First Corinthians, I love these books, you know, all the books of the Bible, but First

Corinthians is a little prickly. The second Corinthians is very prickly, and there's a reason

for that. You know, in starting First Corinthians, I'm reminded of a story on a dangerous

sea coast where there were shipwrecks that often occurred back

in the late 1800s. You know, there was a crude little life saving station. The building was just

really a small hut, but there was only one boat, one life-saving boat, and they'd put it on a wagon

and wheel it down

quickly to the beach and then put the boat in the water and go and try to rescue as many people as they could.

But it had a few devoted members of this life-saving station, and they had constant watch over that

deadly area of the sea.

And with no thought for themselves, they'd go out day or night,

tirelessly searching for lost souls in the ocean of those that would be saved.

They'd pull them out of the water and there'd be a big bonfire by the hut and they'd warm

them up and dry them off and try to give them any first aid that was necessary.

But as time went by, there'd be people that were saved that were, you know, wealthy people

that were on the ships for trade or commerce or journeys or whatever.

And they were so, you know, blessed by what happened by the life saving station that they

would donate money to give to the cause,

you know, and some of those, you know, really put a lot of time and effort in the support of the work

of the life-saving. New boats were bought, crews were trained, and the little life-saving station

grew to be quite an organization where they had

they were well financed and and some of the members of the life-saving you know were they saw that the

...