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Like a team of athletes, let’s run together into the treasures of God’s word in First Corinthians!

For the months of July, August and September 2009 our congregation is going to look closely at the Bible book of First Corinthians. If you are interested in joining us for this study, you can join in by accessing my raw teaching notes (subscribe to that site if you like) at http://ntcorinthians.blogspot.com/ and also by listening to the free messages on First Corinthians as they are posted at http://audio.vcfbn.org/ To grow in your understanding of the Bible, I recommend that you use the English Standard Version of the Bible. It’s a clear and accurate translation that was updated in January 2007 that has become my favorite English version of the Bible after closely comparing about 100 passages in the Greek text with other versions of the Bible in English. Check out Crossway Publishing for the latest editions available, or go to http://www.esv.org/ to listen to it or to read it for free online. First Corinthians has 16 chapters. So to get a good idea of the book as a whole, I am asking everyone to just read through or listen to the entire 16 chapters this week at least one time. If you work out, one good way to get this into your heart is to load mp3 audio files onto a digital player and listen to chunks of it while working out. It’s also suggested that you read it through in other translations of the Bible, like the NIV, NLT, NKJV, or whatever else you have that is written in a clear readable translation. I will refer to a wide array of sources in my sermons on First Corinthians that are inside and outside the Bible. You will find some of my reviews of a few of these sources on Amazon.com where I publish them. Here are some of the modern authors of commentaries on First Corinthians that I am using in my research (search on Amazon for their name & First Corinthians/1 Corinthians to find the exact book information if you want to research more): Joseph Fitzmyer, Craig S. Keener, Life Application Bible Commentary 1 & 2 Corinthians, Gordon Fee, Craig Blomberg, David S. Garland, David Prior, Anthony C. Thiselton, Ben Witherington III, Simon Kistemaker. I also use a software product that is excellent for research called BibleWorks 8.0. Logos Gold is also good. For ancient background checks, I recommend either Cambridge or Oxford’s (either one) Apocrypha. If you can get access to them, Apostolic Fathers (English-first three centuries of the church), Philo, Josephus, and Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. These works all help understand how words in the New Testament were used and applied in various contexts reflecting Jewish or Christian Greek writings from 200 BC through to the 3rd Century AD. Finally a copy of the English translation of the Septuagint (from the Greek Old Testament to English) is very helpful. If you don’t care to dig into all that stuff, just read my notes. Sometimes I paste the text from these resources right into my raw unedited message notes and post them on my website. This is easy for me to do because all of it is digitally available to me in BibleWorks 8.0 and easily searched. The problem with my unedited notes is that they are note organized or laid out logically, and sometimes they have just a lot of raw data in them. BW 8.0 searching capability enables me to do broad word studies of ancient resources to confirm or reject or modify what some of the commentators write about. This is really helpful when they get into controversial issues. IF you are not interested in the scholarly side of studying First Corinthians, but want to dig deep for a devotional purpose, you might consider David Prior, and the Application Life Bible Commentary 1 & 2 Corinthians. Both in paperback, these are more practical with a ’so what do I do about this in my life today’ sort of approach. If you are a Bible teacher or preacher and want just a few resources, I recommend Gordon Fee, Ben Witherington III and Craig Keener as the best ones for helping, but all of them are useful in their own way. Ok, so I’ve thrown this open to anyone I know who wants to join in. If you please, get a copy of the Bible in audio files, a printed copy of your favorite version (and the ESV), and join in with us if you can! The Bible promises that the unfolding of scripture brings eternal light into our innermost being. And for this alone the effort is well worth it! Will you join us?