What I learned at Church today

How many letters are there to the Corinthians? We're reading 2 Corinthians, and next lesson we're on to Galatians, so you'd be forgiven for saying "2" but it's actually widely believed there were four in total, and maybe even more. In 1 Corinthians 5:9 Paul references an earlier letter he wrote, and in 2 Corinthians 2:3-9 he talks about yet another letter, sometimes called the severe letter, or letter of tears, in which he harshly scolded the church at Corinth. Neither letter survives today. What with the letter from Chloe about divisions in the church, and what appears in the severe letter to be the behaviour of one particular individual, plus the "super-apostles" mentioned in 2 Corinthians 11:5, there were big problems in the church in Corinth. Paul's harsh "letter of tears" has damaged his relationship with this group of saints, and he writes 2 Corinthians in order to restore his good relationship with them, reassure them of his lo...

This week we learned with shock of the tragic and unnecessary death of one of our own. I have happy memories of Dave Llewelyn trying to persuade me to go Vegan (I'm already vegetarian) and admired him for all the great changes he'd made in his life. Our church community now has a Dave-shaped hole in it, but maybe by building a more loving and caring community, where every member knows they are needed and valued, we can prevent such heartbreak in future. I dedicated today's Sunday School lesson to Dave. I presented the lessons for the last two weeks together because the theme of the two weeks was pretty much the same: “Be perfectly joined together” and “Ye are the body of Christ”. Romans has been called Paul's great letter about theology, but 1 Corinthians is Paul's letter about community. In it Paul sets out his vision for what a church community should look like.  Paul isn’t my favourite scripture writer. He tends to go off topic and ramble a lot (he wasn...