And after these things Paul departed
from Athens, and came to Corinth, and found a certain Jew named
Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy, with his wife
Priscilla, because that Claudius Caesar had commanded all Jews
to depart from Rome, and came unto them. And because he was
of the same craft, he abode with them in Rome, for by their occupation
they were tentmakers. And he reasoned in the synagogue
every Sabbath and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks. And when
Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed
in the spirit and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ. And when they opposed themselves
and blasphemed, he shook his reign and said unto them, Your
blood be upon your own hands. I am clean. From henceforth I
go unto the Gentiles. And he departed this, and entered
into a certain man's house, named Justice, one that worshipped
God, whose house joined hard to the synagogue, and Crispus,
the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all
his house, and many of the Corinthians, hearing, believed, and were baptized.
Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by vision, Be not afraid,
but speak, and hold not thy peace. for I am with thee, and no man
shall set on thee to hurt thee, for I have much people in this
city.' And he continued there a year and six months, teaching
the word of God among them." Now, that was the beginning of
the Corinthian church. That was the beginning of it.
And I tell you, if there's one church that I would not ever
want a name after it, be the Corinthian Baptist Church. If
I lived in a place called Corinth, I wouldn't want it named Corinthian
Baptist. First Baptist, Second Baptist, Grace something, but
no, no, not Corinthians. These people had some real problems. And I'll tell you why I believe
they had some real problems. It's because they were Gentiles.
These were people who were Gentiles. They lived in a pagan city. where
there were all kinds of temples, and all kinds of false gods and
idols, and they offered all kinds of sacrifices to those gods and
those idols. And so these people were raised
in heathen idolatry. And for someone that's raised
that way, raised where there's such immorality and amorality,
and they had one temple there that They had 1,000 prostitutes
there that was constantly there in that temple, and that's what
they were there for. That's a place you go, and it's
cultish. And so it was a very, very wicked
city, wealthy city. And so when Paul went there to
preach to them, the Jews, they opposed the gospel. They opposed
Christ. They opposed the truth. But some
Corinthians became believers. So Paul began to instruct these
Corinthians. And he left, and then there was
lots of things that began to be wrong. And I'm going to give
you just a broad outline tonight, a broad outline of the whole
1 Corinthians, and a broad outline so that you can kind of get an
idea of what's going on, and then God willing, we'll start
in verse 1 of chapter 1 next week. But there were several
things wrong in this, and Paul deals with each one of these
things one at a time, and he always finds that Christ is the
answer, really is, Christ deals with the problem. And the first
thing, you know, he has to correct these people. There was a contention,
there was a division, there was party among them, party strife.
Then there was fornication among them, fornication among them. And then there was men and brethren,
brethren going to court. before the law with one another. Instead of dealing with it in
the church, they was going to law with one another. It used
to be like me and Larry going to court up here in town and
suing one another instead of dealing with it right here in
the church. And then you go on down and then they had marriage
problems. I mean, they had some real marriage problems. And Paul
dealt with the marriage problems. And then Then they had these
things about offered meat, offered idols. They always, you know,
they'd go get meat, and most of the meat in that city had
been offered idols, offered to false gods, gods, many gods,
many, Paul called them devils. And then there was this dealing
with the business of supporting the gospel ministry. And then,
beloved, there was the warnings of tempting Christ, as Israel
did, and then they dealt with how the church is supposed to
meet, the order of the church when it meets. How that women
were supposed to act, and men were supposed to act, who was
supposed to talk, who wasn't supposed to talk, what they were
supposed to do, and what they weren't supposed to do. And then that was a lot devoted
to the gifts. Really, people really interested
in spiritual gifts. And then there's dealing with
the resurrection, and then how to take up offerings, and the
reason you take up offerings. So let's first of all, let's
look at this first thing he dealt with, this here division, this
contention among them. Look down here in verse 10 of
chapter 1. Now I beseech you, brethren,
by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the
same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, that
you be perfectly joined together in the same mind, same judgment.
For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them
which of the house of Chloe, He said, Floyd told me about
you folks, and what's going on among you that does contentions
among you. Now, this is what the contention was about. Now,
this I say, that every one of you says, I'm of Apollos. I'm
of Apollos. Paul was the one who taught these
people the gospel. They say, we love Paul. We love
his gospel. We believe Paul preached us the
gospel. Then somebody comes along and
says, well, I'm of Apollos. Apollos was known for his great
oratory powers. His ability to really, really
be a preacher. And there were some that said,
I'm an apostle. And others said, I'm a shepherd. I'm a Simon Peter.
