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Message from the Pastor - Ken Radant

Hi everyone! 

I’m back to writing newsletters after a couple weeks off. Thanks to Neil and Judy for sharing reflections over the past weeks in my absence.

It’s October! I can tell, not only because my calendar says so, but also because when Diane and I took a walk yesterday evening we had to wear coats, and we were greeted by a delightfully-colored parade of trees which seemed to be all green just a short time ago. We were also struck by the fact when we walked into the grocery store last evening to be greeted by a giant skeleton, a whole lot of large paper spiders, and some other ghoulish things whose names I don’t know.

Yup. We’re officially into the countdown to Halloween. I don’t have any strong personal antagonism toward Halloween as such, but I do find it to be a vivid reminder that we live in a culture which no longer has a clear understanding of good and evil, nor a clear grasp of the spiritual realities that swirl around our ordinary-looking lives. That isn’t just true in October, of course. It’s been a growing issue all year long for many years. And it’s just as true at the bank, in our schools, at the mall, and on the internet as it is in my neighbor’s Halloween display of skeletons trying to climb out of the dirt on the lawn. It’s the world in which we live and serve.

To me, this season is a fresh reminder of our need to pray for our neighbors, our community, and our society. That, too, is something that should be part of our regular routines. But perhaps especially in this time of year it’s a good idea to be in concerted prayer that we will truly be kept from evil, and that the light of Jesus will spread in our needy world. Can I encourage us to give special attention to these things as we pray in these days? 

On other fronts, this is probably a good time to say a bit about our new sermon series and this coming Sunday’s message. We’ve started into a series on 1 Corinthians, with some introductory comments in conjunction with Paul’s opening words in 1 Cor 1:1-9. Now this week we launch into the meat of the letter.

By way of overview, a macro-outline of 1 Corinthians looks like this:

  • 1:1-9 – Introductory greetings and thanksgiving for the Corinthians
  • 1:10-6:20 – Correction for a number of problems
  • 1:10-4:17 – Paul responds to problems of division (fighting over leaders)
  • 4:18-5:13 – Paul responds to carelessness about serious sin in the church
  • 6:1-8 – Paul deals with lawsuits between believers
  • 6:9-20 – Paul deals with a variety of sins, especially sexual sin
  • 7:1-11:1 – Responses to questions the Corinthians have raised
  • 7:1-40 – Questions about marriage and singleness
  • 8:1-11:1 – Questions about food offered to idols, liberty, and dealing with differences
  • 11:2-14:40 – Instructions and corrections relating to church gatherings
  • 11:2-16 – Head-covering and decorum for men & women (husbands & wives)
  • 11:17-34 – Right and wrong behavior around the Lord’s Supper
  • 12:1-14:40 – Gifts of the Holy Spirit
  • 15:1-58 – Proper teaching about the resurrection: Jesus’ and ours
  • 16:1-24 – Final practical instructions, news about individuals, greetings
  • 16:1-4 – Instruction about a financial collection
  • 16:5-9 – Paul’s personal plans
  • 16:10-18 – Information on various individuals, call to treat them well
  • 16:19-24 – Final greetings and farewell 

Our sermon series will roughly follow Paul’s own outline, though we’ll break some of the longer sections up over multiple Sundays. In fact, we’re doing that this week and next, since the section on “division in the church” is almost 4 chapters long!  This week we’ll look at 1:10-2:16, where Paul raises the problem and offers 2 responses to it (relating to wisdom and the work of the Spirit). Next week we’ll follow up in chapters 3 and 4, which talk about the nature of ministry and the marks of spiritual maturity.

 

This first section is fairly long. We’ll only read selections during the service, and my comments in the sermon can only be an overview that skips over many details.  So if at all possible, I would encourage you to take some time to read through the section thoughtfully, preferably several times, both before and after the message. That will help you to put the sermons in context and to pick up some of the other nuggets Paul offers which we won’t have time to explore. Ideally, it’s great to read the whole section from 1:10 through 4:17 as a unit. But if that feels like too much, feel free to split it in two, as I’m doing between the two Sundays.  And it’s quite OK—encouraged, even—to have your Bible open during the sermon, too! 

I hope that helps to set us up, not only for this Sunday but for the series as a whole. I don’t want to bore everyone with a lot of broad background as part of the sermons, so thought I’d supply a little info here. It was fun to talk a bit about some other things in the Q&A conversation last Sunday, as well. Perhaps we’ll do another of those a few weeks out, to give more opportunity for discussion. 

For now, have a wonderful week! Enjoy those gorgeous trees, watch out for giant spiders, and may God bless you richly in every way. See you soon. 

Pastor Ken