1 Corinthians 4:1-5 Faithfulness in preaching God’s truth – on the part of those whom God has entrusted with this duty – is often not rewarded in this life or in this world. We recall the story of Jeremiah the Prophet, who in God’s name condemned the sins of the rulers and people of Judah,…
1 Corinthians 1:18-25 “For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom.” There is a natural human inclination toward being religious or spiritual. But this natural kind of religiosity or spirituality – among those whose faith and piety have not been shaped by the divinely-revealed Christian gospel – takes more than one form. In…
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! We believe that Jesus of Nazareth died on the cross for our sins, that he was buried, and that, on the third day, he rose bodily from the grave. This is a part of what we confess in the Nicene Creed, almost in these exact words. But why…
The institution of the Lord’s Supper by our Savior Jesus Christ, on the night in which he was betrayed, is recorded in three of the Gospels – Matthew, Mark, and Luke – and in St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians. But in these four inspired accounts, the descriptions of exactly what Jesus said are…
Septuagesima – 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 Please listen with me to a reading from the tenth chapter of St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians, a portion of which we have already heard as our second lesson. We begin at the first verse: “Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our…
1 Corinthians 1:4-18 Today’s sermon text is taken from the second section of today’s Epistle lesson, and from several verses that follow this section, beyond what we read a few minutes ago. In his First Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter one, verses 4 through 18, St, Paul writes: “I thank my God always concerning you…
1 Corinthians 10:1-13 “Now let that be a lesson to you.” When you were young, you probably heard that from your parents, as a response to some blunder that you committed, or that someone else committed, resulting in a bad outcome. They wanted you to avoid this blunder in the future. In today’s reading from…
Easter Dawn – 1 Corinthians 5:6b-8 Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! For the nation of Israel, their ancestors’ miraculous deliverance from slavery in Egypt – crystalized especially in the events surrounding the first Passover – was a fundamental component of their identity as a people. If anyone would ever wonder if the ten…
1 Corinthians 12:31b–13:13 The thirteenth chapter of St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians – which we heard read a few minutes ago – is often called the Bible’s “Love Chapter.” And since the institution of marriage is – or is supposed to be – marked by love, and by two people being in love,…
Funeral for Vicki Angstman – 1 Corinthians 15:51-58 As I was thinking about and preparing this message, I typed the words “Change is” into my Google search engine. In various places on the internet, those two words are finished off in lots of different ways. A few examples: Change is inevitable. Change is good. Change…