And then there was others that said, well, I'll tell you what,
you're going to do what you want to. We're of Christ. We're above
all of you. We're of Christ. Like they're
the only ones in the bunch that knew anything about it. Oh, and
the first thing Paul asked them is this. Is Christ divided? See how I answered that question?
You're all divided. You all got all these questions.
You want to know who's this preacher and I'm this preacher and I believe
that and I'm following this. And he said, but was Christ divided? And then he ended up saying,
you know, who is Paul? Who is Apollos? Who is Cephas?
One sows, one waters, but it's God that giveth and increase.
We are nothing, but God and Christ is everything. So you see how
he does that? And then he goes and shows us
that the gospel, the gospel, glories in Christ alone. It does
not glory in men. It does not glory in the flesh.
It does not glory in preachers. It glories in Christ, in Christ
alone, and Christ and Him crucified. That's why Paul said, I'm determined
to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Why, Paul? So that when you hear the gospel,
Your faith won't stand in the wisdom of men. I'm of Paul, I'm
of Apollos, I'm of Cephas. It won't stand in the wisdom
of men and in the power of men. It'll stand in the power of God
itself. Stand in what Christ accomplished.
And then he says in chapter 3, he ends up teaching these things
how that you know they're carnal because they go after all these
different preachers and how carnal it is. And he said, Act like
men. You know, when you're a child,
you act like a child. You become a man, you put away
these childish things. And he teaches that all things
are yours. He says, You know why Paul exists? You know why
Apollos exists? You know why Cephas exists? You
know why the gospel is? All these things are for you.
For your benefit, for your blessing. God gave me a message for you.
Gave Apollos a message for you. These men are ministers for you.
And Christ is for you. God gave all these... He says, Christ is God's, and
you're Christ's, and all these things are yours. All of them
are yours. And then He said, I'll tell you
what, He said, a man should be counted faithful, that a man be faithful, that a steward be
faithful. And He goes on and says, well,
I'll tell you what I'm going to do. He said, I'm going to
send Timothy to you. I'm going to find out what's
going on among you. And Timothy's going to tell you. Timothy's
going to preach to you. And he's going to come and tell
you and remind you of my message one more time. And then in chapter
5, you can look this up yourself. There was a man there. Chapter
5 and verse 1. Well, look at it. Just look at
it. Chapter 5 and verse 1. He said, it's reported commonly
among you that there's fornication among you. And such fornication is not so
much named among the Gentiles that one should have his father's
wife. And they wasn't doing anything
about it. They was puffed up about it.
They didn't mourn about it. They didn't weep about it. They
didn't ask God to deal with it. They didn't deal with it. They
got puffed up and didn't mourn about it. And he said, you know,
that this person that done this deed might be taken away from
you. And that's what he says, put away that wicked man. If
it's bad enough to live in fornication, but a man to take his old daddy's
wife and stay in the church and the
church not do anything about it. He said, you put that wicked
man among yourselves, put him out from among yourselves. And he says, listen, and I'll
tell you why. And the reason you do this, because
Christ our Passover sacrifice for us, and when Christ was sacrificed,
and when the Passover was sacrificed, you put out the leaven. And he
said, if you let something like this go on, the leaven leavens
the whole lump, and you put out that old leaven, this wickedness,
this fornication, put it out from among you. Don't even let
it be mentioned. Don't let it be named. Put it
out. And you eat that unleavened bread
of sincerity. You deal with these things seriously
and sincerely and honestly. And then he said in verse 90,
I wrote down here in an epistle not to company with fornicators.
But now watch what he makes a distinction here. Yet not all together with
the fornicators of this world or with the covetous or extortionate
with idolaters. If you did that, you'd have to
leave that and you'd have to come out of the world. He said
it's in the church that you don't allow it. It's among the saints
of God you don't. But if you're going to get away
from that stuff, you're going to have to leave the world. Because
out in the world there's people living in fornication. There's covetousness out in the
world. There's idolaters out in the world. And the way you're
going to get away from them, just get out of the world. And
bless God, one of these days we will. And oh, beloved. And then look
here in chapter 6 and verse 1. He starts dealing with these
fellows that go to law with one another. He says, oh, dare any of you
having a matter against another go to law before the unjust and
not before the saints? Brother go to law against brother? Believer go to the court with
brother and go to court and go in front of lawyers and go before
the unjust and go before men who don't know anything about
what it is to be a believer? And oh, he says, and then he
goes on to ask this question, don't you know the saints will
judge the world? And if the world shall be judged
by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? I had this happen one time, years
and years ago. A fellow that was in the church
at that time, he decided he wanted to go to court over something.
