I mentioned yesterday the importance of noting repeated words and phrases in a limited number of Bible verses. In today’s Bible reading*, “pain” and its derivatives occur seven times in 2 Corinthians 2:1-7. Evidently, not all was well between the Apostle and the church at Corinth. Where the first paragraph in 2 Corinthians 1 was…
I’ve said many times that when you see a word or idea repeated several times in a few Bible verses, it’s a pretty good sign that the word or idea is important. Well, in today’s Bible reading* the word “comfort” appears nine times in 2 Corinthians 1:3-7. That’s nine times in five verses! It’s safe…
In today’s Bible reading*, Paul makes the case for personal budgeting for missions. He tells the church at Corinth to set aside a little extra money every week so that when it comes time to take up a collection, everyone can participate in the blessing of supporting Paul’s mission work. You may have heard about…
The Resurrection of Jesus either happened or it didn’t. So what difference would it make if it did or didn’t happen? What if it never happened and the entire Christian movement — from the very beginning — is based on the hopeful wishes of Jesus’ Disciples? Would that make much difference? Paul thinks the Resurrection…
Paul began talking about spiritual gifts with 1 Corinthians 12. In yesterday’s reading (Chapter 13), he talked about love. In today’s Bible reading*, he continues addressing spiritual gifts, specifically how the gifts should be used in the church setting. The first thing to note is that things were not just a little bit different in…
Today’s Bible reading* is often called “The Love Chapter”. Part of this chapter 1 Corinthians 13:4–7) is often used during wedding ceremonies. But Paul didn’t write this chapter to describe marital love. Instead, he wrote it to show the superiority of love over spiritual gifts. He goes so far as to say that without love,…
