God’s wisdom for His Church, which lived(es) amidst a prosperous, arrogant and aggressively rebellious culture, yet is commanded by God to become and remain holy (moral and separate).
Major Themes/Controversial Interpretive Challenges/Biblical Success
- Corrective of the Church/Development of Church Order
- Right Doctrine/Thinking for Right Practice and for Right Worship
- Emphasis on Teaching and Training the Church
- Gospel Development
- Cross-Centered – Jesus Christ Crucified
- Heeding God’s Wisdom rather than Fallen Human Wisdom
- Against the Teachers of the Law
- Against the Philosophers of the Age/Times
- Scandal of the Gospel
- Jews – Impossibility of a Crucified Messiah
- Gentiles/Greeks – Substitutionary Atonement/Death and Bodily Resurrection
- Sacrament of the Lord’s Table – Especially the Presence and Activity of God
- Centrality of the Bodily Resurrection of Jesus Christ for the Gospel and for Hope – One of the Most Developed Understandings
- Gifts of the Holy Spirit and their Function
- God’s Sovereignty – Power and Authority
- Godly Love, Contrasted Against Fallen Human Love
- Transformation of the Saved Life in Christ – Sanctification and the Ongoing Validity of God’s Moral Law and Christian Liberty
- Celibacy/Marriage/Separation/Divorce/Remarriage/Widowhood
- Substitutionary Atonement
- Fallen Man’s Judgment and God’s Judgment of Believers
- The New Covenant, in Relationship to the Old Covenant – One of the Most Developed Understandings
- Ministry – Service of Self-Sacrificial Suffering, Amidst Divine Comfort, for God’s Glory/God’s “Ordinary” Use of the Weak
- Ministerial Success – The Church/The Minister/The Believer – Obedience in Faith and Faithfulness and Joy and Contentment and Love amidst Great Suffering and Sacrifice to God’s Glory (just like Jesus Christ) – Godly Love with an Undivided Heart after God’s Own Heart