City South Presbyterian

Paul invites the church to be partners in generosity — not just funding Gospel work, but as Gospel work that produces equality.

Paul's vision for church is not just we share one mind — shaped by the Gospel of the crucified Jesus, but one heart, shaped by the Holy Spirit. God's ministry of reconciliation restores us to relationship with him, and to one another.

As we join Paul and his team, we join God's mission — compelled by the love of Jesus to be ambassadors of God's ministry of reconciliation — where sin is dealt with and we become participants in his justice and righteousness because the Spirit unites us in Jesus.

Paul's model for glorious ministry is built on the life-giving work of the Spirit — who dwells in us and transforms us into glorious humans who can reflect the image of Jesus in the world; carrying around his death in our bodies so that his life might be made known.

Paul wants to bring his readers out of being captivated by the "super-apostles" and their worldly vision, into being captivated by the example of Jesus and those sent by him to bring the aroma of life.

Note: talks from the last two weeks were not recorded. Paul ends his letter unpacking the theology of the body behind the cross-shaped ethic he calls the church to; a cross-shaped ethic is made possible by a resurrection shaped hope.

Paul uses 'the body' as a metaphor to address both the disunity occurring in the church in Corinth, and to describe the way of life the church is called into in Jesus, by his Spirit — the most excellent way of love.

Doug unpacks the nature of the pilgrim life — and Jesus as the true pilgrim — from Psalm 84.

Paul says "flee from idolatry" and that you can't participate in both the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Then he says the meal the church eats when it comes together is not the Lord's supper. The job of those called to be united to Jesus and to be Holy is to bring his presence from his table, to the world, not bring the idolatrous ways of the world to his table.

Nathan and Robyn unpack Paul's words about women, head coverings and prophecy in the public gathering of the church.

Following Jesus means turning from idols and powers and principalities to serve Jesus and join his mission.

Paul takes the truth that our bodies are not our own but are bought at a price and made for life with Jesus, and applies it to the way those in the church approach singleness, sex, marriage, and divorce.

Paul responds to some situations in the Corinthian church where they are behaving differently to their neighbours, but worse; and calls them to honour God with their bodies, as his body in the world.

Paul uses plural yous a lot to call the church in Corinth to be who they are, together, the temple of God, where his Spirit dwells — and suggests their status games risk destroying what God is building, while they should be building one another up in life-giving ways.

The church is God's holy and set apart people; called to reveal the transforming power of his life in the world. The medium and message we are sent with are the same: the cross of Jesus.

Leviticus ends with an invitation to choose life with God rather than curse.

The Jubilee was the 'hard reset' button for life in Old Testament Israel; designed to maintain equality and teach people that life in the land was a gift from God. Putting jubilee into practice required a giving heart, not a grasping heart.

The bread, the lamp and the blasphemer in Leviticus 24 are a symbolic picture of who Israel are, and aren't, meant to be.

God's holy people are called to live in holy space and spend holy time eating with God and learning to view the cosmos through the lens provided by these meals.

The book of Leviticus calls for God's people to be holy; to separate themselves from the serpenty ways of the nations around them where people seek to merge heaven and earth on their own terms, and to learn to dwell in heaven and earth space on God's terms; listening to and obeying him.

Atonement is at the heart of Leviticus. But what is the heart of atonement? And how does atonement reveal God's heart to dwell with his people?

Human bodies are flesh and blood held together by skin. When things attacked skin or life leaked out of holes in our skin Leviticus marked a person as unclean as a reminder of life under the curse of death. Jesus makes people whole so that we can be made holy as his Spirit dwells in us.

God's priestly Old Testament people are called to separate clean from the unclean; to eat food that isn't tainted by the ground or 'serpentlike' in its connection to death. God's priestly New Testament people are invited to see holiness as a matter of the heart and separate clean from unclean desires.

For the God of Heaven to dwell with his earthlings)on earth there needs to be atonement, and for atonement to happen there needs to be a priestly heavenling operating in holy space.

Leviticus sets up a system to solve a problem where Moses and Israel can't draw near to God in order to be his holy people living in his presence.