We read one of Paul’s toughest lists in 1 Corinthians 6 and refuse to let it become a weapon, because his point is not condemnation but transformation. We land on the promise that our past does not get the final word, because in Jesus we are washed, sanctified, and justified.
• why Paul says “do you not know” and how vice lists function rhetorically
• where our culture agrees with Paul while quietly tolerating greed, contempt, and coping through alcohol
• what porneia means and why Acts 15 matters for Christian sexual ethics
• why translation is interpretation and why malakoi and arsenokoitai raise hard questions
• the difference between condemning behavior and condemning people, including how we talk about orientation
• how the church can honor singleness without isolating singles, including friendship, hospitality, and healing touch
• “washed” as baptismal identity and Jesus’ cleansing that changes self-perception
• “sanctified” as God’s holy pull that reshapes desire and forms a priesthood for the world
• “justified” as God’s gift that ends the scramble to prove our worth and redefines the good life
“If you’ve never said yes to Jesus, there’ll be people that are just willing to pray with you.” “The people with the lanyards are the people you want to find if you’d like to receive prayer.”

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Esther Guy walks us through the intricate structure of 1 Corinthians 5.

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We trace Paul’s claim in 1 Corinthians 3 that God chooses to dwell in a people, not just impressive structures, and we face the warning that breaking unity is a serious attack on God’s temple. We return to the gospel as the only foundation, then ask what it looks like to build faithfully with God while trusting him for growth and outcomes.
• God’s presence as something shared between us, not sequestered in a special place
• The warning against destroying God’s temple by jealousy, quarreling, and factionalism
• The gospel of Jesus as saving and sustaining wisdom, always and only
• What “the flesh” means as our default mode apart from God’s Spirit
• Church as a garden to be tended, not a machine to be managed
• Building on the foundation of Christ with work that endures the fire
• Grace and effort through Dallas Willard’s line about earning versus effort
• The wisdom of the cross as the end of boasting in people
• “All things are yours” as comfort for life, death, present stress, and future uncertainty
Say yes to him today.

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We keep trying to “improve” Christianity by stapling our cultural values onto Jesus and calling it wisdom. That’s how the prosperity gospel turns blessing into comfort, how progressive Christianity can shrink the kingdom into a political mirror, and how conservative Christianity can blend holiness with power, nationalism, and scripts that look more like capitalism and individualism than the Sermon on the Mount.

We walk through those distortions without pretending the underlying desires are all bad. God does want to bless. Jesus does liberate. God does call us to holiness. The question is whether we’re arriving there by the way of King Jesus or by the shortcuts of our age. The turning point is the wisdom of the cross: when Jesus defines blessing, it includes betrayal, scarcity, and suffering held inside God’s faithfulness. That wisdom “harbors no additions” because it is revelation, not projection. It’s God showing us what God is like in Christ.

From 1 Corinthians 2 we talk about the Holy Spirit as God’s gift, freely given, granting access to the mind of Christ. Not as spiritual trivia or a way to win arguments, but as practical wisdom for Christian living, spiritual formation, and decision-making under pressure. We also face the painful question of why some hearts stay closed and what our role really is. The answer is both humbling and freeing: we are witnesses, not saviors, judges, or attorneys. We testify with words and with lives shaped by love, and we pray, “Come, Holy Spirit.”

If you’ve been stuck in performance pressure, shame, or anxiety loops, listen through the end and try the simple practice we name: “I have the mind of Christ.” If this helped you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find it.

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Power is getting cheaper, faster, and more automated, and that should make us uneasy. We start with a surprising bridge between AI fears and ancient Scripture: if an AI system can pursue a “good” goal in a destructive way, what does that reveal about the way humans chase wisdom and control? From there we step into 1 Corinthians and let Paul draw a bright line between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God revealed in Christ crucified.

We talk about why the cross sounded like nonsense in the first century, why it still confronts our instincts today, and how it refuses to stay in a small “religion” compartment of life. We also wrestle with the kind of people God calls, why early critics mocked the church as unimpressive, and what it means when modern church attendance trends toward the educated and socially stable while the poor and overlooked are missing. That tension forces an honest question: are we building a comfortable club, or living a gospel that is genuinely good news to the oppressed?

We end with Paul’s own confession about preaching in weakness, not relying on superior speech but on a demonstration of the Spirit’s power. The invitation is simple but demanding: stop patching Jesus onto a scattered life and receive a coherent way of being shaped by the cross, where boasting fades and grace becomes real. If this challenged you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review with the line that hit you hardest.

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We trace Pentecost from Acts 2 into Paul’s urgent call for unity, naming how the church slides into division when we build around personalities, power, and cultural scripts. We ask the Holy Spirit to make us a people who can truly hear one another and live as a new humanity shaped by the wisdom of the cross.
• Pentecost as new creation language through wind and fire
• Babel dismantled through Spirit-given understanding, not just speech
• The church as God’s flawed but chosen witness across history
• Paul’s plea in 1 Corinthians 1 for unity without divisions
• How denominations, politics, and personality camps fracture Christian community
• Celebrity culture and content consumption as modern “I follow Paul”
• The cross as God’s upside-down wisdom and real power
• Achievement culture, self-sufficiency, and burnout as a rival story
• Azusa Street as a vivid picture of multiethnic unity and its unraveling
• A Spirit-formed unity that moves beyond surface diversity into shared purpose
If you'd like to receive prayer, you can come receive prayer. If you've never said yes to Jesus in your life, and perhaps you feel his beckoning call here this morning, what better day than today than to say yes to him?

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Pastor Ian Graham begins our study on 1 Corinthians.

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