Be With Me: 7 Minutes of Biblical Wonder

It is a brave and sometimes difficult thing to handle the God-given gift of sexuality well.  When it does not go well, then the Church must also be brave and us it's power of reconciliation.  If that doesn't work, then there are powers of discipline to best care for the individual that needs it. Paul corrects the individual in this situation, but he also corrects the response of the chur...

Don't you just love that the Bible addresses SEX as a topic?  It is a great gift and area of morality.  God invented it and loves it. It is His rules we must abide by.   In our passage today, individuals and the whole church are sexually ARROGANT.  That is, making up their own rules.  Paul asks the church to put on its' big-boy-pants and go to DEFCON 4 with these unrepentant individuals....

We get to chose the attitude we will have as we  receive tough teaching. Paul has got some dicey topics coming up for the Corinthians: Sexual immorality and Pride.  Before he gets there he asks them about how they want to receive the teaching. If you chose a hard heart and arrogance, you will get THE ROD. Paul would then pull out his authority hat and give you discipline, correction, and his given...

Paul cannot physically be with the Corinthians so he sends Timothy, his CHRISTIAN FRIEND. He describes him as his beloved and faithful child.  So today, let's look at what it is to be in a Christian friendship.  It probably means you will share meals; share activities; share in different ministries; share in the same mission; share in time; and share this friendship with the next generation....

What is the posture of Christianity? the attitude? the heart-set? Paul pulls out his irony card to show the right and wrong answers to the Corinthians.  Wrong is boastful and divisive.  Right is a humble, grateful, maturing posture.  He describes it as looking a lot like the leaders in the Church. In fact, he says, it looks a lot like ME.  This is an admonishment, which is a correction so that the...

Wait for it. It is one of the greatest questions of the Bible..."What do you have that you did not receive?"  If you get this right you are a long long way towards the right attitude and affections of Christianity.   It asks us to consider, count and recall what we have: Stuff, nature, relationship with God, gifts, eternal security, friends, character, resources, abilities, fellowship, m...

The evil villain in the 1984 movie Ghostbusters is a gigantic Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.  He's sort of this god of self that destroys NYC.   Paul warns the Corinthians to not be PUFFED up in favor of 1 leader against the other.  He asks that they have a caution regarding judgment of oneself, judgement of others , and in judgment of our leaders. Listen 7 minutes as we try to defeat the Stay-Pu...

Wisdom is a tricky thing.  Many proclaim it.  Few have it. Practically, who exactly are we following primarily? What should our relationship be with our leaders be?  Do we even have leaders over us? We are inclined towards self-deception.  The ground here is dangerous. There are many voices, so who is going to be the primary voice I listen to?  The world says it is wise but is actually folly, craf...

If God dwelt among us, would it make any difference?  If God dwelt  within us, would anything change? This is exactly Paul's point today.  God Himself, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, now indwells believers from their point of belief.  We have been waiting for this for thousands of years.  This changes a few things.  Actually it changes more than a few. The LOCATION of God determines access...

Is your work fire-ready? Is it ready to be fire-tested?  When it is tested hard, will it be found to have substance, or be burned up and unlasting?  The Bible teaches that not only will people be judged, but so will the actions of those people.  The big point today is to NOT be found wanting.  Those who are will still be saved, but they won't receive any extra rewards, and will so have to &qu...

The big news is GOD GIVES the GROWTH*. God is the primary mover for both  belief and for Christian  maturity. The * part is that He sovereignly choses to use humans in this process. So we must not  overstate the importance of specific humans like the Corinthians were doing. Similarly, we must not  understate the importance of specific humans like some in the church are doing. God is in the busines...

If we lay a blanket of spiritual assessment over the Corinthian church's nooks and crannies, what would we find?  For them it was Jealousy and Strife.  But the real problem is spiritual GROWTH.  You see, that was their problem BEFORE and it STILL is their problem.  This is not the spiritual marker you want to see:  sameness. feigned ignorance. stubbornness. disobedience. If we lay a blanket o...

God wants to impart something to us that the heart of man has not even imagined.  It is beyond category.  We will probably need some help in our 1.5 Kg brains to understand it.  Fortunately, God has been planning this for a long time. The Holy Spirit is the one who has the "foot in heaven": comprehending the mind of Christ, understanding the thoughts of God, and searching everything in t...