I told him, no, don't do that. Don't do that. Because Paul went
on down there and said, wouldn't you be rather to be defrauded? Wouldn't you rather to take fault?
And say, I'll just take my losses to keep from going to court.
And before the world, before the unjust, for I dare I will
not. And Paul says, wouldn't you rather
be defrauded? And he says, you take the least
among you. You take the fellow that you
think knows less among you than anybody else. You take the one
who don't know how to read or write, you take the lowest among
you, and I tell you, you know, that's the one you need to make
the judge. But yet you want to go out here
in the world and go before a court, go before an unjust judge. And
he says, wouldn't you rather be defrauded? And I told that
fellow, I dealt with that fellow over that stuff, and he said,
ah, boy, I'm going to do it anyway. I just, I ain't going to give
it up. I'm not going to give up. I'm not going to quit. I
don't want to watch the bottom. I don't care what I do, got to
get it. Well, he got it. Got no more confidence in him
to not do that glass of water. Not just the way it is. You know,
if people won't take the Word of God, you can't do nothing
for them, can you? And he goes on down here and
says this. He says there in verse 8, You
do wrong and defraud, and that's your brethren. And your brethren. You do wrong to your brethren.
Wouldn't you rather suffer yourselves? And then he goes on here and
says, You know what? He said, don't you know that the unrighteous
shall not inherit the kingdom of God? You're going to be this
way. And then he goes on to describe
such and such a things and goes on down through there. And then
he shows all those who defraud and live in sin and live like
that wicked man and live as if the grace of God's not in them.
They have no countenance for the grace of God, that the grace
of God's never done a work in them. He says, they'll not inherit
the kingdom of God. They won't do it. And also, he
goes on and deals with all these kind of things. And that's what
he says. He goes on down there to say in verse 12, And all things
are lawful for me. You know, everything's lawful. There's not anything that's wrong. But he says, You know what? All
things are not expedient. All things are not profitable. They're not profitable. Now,
we can do a lot of things that we're allowed to do. Would it
be profitable to you? Would it be profitable to your
brother? Would it be profitable to the church? Would it be profitable
to your family? Would it be profitable to the community? And that's
what he says. We can do a lot of things, but
it would be profitable for all of us. And so he deals with that,
and then he comes over to marriage. There in chapter 7. And he deals
a lot with marriage. Lots of things about marriage. And he, the thing that he wrote
about, and the thing is, they wrote him a letter and asked
him some questions. He says there in verse 1, now
it's concerning the things where he wrote unto me. They wrote
to him and asked him some questions. And he's dealing with these questions
about marriage. And he says there in verse 1,
Nevertheless to a born fornication let every man have his own wife,
and every woman her own husband. And what he means by that, to
keep people from being, Tempted to end morality, tempted to fornication,
tempted to give in to the flesh, let every man have his own husband,
every woman have her own husband, every husband have his own wife. Well, you know what I mean. Listen.
That's why he's talking about marriage. And we're going to get over here
where we're supposed to be keeping silence in this church. We're
going to get to that when the night's over. Oh, boy. Y'all say, boy, Donnie sure
is insane, ain't he? Oh, boy. Oh, anyway, it tells the cause
of the temptation to immorality. Every man should have his own
wife, and the husbands and wife, and the wife should have her
own husband, and they should never, never not allow anything
to come between their marriage rights. What do they call them,
conjugal visits when you're in prison? You know, don't keep
your conjugal Don't withhold yourself from your husband or
your wife. Don't do things like that. That's not the right thing
to do. And he goes on down and he continues
dealing with this. And talking about marriage and
how serious marriage is and what a blessed thing marriage is.
And he goes on to say, and he talks about unmarried people.
It's better for people that are unmarried and widows to remain
single. He says, it'd be better for those
that are widows and those that are unmarried to be like me,
if they can. He said, God gives every man
a gift. And he said, if He gives you that gift where you can stay
unmarried and you stay single, if you're a widow and you stay
single, you'll be better off because you'll care for the things
of Christ. And if you're married, you'll care for the things of
your husband or your wife. But it's better, and he says,
it's better to marry than to burn. And what he means by that,
it's better to marry than to burn in passion and burn in lust
after somebody continually and constantly. It's better to marry
than to burn. And the wife, he goes on to say, now the wife
must not, must not leave her husband. But if she does, she
has to remain single or else be reconciled to her husband.
