Line Upon Line

Working from Hebrews 10:19-25, Pastor Miles shows how the insufficient old covenant sacrifices point to the once-for-all, sufficient sacrifice of Jesus, which gives believers bold access to God. He unfolds three "let us" exhortations—draw near in faith (justification), hold fast our hope (glorification), and consider one another in love (sanctified community)—as the mark of Christian maturity: fai...

Continuing in 1 Corinthians 12, Pastor Miles teaches that the church is a living body—an organism, not an organization—in which God sovereignly sets every member, gifts them, and establishes an ordained order of service. He explains the meaning of God "setting" believers in their place, addresses the diversity of gifts, the rightful desire for the most useful gifts, and the call to servant leaders...

Drawing from Zechariah 7:8-14, this teaching examines God's call to His restored people to execute true justice, show mercy and compassion, and defend the defenseless—and the wrath that came when they hardened their hearts and refused to listen. Pastor Miles applies these characteristics of God's own nature to how believers are to relate to one another today.

Continuing in 1 Corinthians 12, Pastor Miles teaches that God has sovereignly made believers one body with diverse members, and that while God creates the body's unity and diversity, it is our responsibility to maintain its harmony through humility and selfless love. The spiritual gifts are useless without the fruit of the Spirit, and the local body thrives only when each member, especially the se...

Pastor Miles teaches from 1 Corinthians 12:12 that all believers are baptized into one body by the Holy Spirit at conversion, then shows how the human-body illustration reveals the church's unity, diversity, divine sovereignty, and harmony. He concludes that the church is a living organism organized by Christ Himself, not an organization run by human community organizers.

A communion meditation built around the truth of God's mercy, drawing especially on Exodus 34 and Ephesians 2 to show that God "defaults" to mercy and grace while still maintaining His justice through the atoning death of Christ. The teaching prepares believers to partake of the bread and cup as a remembrance of the body and blood that secured their relationship with God.

Continuing a series on spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12, Pastor Miles surveys the gifts of miracles, discerning of spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues, apostleship, helps, administration, evangelism, and pastor-teacher, urging discernment grounded in Scripture and warning against both undue dogmatism and false signs and wonders.

Christ has set us free from slavery to sin, and the paradox of the gospel is that He calls us to use that liberty not for selfish license but to willingly make ourselves servants of one another in love. Pastor Miles traces the Old Testament picture of bondage to sin, the Messiah's coming to free the captives, and the call of Galatians 5:13 to "by love serve one another."

Continuing a study of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12–14, Pastor Miles teaches that every believer is gifted by the Spirit to glorify God and edify the body, then examines five gifts in detail: mercy, wisdom, knowledge, faith, and healings. He stresses that gifts are tools, not measuring rods of spirituality, and that God still heals today, though not always, sometimes allowing illness for His...

Pastor Miles teaches that every believer is gifted by the Holy Spirit for the profit of the body of Christ, then begins working through the New Testament's lists of spiritual gifts—covering prophecy, service, teaching, exhortation, giving, and leadership. He urges believers to step out by faith to discover and exercise their gifts for God's glory and the church's edification.

This teaching opens Paul's discussion of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12 by warning against using emotional experience as the measure of the Spirit's work, then answers four foundational questions: who gives the gifts, who receives them, why they are given, and when they are received. Pastor Miles argues from Scripture that all believers are baptized by Jesus with the Holy Spirit at conversion...

Opening his teaching on spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:1-3, Pastor Miles explains that the Corinthians were not lacking in gifts but in understanding—their pagan background and ignorance of spiritual things allowed counterfeit, ecstatic, and false practices to invade the church. Paul provides the first test of true spirituality: no one speaking by the Spirit curses Jesus, and no one can confe...

Building from Paul's words that the Lord's Supper proclaims Christ's death "until he comes," Pastor Miles surveys the biblical doctrine of the second coming and the signs of the end through Jesus' Olivet Discourse, arguing that we are likely living in the last of the last days while warning against speculation and date-setting. He calls believers to respond not with sensationalism but with holines...

Continuing his teaching on the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians 11, Pastor Miles shows how Paul corrects the Corinthians' misuse of communion by presenting the pattern Christ Himself established on the night He was betrayed. The Lord's Supper is a divinely instituted memorial of Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, to be observed regularly, worthily, and with self-examination.

Paul rebukes the Corinthian church because their gatherings were doing more harm than good — marked by divisions, social-class snobbery, and a corrupted "love feast" that mocked the Lord's Supper. Miles challenges believers to ask whether their gatherings genuinely glorify God and edify the body, or merely serve their own glory, greed, and gluttony.

Pastor Miles teaches from 1 Corinthians 11:2 that the principle of headship—Christ over man, man over woman, God over Christ—runs throughout Scripture, and that submission to God-ordained authority brings redemptive blessing while rebellion against it brings a curse. The head-covering instruction is a Corinthian-specific cultural application of this larger, enduring principle.

Paul's impassioned plea in 1 Corinthians 10:14—"flee from idolatry"—warns the Corinthian church against the danger of compromise, showing that a Christian cannot simultaneously fellowship at the Lord's table and at the table of demons. The teaching distinguishes genuine liberty in Christ from licentiousness, examines what idolatry truly is, and calls believers to live lives that can say to the wor...

Paul warns the Corinthian church against presumption by recalling Israel's exodus: though all the fathers were redeemed, baptized, and sustained by Christ, most fell in the wilderness because of unbelief and sin. Their failure stands as a written warning that liberty in Christ is freedom from sin, not license to indulge it, and that God is faithful to provide a way to endure every temptation.

Paul, though a free man, made himself a servant to all in order to win souls, adjusting his habits and laying aside his liberties to remove every barrier to the gospel while never compromising God's moral law. The teaching calls believers to embrace soul-winning as their life's purpose, becoming incarnational and missional like Christ, and to practice the self-denial and self-discipline of an athl...

Paul, though he had every reasonable right to receive financial support as a minister of the gospel, willingly laid aside that right—and other liberties—for the sake of the gospel and the salvation of others. Following the example of Christ the servant, believers are called to renounce their rights out of love so that others might be won.

Continuing in 1 Corinthians 9, Paul anticipates the question of what liberties he has personally restricted, defending his rights as an apostle—particularly the right to financial support—through a series of rhetorical questions and five supporting reasons, only to demonstrate that he willingly laid that right aside for the sake of the gospel. The lesson: love gives us the freedom to forego even w...

Teaching on 1 Corinthians 8, Pastor Miles explains how Paul addresses the Corinthian question of meat sacrificed to idols, arguing that knowledge puffs up but love edifies. The believer's liberty in Christ must be willingly laid down for the sake of weaker brothers and the evangelistic and discipleship witness of the church.

A Thanksgiving message centered on Psalm 100 and 1 Thessalonians 5:18 that challenges believers to make gratitude a dominating lifestyle rather than a single annual holiday. Pastor Miles works through three questions—are we giving thanks, to whom, and for what—then warns of the judgment awaiting the unthankful.

In the fifth study of 1 Corinthians 7, Pastor Miles concludes Paul's teaching on marriage and singleness, examining the preoccupations of marriage, the passions that must be controlled, and the permanence of marriage. He argues that while marriage is a blessing, singleness is also a blessing and a strategic opportunity for undistracted service to the Lord.

Paul addresses the division at Corinth over marriage versus singleness, affirming that both are good, and exhorts believers—because the time is short and the form of this world is passing away—to hold loosely to the pleasures, possessions, emotions, and even marriage of this fleeting world while seeking first the kingdom of God.