We are living in a more divided time than ever — from the wider political realm to friendships and marriages. That makes this passage from 1 Corinthians 1 especially relevant to us: the message of unity through the gospel is one that we need to hear and take to heart.

If you’d like to see the video I made about denominations, it is available here:

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The start of a new year is an opportunity to make plans for the coming months. But few people — perhaps even Christians — stop to think: “What does God want my plans to be this year?” In this first sermon on 1 Corinthians, we think about what God wants from us and what that means for how we should live as we face the new year.

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We human beings find it difficult to look below the surface. It’s easy to see someone who is attractive, rich, powerful or influential, and think they are successful in God’s eyes. But the truth is that God is able to look below the surface, to our hearts. What does God look for in us, and why is this one of the most important things we need to hear today?

Understand the Bible is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Join me to read John Owen’s classic book “The Mortification of Sin in Believers”. This book is one of the best that have ever been written about how to live a holy life. This final chapter is about how we can put all the pieces together in our lives.Topics covered in this chapter:

* Everything comes through faith in Christ

* How Christ is sufficient

* How we can be sure of expecting Christ to act -- his faithfulness and mercy

* How we are united with Christ in his death and resurrection

* The place of the Holy Spirit in all this

Find out more about my book, Confused by Grace.

You can download a copy of John Owen’s book (for free) from this website.

My new project is The Bible Uncancelled:

When it comes to obeying God, we can’t pick and choose what we want to obey and what we don’t. Obeying God needs to be all or nothing. In this passage, we see what happened when Saul decided not to obey God fully, and what the consequences were.

Understand the Bible is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Join me to read John Owen’s classic book “The Mortification of Sin in Believers”. This book is one of the best that have ever been written about how to live a holy life. This chapter is about how we can avoid a false sense of peace and instead seek the peace which is given by God.

Topics covered in this chapter:

* How we need God to speak peace to us, it is not something we can get ourselves

* Peace comes with a hatred of sin, there is no real peace without it

* How to know when we are granting peace to ourselves without God, and how we can rightly seek peace

Find out more about my book, Confused by Grace.

You can download a copy of John Owen’s book (for free) from this website.

Maybe you’ve asked questions recently about power and authority. In a world where everything seems to be going wrong, who is in charge? Who holds the power? And what does that look like? In this passage we see that true power and authority doesn’t look like what the world thinks it does. In God’s world, true power and authority looks very different — which is something we should embody as Christians.

Understand the Bible is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Join me to read John Owen’s classic book “The Mortification of Sin in Believers”. This book is one of the best that have ever been written about how to live a holy life. This chapter is about how we need to get to know God better so we can have a right understanding of his majesty.

Topics covered in this chapter:

* How we should consider the excellence and majesty of God

* How it is that we do not know God as we should or could

* How our knowledge of God should lead us to humility

Find out more about my book, Confused by Grace.

You can download a copy of John Owen’s book (for free) from this website.

How much difference is it possible for one person to make? We tend to think that only a few, exceptional, people can really make a difference. But this passage teaches us that anyone can make a difference, even to the point of changing the course of a war. What does it mean for us today?

Understand the Bible is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Join me to read John Owen’s classic book “The Mortification of Sin in Believers”. This book is one of the best that have ever been written about how to live a holy life. This chapter is about how we can use the Law to help us grow in understanding our own guilt and need for God to help us.

Topics covered in this chapter:

* Why Christians do not outgrow the Law. The Law helps us to understand the depths of our own guilt

* How the grace of God should teach us to say ‘no’ to sin

* The grace of longing for deliverance from the power of sin.

Find out more about my book, Confused by Grace.

You can download a copy of John Owen’s book (for free) from this website.