And the husband the same way. And if that happens, if you don't
get reconciled, you have to stay unmarried until your husband
or your wife dies. And that's what Christ teaches
Himself. There's only one reason, one reason given where divorce
is allowed. And that's fornication. That's
fornication. And then he goes on to talk about
one shouldn't separate him. You know, there's people that
we know, folks, if they got husbands have unbelieving wives, wives
have unbelieving husbands. And he even dealt with that.
But what if I'm a believer and I have an unbelieving husband?
He says, oh, if your husband's pleased to dwell with you, and
loves you, and don't mind your relationship with Christ, don't
hinder your relationship with Christ, Don't you dare, don't
you dare depart from him. And the wife the same way. Don't
you depart, husband, don't you depart, unless you know your
children would be unholy. If you had children and you wasn't
married, it'd be like having a bunch of illegal children.
He said it's the marriage union that makes the children holy
and sanctifies the children. And who knows whether the husband
will save the wife, or the wife the husband. Talking about living
and believing the gospel until they come to the place where
they become believers. But if the unbeliever departs,
husband or wife, you're not under bondage. And if a person's not
pleased to dwell with you, you're not under bondage. If they say,
I don't want you, I don't want your Christ, I don't want your
gospel, I don't want your religion, I'm going to walk away and leave
you. Then you're not under bondage, you're free to marry. And then
I'll tell you, because of persecution that was in store, that's why
Paul says, you know, He says, the time is going to
come, those who had wives as if they had none, those who had
husbands as if they had none. Because persecution in store
for the church, it was well for young girls and young women not
to marry. Yet if persons were single, who are single and married,
he said, it wouldn't be a sin. And then when a father had a
daughter, he dealt with, you know, what does a father got
a young woman, got a wife, I mean a daughter, and his daughter's
a virgin. And she needs to be married.
She wants to be married. And you don't want her to be
married. He said, if she wants to, he said, you go ahead and
let her marry. It's better to let her marry than somebody to
come along and abuse her as a young woman. That's what he says. It's
better for you to give her in marriage, and you don't do wrong
in doing that. And I tell you, he closes that
out by talking about a wife is bound to her husband as long
as he lives, but if her husband dies, she's free to marry whom
she wills. Now listen to it. Only in the Lord. Only in the
Lord. Only in the Lord. I don't know
why anybody that's a believer wouldn't want to marry only in
the Lord anyway. And then he starts talking about this meat
that's been offered to idols over here in chapter 8. He starts
talking about meat. Now, as touching things offered
unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. We know about
idols and the meat that's been offered to idols. And the knowledge puffs up, but
charity edifies. If any man think he knows anything,
he knoweth nothing yet as he ought. And what he's saying here
is that you know that if you think you know everything there
is about idols, and you're just going to do what you want to
about them, and the meat's offered to them, and you don't have charity
in your heart, and overlord it on somebody else, then that's
the wrong thing to do. But he said he's talking about
how the brothers should sow consideration for a brother. Now, if you go
there, they go to meat markets. And you know, you go to Down
in Mexico and stuff, they got a big marketplace down there. And they have fresh meat there,
you know. Flies all over and stuff, and
people go through there, and they pick out their meat. They'll
get a little piece cut off here, a little piece cut off there.
If somebody's going through a fuego, and somebody's got a hog they
just killed, they'll hang a certain color flag outside, and it'll
be a beaded hog. And if it's a beef, they'll hang
a different kind of flag outside, a different kind of ribbon. People
stop and get what they want. But what if they just went and
they had that in Corinth and in these isles, in these temples,
and would then offer these sacrifices, and they'd butcher these. Some
of them would be burnt and offered in sacrifice, and the rest of
them they'd take over here and put in the meat market and sell
it. So when you went to the meat market, and you bought a piece
of meat, you didn't say, was this offered in sacrifice to
Iverson? If you asked the question, you as a believer, and somebody,
a young believer was with you, and said, they said, yeah, this
was offered in sacrifice to Iverson. Well, I'm going to buy it anyway.
