbling block...
1 Corinthians 8:1-6: Food Offered to Idols
Why can’t a Christian drink, vape, get a tattoo, Nick imagines someone asking, filling in the blank with whatever debated practice comes to mind. He works through Paul’s teaching on food offered to idols as...
1 Corinthians 7:25-40: Singleness and the End of the World
Attitudes toward singleness today swing between apathy, applause, and outright antagonism, Nick says, pointing to a generation marrying later than any before it. He works through Paul’s counterintuitive counsel that singleness, far from being a...
1 Corinthians 7:17-24: Remain as you are Called
For many of us, getting saved was the single most revolutionary moment of our lives, Nick says: a change from death to life, from self-rule to being ruled by God. He works through Paul’s counsel...
1 Corinthians 7:12-16: Answering Questions on Divorce (Part Two)
Last week ruled out what’s sometimes called the Catholic view of divorce, no remarriage under any circumstance, Nick recaps. He continues working through Paul’s answers to the Corinthians, now addressing marriages between believers and unbelievers.
1 Corinthians 7:10-16: Answering Questions on Divorce
If you’d asked Nick as a young pastor what the hardest topic in theology was, he says it wouldn’t have been election or the lapsarian debates, it would have been marriage, divorce, and remarriage. He...
1 Corinthians 7:1-9: Answering Questions on Singleness and Marriage
Error tends to fall into one of two ditches, Nick says: legalism or license, asceticism or antinomianism, and Corinth had both at once. He begins answering the Corinthians’ own questions about singleness, marriage, and sex...
1 Corinthians 6:12-20: A Theology of the Christian’s Body
Nancy Pearcey argues in Love Thy Body that it’s actually secular ethics, not Christianity, that ends up anti-body, Nick notes. He works through Paul’s theology of the body in 1 Corinthians 6 to show why...
1 Corinthians 6:9-11: A New Creation in Christ
Christians are saved from the power of sin, not just its guilt, Nick says. He works through Paul’s list of besetting sins in Corinth to press home the disconnect between claiming Christ and refusing to...
1 Corinthians 6:1-8: Christians in Court
By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you love one another, Nick says, quoting Jesus. He works through Paul’s rebuke of Corinthians taking each other to secular courts, a failure of that...
1 Corinthians 5:12-13: To Judge or Not to Judge?
Don’t judge, Nick says, is the golden rule of our relativist age, where objective truth has given way to competing personal truths. He works through Paul’s teaching on judgment within the church, and why refusing...
1 Corinthians 5:9-13: The Church and the World
In the world but not of it, Nick says, is a good summary of Paul’s point as he wraps up his teaching on church discipline in 1 Corinthians 5. He works through the difference between...
1 Corinthians 5:6-8: An Unleavened Lump
The church has to be welcoming to sinners without being welcoming to sin, Nick says: gentle with people, hard on sin itself. He works through Paul’s image of a little leaven working through the whole...