God gave you the gift of THOUGHT.  He's gonna need it for you to have a relationship with Him.  There is only one problem: His thoughts are so big and wonderful we have cannot understand them. We have already called them STUPID and FOLLY.  There is this gap. So we are gonna need a communicator.  A Helper.  We need someone to go to heaven, understand the thoughts of God and then bring those th...

The giant of the faith, Paul, describes his actual non-giant-of-the-faith self as WEAK, FEARFUL and TREMBLING.  What?  Why is that?  Well, because that is the way he ACTUALLY was.  It likely is a statement of reality. Secondly, it is to get us to refocus our dependency on the right thing: the POWER OF GOD (amidst the people of God). His main concern is WHERE his people are putting their faith.  Wh...

Imagine DELIGHTING God today.  He says it is possible.  God takes great pleasure in a person who knows Him experientially; who wrestles and walks with Him a bit.  He delights in someone who then uses that knowledge in a practical way. If knowing stuff about God and knowing God doesn't make a difference in what you say, think or do, then what is the point? Amazingly, He  wants to be known.  He...

You are SUPPOSED to stumble over Jesus.  You have to.  Everybody has to.  The current population of the spiritual kingdom is populated by STUMBLERS.  If you think all of Christianity a bit in the ridiculous category then know this: GOD AGREES WITH YOU.  He is quite comfortable with being in the category of what seems to us to be: STUPID, folly and foolish. So the person and personality of Christ i...

Don't blame me.  Paul said it first.  He said the reality of the cross will seem like folly to those exposed to it.  Our more common word today would be stupid .  He says the truths of God, summarized as " the Cross ", will seem to people around us as stupid.   So, I too say so with great respect.  I don't think I have heard anybody else use the term, but it is, in my humble ju...

A great question to ask is: Who is the spiritual boss of me?  There are two ways we can get this wrong.  One is to say that my primary allegiance is to a HUMAN, and not to God Himself.  "I follow Paul, I follow Apollos or I follow _____________" Do not "empty the Cross of its power" by putting any human above God. If you do so you risk separating yourself from God, and separati...

As we drive down the road of life we want answers to two big questions: Do I have what I need to do what God asks of me TODAY? Do I have what I need to make it all the way to the END? Paul addresses both concerns in his opening salvo of thanksgiving for the people of Corinth.  He thanks God for starters that He's chosen to even get in the car with them; that He called them into fellowship and...

You know the moment when someone holds out a telephone to you and says, "You have a CALL?" You want to know two things: who is it and what does he want?  Then there is a decision to make:  should I answer the call? We join Paul as he writes ahead to the Corinthian church while he's on the third missionary journey. He reminds the Corinthians: You have a CALL. I have a CALL. We are ca...

Paul loves the Thessalonians.  I do too.  I am going to miss them tomorrow morning.  But before we go geographically down the Macedonian peninsula and chronologically to the Corinthians , we best REMEMBER and summarize. He loves their increasing love and their growing faith.  This is amidst the real life trouble that they had and we have. He loves their intent to be on the forever bus .  He warns...

Why might a group of believers use the power of DIS-association? Why go to DEFCON 4? It is because other powers for good have not been heeded, and a BROTHER has continued with an ongoing pattern of DISOBEDIENCE to his detriment.   So as a BLESSING to him, this congregation of love, PUTS HIM OUT, so that one day after his repentance, this congregation can PUT HIM BACK IN. When God calls people to H...

Step #1 is to NOTICE. Specifically today, notice WEARINESS in the brothers and sisters around you.  This may help: think of the prisoner, the old, the grieving, the sick, those in relational crisis, those crushed by their task, the young, those in trial or testing. This may even be in yourself. Step #2 is to BE CURIOUS. Stand with. Help. Acknowledge. The Bible is full of awareness of the weary and...

If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.  This concept effects two groups of people. First is the unwilling non-worker.  The risk here is that they fall into idleness and then into busybodiness.  This moves from slack HANDS to busy TONGUES.  It is Opinions without Output; Concerns without Contributions; Views with the Value-added.  The charge for this group is to be busy at work, eat bre...