Well, that young believer, you know, he's just a young believer,
said, how in the world can he eat something that's been offered
to an idol? It's been offered as a sacrifice
to an idol, and it offends him. It causes him to stumble. It
hurts him greatly. He's just weak conscious. So
then he don't take the meat. He says, no, I won't take that
meat. I won't buy it. He said, because it's been offered
as a sacrifice to idols. Not because it was wrong for
him to eat the meat. Not because he's all for dieting,
but because of that young fellow there, it's going to offend him
and hurt him. Paul says, so then I won't eat meat while the world
stands. That's going back to this thing that all things are
lawful, but all things are not profitable. But he goes on to
say this, and whatever's eaten and sold in the market, don't
ask. Don't ask whether it's been consecrated to idols. And then
when you're invited to somebody's house to eat, and they send people
from you, you don't ask that either. But if somebody says, you know,
we just bought this, and it was offered to sacrifice to Diana,
or offered to sacrifice to Poseidon, or somebody offered to sacrifice
to one of these idols. And then what you'd have to do
is say, well, you know, as a believer, I'm not going to eat it. You know, I appreciate your meal.
But you know, you don't need it for your conscience's sake.
Your conscience will let you. But for the person who's sitting
there, who says, I'll see whether this believer, I'll see whether
this saint, this man here that talks about Christ, and him having
all the glory and trusting Christ alone, if he's going to eat this
meat offered as sacrifice to God, then I'll have something
against him. And so he says, you don't do it for your conscience's
sake, but for the conscience of that man sitting there that's
trying to get you to do it. Oh, I tell you, this business
of being a believer, you know, it's more than just come to church
and sit and chew on your thumbs and say, Amen. And he ends up saying, he ends
up saying, whether you eat whatever you eat, whatever you drink,
whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. And that's why
he said, I became all things to all men that I might by any
means... When he got around weak believers,
he became a weak man himself. He said, you fellas think you're
weak? You don't know I am. And then when he got around a
Jew, you know, he said, I know what you Jews think. I know exactly
how you feel. I know what it's like to be under
the law. And then he got around these Gentiles. And he would
be without... The law, but he would not be
without law to Christ. And so, you know, he would become
all things to all men that he might by all means save some.
And that's what he says. And then in chapter 9, he talks
about support the ministry, support the gospel. Support the gospel. He says down here in verse 7,
who goes to warfare? Chapter 9, verse 7. Who goeth
to warfare at any time in his own charges? Who plants a vineyard
and don't eat of the fruit thereof? Who feeds the flock and eat none
of the milk of the flock? Do I say these things as a man
or does the law say the same thing also? If it's written in
the law of Moses, don't muzzle the mouth of the ox that treads
out the corn. Does God care for oxen? Or does
He say it for your sakes? It's written that he that plows
should plow in hope, that he that threshes in hope should
be uptakers of his hope. And if we have sown unto you
spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap of your
carnal things? And he goes on to show here how
that even the law, dealing with animals and the simplest thing,
shows how that men are to support the gospel, support the ministry,
support preachers. And it's a person that preaches
the gospel, not just anybody. Don't support anybody. There's
people, there's missions that I'm not going to support because
they're preaching a false gospel. I'm not going to give food to
certain food pantries because they're preaching another gospel.
I'm not going to help a mission who's got drugs coming in when
they're preaching another gospel. I'm not going to do it. I'm not
going to support another gospel. I'm not going to do it. But here's why Paul goes on down
here and says this, he says in verse 16, Though I preach the
gospel, I have nothing to glory in. Yea, woe is unto me if I
preach not the gospel. You know, it's the gospel that
you support. You don't support religion just for the sake of
saying I support religion. You don't support a preacher
just to say I'm supporting a preacher. I mean, you be very careful about
who you support. You be very careful about who
you back up. You be very careful about who you give your money
to. Be very careful about that. Next thing you know, you'll be
supporting somebody out here lying on God. Lance Heller, I was telling him
about a fellow out in Texas. I said, you know, there's this
guy, another guy's got a ministry down there, a mission down in
New Guinea. I said, I can't believe he told
his name just like that. And he says, you know what he
does? And that's been down there 16, his dad's been down there
48 years. He was raised there. And him
and his wife and kids been down there 16 years. And he said,
this fellow, what he does is he flies down there, meets with
a bunch of folks, with some new kids, has his picture took with
a bunch of them. Talks about all the great work
he's doing. Gets back on a plane. Goes back to the United States.
