Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-10-13
SABBATH SCHOOL LESSON
For Octobr Is. I Cor. 1910, 1913, 1-l3
BY DR.. MARION NH. HULL

Golden Text: "And now abideth
faith, hope, and love; these three, but
the greatest Of these Is love-" Cor.
1913.
One Of the most important, be-
cause far reaching, events of PauPS
visit to EpheSus was the first letter
to the Corinthians written while
there. There had been some cores
nondence between them before this,
which has been lost; in fact, this
letter (the first of two we have pre-
served for us) was In answer 70
communication from them to Paul
and brought by the hands of Stepha-
mas. Fortunatus and Achaicus. They
asked his opinion about eating meats
offered to- idols, about marriage
about the relative value OF certain
gifts of the Spirit and about the res
direction. He had heard also from
that these were divisions among
them, some claiming to belong to
paul. some to Apollos, some to Peter
until the denominations dlrfer-
ences were getting to be notorious
ly un-Christian. They also told him
of many instances OF gross lnfio-
ra1ity among the Corinthian Chris
4ians and of one notorious instance
| in which a church member was guilty
| of immortality with his stepmother'
his father being still alive, and that
| in st cad Of Furnishing him, the churcn
was rather glorying In the fact that
| they were tolerating 1t. so Paul
wrote this letter from Ephesus u
| Cor. 1879 to condemn their intense
UNCONVENTIONAL differences as wholly
| un-Christian, to call them Sharply
| to account for their immortality and
| this specific case particularly; and
| to answer their questions: Inc KEY
note of the whole letter is found IN
the 9th verse of the first chapter.
They had been called into telIoWshlp
| with Jesus Christ-and such fellow
| shin was injured by the practices he
condemns, and fostered by the things
| he urges upon them.
Love Essential
| In speaking of the various gifts OF
| the Spirit, he is led to write or love,
fer without love all the gifts are use
| less.
The Corinthians all seemed to be
Jealous for the gift of tongues; the
| Spectacular was what appealed tic
| them; and in their assemblies great
confusion had arisen by all trying
| to talk at once, some speaking III
! unknown tongues, some propheSying,
some asking questions. The women
were at least as guilty as the men.
It. was in dealing with this situa
| ton that Paul spoke of love as the
more excellent way" Without it
all else was of no avail. One might
speak with tongues, but without love
| back of it God was not glorified nor
men edited, and one might just as
well take tin pan and beat it. One
might prophesy, might know all the
hidden secrets. might know all the
sciences, might be mighty in faith
but without love his gift and him
self were nothing; for God is love
and without love we are without
God Prophecy without God is the
foolish talk Of a fortune teller
Knowledge of mysteries without GOO
is devilish, Knowledge of the
sciences without God is hellish, as
any student of Germany must know
since the world war. Faith without
God is folly.
Doing out ones worldly goods to
feed the poor unless prompted by
the love of God profits nothing: even