The SAS are renowned not just for skill but because they’re fully furnished for their task through gruelling training. Consider the confession’s teaching on how the Spirit equipped Christ himself for his office as mediator.

Cure selfishness and you have replanted the Garden of Eden, as one commentator put it. Continue through 1 Corinthians 13 to Paul’s claim that love isn’t self-seeking, tracing how the fall contracted hearts that were once generous into hearts that grasp.

Strange things get said, and even believed, about Jesus over the years, the natural result of the human mind trying to explain a mystery as deep as the incarnation. Consider the Council of Chalcedon’s careful definition of how Christ’s two natures relate in one person.

Pride is a wrecking ball, and Proverbs 16:18 proves it again and again: pride goes before destruction. Continue through 1 Corinthians 13’s definition of love, now landing on its refusal to boast or be arrogant.

We’ve all faced a moment at work where our decisions get questioned and criticized by someone with authority over us. This opens 1 Timothy by introducing Paul’s own authority as an apostle, writing to steady a young pastor facing exactly that kind of pressure.

2025 is a special year for the whole church universal, marking exactly seventeen hundred years since Nicaea in the year 325. Consider why that council’s creed still matters for how we confess who Christ is today.

It’s easy to find envy creeping in when you study it closely, as the Roman poet Ovid once described it, creeping on the ground like a serpent. Consider 1 Corinthians 13’s claim that love doesn’t envy, and what it actually looks like to delight in someone else’s good instead.

The Marian dogmas usually mean four specific Catholic teachings: Mary as Mother of God, her immaculate conception, her perpetual virginity, and her bodily assumption. Consider each claim against what Scripture actually says about Mary.

Caesar Augustus used myths of miraculous birth to legitimize his own rule, part of how he built the Pax Romana. Contrast that manufactured myth with the confession’s teaching on Christ’s actual, historical virgin birth.

What is love? Picking up 1 Corinthians 13 after establishing love’s supremacy last week, this begins working through Paul’s specific definition, verse by verse, starting with patience and kindness.