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OT: As you continue to read Psalms this week, you will be reading from Psalm 85 to 102. Look for the following recurring themes:

• The glory and the joy of Zion, the city of God
• God’s faithfulness in keeping his covenant
• The everlasting God teaching us how to live when life is so fleeting
• The coming together of the righteousness, or justice, of God with the mercy of God
• God not allowing the wicked to go unpunished
• God’s universal reign being a reason for the creation to rejoice
• The security and joy of being in God’s house

NT: This week you will continue to read from the first chapter of 1 Corinthians to the eighth chapter and you will want to consider:

• The apostle Paul is addressing the problem of division in Corinth where some are thinking that they are superspirtual because they excel in spiritual gifts, and some are even challenging Paul’s apostleship, even though their are basics of Christian character and community that they are neglecting.
• Paul preaches the foolishness of the cross of Christ in contrast to the supposed wisdom of the world
• The things of the Spirit cannot be understood by the natural man - those not born again by the Spirit - but the divisions between those at Corinth show that they are acting like such natural people instead of those who have the Spirit of God living in them
• We must be careful what and how we build on the foundation of Christ that has already been laid
• The Corinthians need to understand that the apostle is a steward of the gospel that they have received from him and that through which he has become their father in the faith
• He challenges them for not addressing the sexually immoral man in the church there and for failing generally to exercise proper judgement in the church
• He offers further challenges on the general issue of sexual morality and then begins to answer questions that they had raised with him in a letter - marriage and singleness, and food offered to idols.