Church problems can be some of the stickiest problems that believers face. It seems that something that can be worked out easily and soon forgotten in almost any other setting can cause lifelong divisions and hurts in the church between believers. We even find creative ways of denying or otherwise getting around many of the problems that arise in churches and thereby add to the problem. We often hear it said that if we could just get things back to the way they were in the early or New Testament era church, we would see most of the problems erased. Though this sounds good, is it really the truth? Someone has said that Satan fully revealed his sinister plan to wreck the church in the first century church by infiltrating false doctrine and sending persecution on the church. In doing this, however, he played right into the hand of God by showing us what he will do, so that we can avoid these pitfalls if we will. The church at Corinth was filled with almost every problem one could conceive, yet the Lord through the apostle Paul dealt with every one of them! In this way, we see how the Lord would have us confront problems that face us today in the church of Jesus Christ.

The BBN Bible Institute offers a course in the 30000 Division titled simply a Study of 1 Corinthians taught by the well-known Bible teacher, Dr. Charles Ryrie. In this course, Dr. Ryrie deals with some or all of each of the 16 chapters of the Epistle in 5 lessons. Dr. Ryrie is known for his in depth teaching, and he does not disappoint in this important study for the church. He deals head-on with many of the tough texts in this Epistle and gives us solid Scripture-based answers for today. What were some of the problems in the Corinthian church? Just for a small sampling, they faced gross immorality, the roles of women and men in both society at large as well as in the church. They faced the issue of tongues and even overt sin in the very meetings of the church! This is just a small sample, but we can see that our problems today are no worse than theirs were. If you would like to have solid answers for church problems in our day, look for course number 30500 in the BBN Bible Institute.