Shows all these pictures. Tells what a great work he's
doing. And raking in money by the bushel basket. Said he's
never down there more than just a few weeks at a time. Just running
around taking pictures and acting like he's doing something. That's why these preachers used
to go to these Orphanages, you know, in these places, and stand
there and have all them orphaned kids around them, and just get
people just crying, you know, how to raise orphaned kids. And
listen, they take $10,000, give $500 to the orphan, take $9,500
for themselves. I tell you, hell ain't half full. And I tell you, we're going to
support the gospel, nothing but the gospel. I'm not going to support reform
doctrine, legalism. I'm not going to support Arminianism,
I'm not going to support freewillism, I'm not going to support another
gospel. And if you do, you're as guilty
as they are. Ain't that right? That fella's
driving the getaway car, the other fella goes in the bank
with the gun, that guy driving the getaway car is going to go
to the same jail. They put them in the same cell. And I don't want to be guilty
of that, do you? I'm guilty of enough without
supporting a false gospel. And that's why Paul says, you
know, I'll preach the gospel. So support the gospel ministry.
Support the gospel ministry. And then here in chapter 10,
he gives some warnings. He gives some warnings here now
about tempting Christ as Israel did. He talks about how that
they were all baptized into Moses, how they all ate the same spiritual
meat, drank the same spiritual drink, Christ. But in verse 5,
many of them, God was well pleased. These things were written for
the intent of our, that we should not lust after evil things as
they lusted. And down in verse 9, it says,
don't lust at Christ, as some of them also tempted and were
destroyed as serpents. Don't murmur. And then he says
in verse 11, now these things were all written for our examples,
and they're written for our admonition. So you know, let's don't do like
the Jews. Let's don't do like Israel. Just come out of Egypt
and start complaining, start murmuring. God gives you bread,
you murmur about it. God gives you water, you murmur
about it. God brings you into the promised land and don't get
you there. When you want to get there, you start murmuring about
it. You start cussing the preacher. You start cussing Moses. You
start cussing them. And they start blaming them for
everything that's going wrong. God gives you everything that
you need. Your shoes is good. Your clothes is good. He's feeding
you every morning. He's giving you meat. He's giving
you water. Everything you need, you got.
And you're not satisfied. So God sent fire and serpents
among them. They said, don't you do, don't be like them. Don't
tempt Christ. Don't tempt Christ. And then
he talks about in chapter 10, goes on down there and says,
what light? Communion hath light with darkness. Will you join
the body of Christ to a harlot? Would you join Christ with the
devil? What fellowship hath darkness
with light and communion with Belial? And he goes on and talks
about those things, you know. And then he starts talking about
here in chapter 11, about means, what goes on in means. And he
starts talking here in chapter 11 about how women ought to have
their head covered. And when he talks about head
covering, you go down there and look about it, he's talking about
their hair being their cover. He's not talking about anything
else. He's talking about the hair being their cover. Ain't
that what he says? It said there in verse 4, Every
man praying or prophesying hath his head covered dishonors his
head. That means he's coming on with a hat over his head,
something covering his head. But every woman that prayeth
or prophethieth with her head uncovered dishonors her head,
for that is even all one, as if she were shaving, as if she
had her head shaved. If it's a shame for a woman to
be shorn or shaved, let her be covered. And he goes on down there to
talk about the woman's image and their glory is her power,
and her power is the hair upon her head. And he goes on down
here and deals with those things, and he talks about men's place
in the church and women's place in the church, and he talks about
men's place and women's place in nature. And women should be
covered. And then he comes on down here
and he starts talking about eating the Lord's table. Beating the
Lord's Table. It comes down there in verse
20, I believe it is here, yes. Chapter 11, verse 20. When you
come together in one place, you come together not to eat the
Lord's Supper. You didn't do that. Because before
you eat, before you take the Lord's Supper, before you take
the bread and the wine, everybody brings his own supper. One is
hungry, another is drunken. So what they've done is, as you
know, the wealthy was bringing in lots and lots of food before
they'd take the Lord's table, and the poor didn't have anything
on them to bring. So the wealthy sitting over there
eating and gorging themselves, drinking all kinds of wine and
stuff, even getting drunk some of it. And over here, these poor
fellows, they ain't got nothing to eat, and they're just sitting
over here. Just hardly have anything. And he goes on to say, don't
you have houses to eat in and to drink in, and you despise
the church of God and shame them that have not? You bring in all
this stuff and bring the shame. These people over here don't
have anything. And I'm not going to praise you for this. And then
he goes on to say, you know, you eat at home. You eat your
supper at home. You eat your feast at home. When you come
to the meeting house, he said, this is what you do. In verse
23, I received of the Lord which I also delivered unto you, that
the same night that the Lord Jesus was betrayed, he took bread.
