Exodus Israelites included believers and witnessed miraculous deliverances and provisions, yet they fell into various sins. Their actions and God's responses are a pattern for later ages. It is not allegorising to draw these intended lessons (here reviewed) for avoiding sin.

Paul makes himself all things to all men. Here is the wrong (common today) and the right sense of his words. Then we draw applications from Paul's 'focused athlete' illustration, and his profound conception of the body as a servant of the mind.

Paul proves his apostleship - here are the unique tasks and qualifications of apostles as the church's foundation. Paul was motivated by his commission for God, by a desire to reach souls (at great personal cost), and by the great joy of seeing a harvest.

Knowledge is both vital and excellent, but it can so easily inflate pride and vainglory. The apostle names three graces (unfolded here) that deflate pride and make knowledge a source of blessing for the church.

Paul presents the resurrection as a representative act, guaranteeing total victory over death. He firmly places our resurrection at Christ's return when all sin, unbelief and death will end, and shows the final victory-transaction when Christ hands all to the Father.

A passage about situations that disadvantage believers and the right way to approach them, beginning with slavery or any other onerous position in life that traps us. Then Paul speaks to both unmarried and married believers. Here are powerful encouragements of priorities for all.

The abiding bond of marriage is established with its 'debt' of love, care and pleasure, and its concept of headship blended with partnership. Also explained is Paul's divinely inspired marriage teaching (often contested), the circumstances of divorce, and how the Lord is proved in marriage.

A heresy that has swept into evangelical churches everywhere is the notion that Christian liberty frees Christians from all rule-keeping and avoidance of worldly pursuits. Here are Paul's answers to such claims, and his powerful remedy for the avoidance of immorality.

Zec 13:6  And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.  You May Be Also Interested in… Hymn: There is a fountain filled with blood Sermon: Fruits of Calvary