Welcome to Studies with Stearman. Join us as we look deeper into the Bible.

Strengthen your faith with us, even as we see the day approaching. And now, here's Gary.

First Corinthians begins with a salutation, the first nine verses of First

Corinthians, and the rest of the book is a kind of a parenthesis. Starting in 1st Corinthians

110 and going to 1st Corinthians 1558, it's a huge parenthesis that begins by saying, in verse 9, God is faithful by whom you were called

under the fellowship of His son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. And then that's a statement that needs to be

expanded. But when you get to 1st Corinthians 1558, it says, therefore, my beloved,

be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know

that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. So between 1st Corinthians 1,9, and 1558, there is a

development of this idea. God is faithful by whom you were called

unto the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. God is faithful. That's an amazing thing to say

about a deity, if you will, the creator of the universe. He can do anything he wants to do, period.

And yet he is faithful,

meaning that he's able to meet all of the variables

within this universe.

And those variables would include massive,

dramatic conflicts, creation and destruction. On a human level,

within each human life, there is creation, birth, growth, and massive conflicts, creations,

and destructions within each human life. But through all of that, God is faithful. And if you truly understand that,

it's going to affect your Christian walk dramatically. Let's read the first nine verses.

Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes, our brother,

under the Church of God, which is at Corinth,

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