1 Corinthians

What resonates most deeply with you from the reading of these verses?

What’s the inherent flaw in the statement, “Do great things for God; expect great things from God?”

In the message on Sunday, we learned a little about the preaching of Charles Finney and his usage of the “anxious bench.” What is your experience with “sensationalism” in preaching? How might this kind of preaching be dangerous?

Finney said, “The endless craving for emotional experiences might lead to spiritual exhaustion.” How has this been true for you?

Contrast the preaching of Charles Finney, with the preaching of the apostle Paul. How might you at times prefer the preaching of Finney to that of Paul?

In verse 4 Paul says he is a “witness.” In what ways are you also a witness of the Spirit’s power?

Read Acts 17.16-21, Acts 18.1-6 and then our text, 1 Corinthians 2.1-5. What’s the primary difference in the way Paul is preaching in Corinth?

In what ways was Paul challenged as a “preacher of the Gospel?” In what ways are preachers of the Gospel, here in West Cobb/Paulding County challenged?

Read 2 Corinthians 10.1, 10. What can you surmise about Paul as a preacher?

How important is it to you that your preacher/pastor or worship leader/singer makes you feel something? What happens to you when you don’t feel anything in church? What is your goal in coming to church or to a Bible study? What are you really longing for?

Read and reflect on the statement by Julie Canlis from her book, The Theology of the Ordinary and then answer the questions below. Canlis wrote, “200 years ago the sensational movement swept our country. ’True’ religion began to be associated with the extreme, the emotional moment, the passionate choice, the mountain top experience…What was happening in your local church was suddenly suspect; what was needed was a new personal revival. Your faith, heretofore growing by slow degrees, was seen to be too slow, too ordinary, lacking immediate and measurable results.”

How have you been tempted to view your faith through an emotional experience or passionate choice? What happens to your faith when you don’t have a regular “mountain top experience?” How do you protect yourself from feeling like you aren’t doing something right when you are not experiencing the growth you think you should be experiencing?

Read Romans 12.1-2 (MSG). How is God speaking to you today, right now, through this text?

Romans 12.1-2 (MSG): “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”

Read 1 Corinthians 1.26-31 incarnationally. Where do you find yourself in this text?

Read Jeremiah 9.23-24. What is the prophet warning against? How do these verses challenge you?

When was the last time you boasted in the Lord? What was the reason for your boasting?

In looking at the Jeremiah text, what are the people of God called to boast about?

What one or two aspects of the character of God do you find yourself most drawn to?

Where are you currently growing in your “understanding in knowing God?”

Review the following statements and corresponding texts. How do these verses solidify what Christ has done for you?

1. You have been reconciled to God in Christ.
   2 Corinthians 5.19
2. You were given the revelation of God in Christ.
   John 1.14, 1 Corinthians 2.16
3. You were justified by God in Christ.
   Romans 3.21-26
4. You have been sanctified by God through Christ.
   1 Thessalonians 5.23-24
5. You have complete and final redemption by God through Christ.
   Romans 8.28-29

How do these truths reshape your “boasting”?

In what ways is the make-up of the church at Corinth similar to Sanctuary? How are we different?

How does God see the poor? How might they be our “guides” in this life? Where in your life do you genuinely interact with the poor, orphans and widows?

How is God’s economy different than the world’s economy?

Use three words to describe your life before you met Christ?

How did you come to a saving knowledge of Jesus? How did your relationship with Jesus begin? How would you characterize your relationship with Jesus today?

Read Ephesians 2.1-10. Which part of this text evokes an attitude of thanksgiving?

Seeing coming to a relationship with Jesus, how have you grown? Where have you seen the most growth in your life? What part of your life have you seen the least growth? How often does the lack of growth frustrate you?

Describe a time when you chose not to boast in the Lord because you felt like compared to someone else, you didn’t have much to boast about?

Read the reflect on the words from Larry Crabb from his book, Love Letters.

“Father, will You tell this doubting, frustrated, scared, and empty believer in You what You want me to hear You saying in this forty-sixth letter?”

“Hear this: The change I bring about comes slowly. The more you attempt to hold on to your confidence in the goodness of the story I am telling while at the same time acknowledging all that is bewildering and maddening and shatteringly disappointing in this life, the more you will be confronted with the ongoing moment of decision, to trust or not to trust. Only in dark nights will hope burn bright enough to sustain your faith and release your love.”

“Father, this is hard!”

“Let what you see drive you to the precipice of unbelief. Let what you feel bring you to the brink of despair. If I exist, if I am good, if My story is loving and My plan on course, My Spirit will speak into the deep place in your heart that only terrifying doubt renders accessible. And in that place, He will anchor you in hope.”

How do these words comfort you? How do they challenge you?

Read Romans 12.1-2 in the MSG.

When and to whom might you “boast in the Lord” today? What would be your primary reason in your “boasting?”

Read 1 Corinthians 1.18-25.

In your own words, define the “foolishness of men” and define “the wisdom of God.”

Share an experience where you lived out “the foolishness of men.” Share an experience when you lived out the “wisdom of God.”

The church of Corinth was filled with people who had believed the “foolishness of men” and now we’re learning to live a new way, to love a new way. How is this similar to our Faith Family?

What are some of the challenges we face as a church because of our past beliefs? What is one primary challenge you face because of your past belief?

Is human knowledge unimportant to the Christian? How does the Christian engage human wisdom?

How has Christ’s death become a refuge for the Christian? What does the cross do for you? What does the cross mean to you? How has the cross changed you?

Read John 12.23-33. What’s the primary message of this text? What was Jesus communicating to His disciples? What is He communicating to us?

D.A. Carson writes, “At the moment, books are pouring off the presses telling us how to plan for success, how ‘vision’ consists in clearly articulated ‘ministry goals,’ how the knowledge of detailed profiles of our communities constitutes the key to successful outreach. I am not for a moment suggesting that there is nothing to be learned from such studies. But after a while, one may perhaps be excused for marveling how many churches were planted by Paul and Whitefield and Wesley and Stanway and Judson without enjoying these advantages. Of course, all of us need to understand the people to whom we minister, and all of us can benefit from small doses of such literature. But massive doses sooner or later dilute the gospel. Ever so subtly, we start to think that success more critically depends on thoughtful sociological analysis than on the gospel; Barna becomes more important than the Bible. We depend on plans, programs, vision statements—but somewhere along the way we have succumbed to the temptation to displace the foolishness of the cross with the wisdom of strategic planning. Again, I insist, my position is not a thinly veiled plea for obscurantism, for seat-of-the-pants ministry that plans nothing. Rather, I fear that the cross, without ever being disowned, is constantly in danger of being dismissed from the central place it must enjoy, by relatively peripheral insights that take on far too much weight. Whenever the periphery is in danger of displacing the center, we are not far removed from idolatry.” The Cross and Christian Ministry.

How does this resonate with you? Where does this speak most personally to your current experience? How might you move away from some of the clutter of Christian subculture and move more intimately toward the cross?

What has the Gospel accomplished for you?

What hasn’t the Gospel accomplished for you?

Where are you still trying to help the Gospel rather than abide in the Gospel?

Read and meditate on Colossians 2.6-15.