The truth of Paul's message was revealed to the Corinthians by the Holy Spirit. Salvation is revealed by the Word and the Spirit. The Holy Spirit knows, reveals, inspires and illuminates.

The church is a community of worship and a people of praise. When we gather together as a church, praise bubbles up in us because of what God has done for us.

God's power works through weakness - he work in weak people with a weak message preached by weak messengers. Hence we should boast in God, not in ourselves. We should think of our time of worship as a time of boasting in God.

Paul desired to see the church holy and united, but there was a problem of division in the church at Corinth. Paul's response is to appeal to them in the name of Christ, to encourage them to fix their eyes on Jesus, and to draw their attention to the Cross and to the one who died for us.

God calls people. He calls us to a purpose. We are also called to belong, we are called to be saints, and we are called to fellowship.

Great darkness covered the land when Jesus was born. Herod was an example of this. The religious people, who knew the Bible, made no effort to search for the Messiah. We must not fix our eyes on the evil that surrounds us, but on Jesus.

Joseph was a righteous man. He knows what Leviticus and Deuteronomy say about adultery and divorce, but he decides not to humiliate Mary. He was not asking for God to speak to him in a dream, but God gives him a dream anyway.

Mary receives promises relating to God's favour, God's presence, God's mission and God's empowering. She is greatly troubled, she is puzzled, but she submits to God's will.

Matthew begins with Jesus' genealogy to show that Jesus is the promised king for whom the generations were waiting. Matthew shows God's grace by including evil men in the ancestry, and he shows that God welcomes everybody by including Gentile women.

God was Jacob's shepherd all his life. He is a shepherd deliverer, a shepherd warrior and a kingly shepherd. The shepherd sought and found us, and collectively we are his flock. Our mission is to take the gospel to the people of the nation and our communities, who are like sheep without a shepherd.