Infusion Bible eStudies are downloadable small group studies that can be read online, printed, or emailed. Each study includes a leader guide and a study guide and is suitable for a one-hour group Bible study.
Listen...to the words of the Scripture, and in them discover God's message for you today.
Look...at a brief verbal snapshot from the scrapbook of contemporary life and discover its connection both to you and to the Scripture passage.
Live...inside the Scripture to discover its context and message; then allow the Scripture to come alive in you and cause you to live out your faith in new and more-effective ways.
Read an excerpt from this study below.
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Take it from me, while the whole gospel should be preached to all God’s people, some congregations are better equipped for certain elements of the message than others. If I had been a first-century preacher, I would not have wanted to preach to the congregation at Corinth on the text “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
From what we know about the believers at Corinth, they did not give much evidence of being a new creation. They were contentious and divisive. Some of them engaged in sexual conduct so immoral that Paul said it was “a kind that is not found even among pagans” (1 Corinthians 5:1). Considering Corinth’s reputation as a city that trafficked in vice, this was a strong statement. The Corinthians managed even to corrupt their worship by their jealousy over spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12–14) and by their celebration of the Lord’s Supper: “When you come together it is not for the better but for the worse,” Paul said (1 Corinthians 11:17).
Yet in addressing these very people, Paul insisted that when we are in Christ, we are a new creation. Paul seemed satisfied that even such faulty persons as the Corinthians were, in fact, new. It is a grand and challenging thing to be told we are part of new beginnings and that we can contribute to the unfolding of those beginnings in others.
