Church

 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:
1 Corinthians 1:2 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/1co.1.2.ESV

What is a church? It is simply a gathering of the people of God. Corinth was an unlikely place to have a church. It was synonymous in the ancient world with sexual immorality, people used 'corinthianise' as a nickname for such things.

I love how Paul phrases his greeting- telling the Corinthian church that they are sanctified, made holy, set apart for God. We might shrug our shoulders, these might be familiar terms to us. But these are the very same people that Paul criticises for being divisive, for taking each other to court, even for incest in one case.

We often think of sanctification as being in the present tense: something that God is doing in our hearts on an ongoing basis. Paul here however describes it in the past tense: because it's a done deal. We might not be perfect yet, but God sees us as such in Christ.

So the Corinthian church illustrate for us that saints aren't semi fictional, perfect people. Instead, we are simply saved sinners, set apart by God to bear His likeness. By the grace of God anyone can become a saint.

'God Almighty, how amazing that sinners like us can become holy. Please make us more and more like Jesus, in His name we pray, amen'

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