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“What Happens in Corinth Stays in Corinth”
If there had been a tourism industry back in ancient Greece, this could have easily been the slogan for Corinth. Centuries before there was Vegas—overindulging in wine and food, strip clubs and peep shows, and losing your shirt at the craps table—there was Corinth, the “Sin City” of its day.
Here overindulgence was the byword; pleasure the goal, and tolerance the motto. Sound familiar?
And like the real tag line for Vegas—“What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas”—Corinth’s reputation implied that you were going to fall into damaging behaviors, and engage in activities that were secret, hidden and shameful—it was expected and celebrated!
The Apostle Paul knew the city and its temptations very well. He lived in Corinth for eighteen months, helping the rookie church there gain its footing in a slippery society. However, after Paul left the city, the Corinthians slid all too quickly into their previous behaviors and vices. They had new hearts, but they couldn’t shake their old habits.
It was in this circumstance Paul wrote his extraordinary letter to the Corinthians, a confused community of believers struggling to live uprightly in a falling down world. The warped, glittering culture of their city had crept into the church, to the point where there was little that set them apart from their loose-living neighbors. They were in trouble, just as our modern culture continues its own spiraling downward trend.
But, just as Paul speaks into the lives of the Corinthian church members, he speaks to us here and now with an exhilarating message of grace and freedom. Wonderfully, Paul’s letter offers us so much wisdom and clarity for a different way of life, one that doesn’t just avoid shady TV shows and online videos and hunker down into sanitized Christian enclaves. Rather, we are challenged to live abundantly in Sin City, to dynamically contribute to culture and cultivate holy lives, not in our own power, but through the power and freedom of Jesus Christ.
Touching on themes of identity, purpose, and purity, this Bible study offers women a bold route to freedom, a path of strength, clarity, and nonconformity. These six sessions will equip women to open their eyes the complexities of life in a sin-soaked world and to handle each situation they face with boldness and grace.
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