The Church, God's Workmanship

This week we begin a new series based on 1 Corinthians. The Church in this prosperous, diverse and permissive Grecian city included many Gentiles whose previous way of life had been largely unaffected by God's revelation to Israel. But now, they lived in the fellowship of God's Son. Paul writes to them and says they are sanctified in Christ, and called to be saints, and, to this end, they are richly endowed with gifts of grace. No matter what mischief reappears from their previous life, Paul will show how everything is changed by the death and rising of Jesus, and by the gift of the Holy Spirit. The gospel draws us on until every thought is 'taken captive to the obedience of Christ' (2 Cor. 10:5).