He gave thanks and said, eat this. Do it in remembrance of
me. After the same manner he took the cup, do this in remembrance
of me. He said, don't come into the
church and have a feast here. The church is to take the bread
and wine, the Lord's table, and do it in remembrance of me. Do it in remembrance of me. And then he talks here about
gifts. I got to get on through this thing. And he starts talking
about the gifts here in chapter 12. And oh my goodness, there's
people really interested in these gifts. Really interested in these
gifts. There's the gifts of tongues,
the power to perform miracles, to prophesy. To prophesy means
to preach. And then he says that all these
gifts are given by the same Spirit. There's diversities of different
kinds of gifts, but it's the same Spirit that gives them all.
And he says, you know, if you have the gift of speaking in
tongues, that ain't going to edify anybody if ain't somebody
to interpret it. He says, you know, he said, I'd
rather speak five words with my understanding. If somebody
speaks in tongues, even praying and giving thanks in tongues,
they don't know what to say. They don't even know to say amen
because they don't understand what you said. And so he says,
and you know what? You want these gifts of miracles
and healings and works and tongues and discernment and wisdom? He
said, you know what you need? He said, the greatest gift of
all is charity. Love. Love. The greatest gift is love. And that's what he goes to in
the very last verse. In verse 31, he says this. that
covet earnestly the best gifts, and yet I show unto you a more
excellent way." What's the more excellent way? The way of love,
the way of charity. The way of charity. And then,
beloved, and to preach is better than ever speaking in tongues.
And God gave gifts to the church. Preachers, teachers, prophets,
healings, all these things, governments, He gave to the church. And then
last thing He did, He deals again with gifts in chapter 14, but
here he goes on. In chapter 15, he deals with
the resurrection, the mystery of the resurrection. The resurrection and all the mystery of the resurrection,
how they will all be changed in a moment, in a twinkling of
an eye. He says, there were some that,
yes, they believed that Christ rose from the dead, but they
did not believe that men in general would rise from the dead. And
Paul was saying, if the dead rise not, then Christ Himself
is not raised. And if Christ is not raised,
why am I doing preaching? What are you doing believing? You know, you're still in your
sin if Christ be not raised from the dead. But Christ was raised
from the dead as the firstfruits of them that sleep. And these
things start saying, well, what kind of body then are we going
to have when we're raising the dead? What kind of body we'll
have? He said, well, he says, you're going to, you know, when
you sow something in the ground, you sow like a grain of wheat.
It's a little old bitty brown looking thing, a little old tiny
thing. You put it in there and it comes up green. Something
just hard and cold and lifeless, you put it in there and it's
changed. And it comes up green. And he says, and that's the way
the body is. He says, you know, he said, there's different kind
of flesh. There's birds flesh, there's fish flesh, there's different
kinds of glories, the stars, the sun, the moon. He said, and
that's the way it is. He said, I know one thing about
it. Flesh and blood ain't gonna inherit the kingdom of God. That's not going. But we'll be
changed. This flesh and blood will be
changed in a moment in the twinkle of an eye, and we'll be raised
incorruptible, raised with the body like Christ. We'll be sown,
he's talking about sown, he said we'll be sown in dishonor, raised
in honor, sown in corruption, raised in interruption, sown
in mortality, raised immortal. When you put somebody in the
ground, you're putting a piece of clay there. But when God takes
it out there, it's something else altogether different. Oh,
beloved, no, we're not all going to change. And then last of all,
there in chapter 16, let me give you this real quick and then
I'm done. He talks about how that we're supposed to take up
offerings and the reason. Now, verse 1, now concerning
the collection for the saints, as I have given orders to the
churches of Galatia, those do you the same thing. Upon the
first day of the week, that's today. First day of the week
to the Jews was Sunday. That's the day we worship together.
Upon the first day of the week, let every one of you lay by him
in store, as God has prompted him, that there be no gatherings
when I come. He's going to take up an offering and send it to
the poor saint in in Jerusalem, and he said, I'll come and I'll
give it myself and let somebody go with me. And then he says,
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. So it's going to
be an interesting study, I think, and I pray it will be a blessing
to all of us.