1 Corinthinas 5:5-6 "deliver such a one to satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?"
This scripture is written in the context of a church having a member sin without repentance. To make matters worse the church just excepted his sin and kept on going as if it was okay. The dude was sleeping with his dads wife (stepmother to him), ya you heard me right! And we think that the stuff we see on Springer is "new school". His sin was bad enough but for him to continue to live in this sin unrepentantly (not acknowledging it as wrong) was ridiculous and it even made the Pagans cringe (according to Johnny Mac). Paul is telling them they need to rebuke this guy and if he still is shameless they need to boot him out of the church. Paul makes his point clear with verse 6 that I love, "a little leaven leavens the whole lump". If you got a batch of dough and you put a little leaven in it the whole lump rises, the same way a little mildew can spoil a whole loaf.
We can look at this scripture in a couple different ways.
1) watch who we surround ourselves with and when our friends are claiming to be part of the flock (christian) and living in unrepentant sin we need to hold them accountable despite the uncomfortable nature of the conversation. When you accept Jesus you sign on for this.
2) we need to be aware of the sin that can creep into our lives. The small sins that starts to infect other parts of our life and then explode into a huge (possibly public) issue.
This really goes back to one of my favorite themes "keep fighting against temptation and sin".
Showing posts with label John MacArthur study book (1 Corinthians). Show all posts
Showing posts with label John MacArthur study book (1 Corinthians). Show all posts
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
"You Talking Loud But You Ain't Saying Nothing"
"You talking loud but you ain't saying nothing", ya it's slang so how about this, "you are talking loud but you are not saying anything relevant". How many times have we had this thought pop into our heads when we hear somebody talk about something that has little or no value? It's just jargon! Let's get back into the 1st letter to Corinth.
1 Corinthians 2:1-2 & 4 "Brethren, when I came to you I did not come with excellent speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined to not know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified... 4 And my speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power."
MacArthur says this "the focus of the preaching and teaching to unbelievers was Jesus Christ, who paid the penalty for sin on the cross. Until someone understand and believes the gospel there is nothing else to say to them."
This punches home some posts we have been having as it pertains to sharing with unbelievers, all we should do is share the gospel and pray that God will take the blinders off that person and reveal His truth to them. However this scripture for me puts more of a focus on getting back to talking about the truth of Jesus. Back in the early church followers were accused of worshiping a dead man by outsiders, that shows you how much Christ was preached back then. It was all about Jesus and I think that is because without Jesus there is no death, burial, and resurrection, and without that we have nothing. My encouragement for us is to get back to focusing our conversations, thoughts, and praise/worship on the Carpenter from Nazareth who claimed to be "King of the Jews".
1 Corinthians 2:1-2 & 4 "Brethren, when I came to you I did not come with excellent speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined to not know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified... 4 And my speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power."
MacArthur says this "the focus of the preaching and teaching to unbelievers was Jesus Christ, who paid the penalty for sin on the cross. Until someone understand and believes the gospel there is nothing else to say to them."
This punches home some posts we have been having as it pertains to sharing with unbelievers, all we should do is share the gospel and pray that God will take the blinders off that person and reveal His truth to them. However this scripture for me puts more of a focus on getting back to talking about the truth of Jesus. Back in the early church followers were accused of worshiping a dead man by outsiders, that shows you how much Christ was preached back then. It was all about Jesus and I think that is because without Jesus there is no death, burial, and resurrection, and without that we have nothing. My encouragement for us is to get back to focusing our conversations, thoughts, and praise/worship on the Carpenter from Nazareth who claimed to be "King of the Jews".
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
1 Corinthians (division in the church)
Sorry for the delay, I honestly forgot that I promised to run through this letter of Paul's (1 Corinthians). So let's see what John MacArthur says about the 1st chapter.
1Corinthians 1:10-13 "I appeal to you brothers, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers some from Chloe's house have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another "I follow Cephas"; still another, "I follow Christ." Is Christ divided?...
What Paul is eluding to is no different than what we see today in the church in form of denominations. The Corinthians were getting it twisted and focusing on things that weren't of the utmost importance and allowing this to break them up. You see that Paul is explaining that people are saying that they follow different people. Johnny Mac says that the Corinthians started to break up and follow who they thought was the coolest (High profile personalities), for example someone who hangs on every word from a pastor as opposed to every scripture/word from Jesus. Be reminded that all men are sinful and eventually will make an error, Jesus never has and never will so you know His word is always good. This brings back the conversation of foundational doctrine that can't be misinterpreted. As Christians we can't misinterpret the resurrection, virgin birth, substitution (life for life, Jesus for our sins), and various other doctrines. However we can disagree on drinking (having a leisurely drink versus no drinks), methods of witnessing, worship music style, and other issues that don't affect the foundation of our faith. We have to stay together despite having different opinions on things that don't affect salvation. One of the biggest turnoffs to non-believers is the division in the church, we see all the time. "Why would I want to belong to a group and have to oppose other groups when I can just stay neutral." It's ugly!
A problem I had was I used to dislike the Catholic church and claim that they were openly committing blasphemy on multiple accounts. Then I met a great Catholic follower and we talked ever day about our differences and shared beliefs, coming to find out that our foundation was the same. His church chooses to put a high focus on things I don't agree with but should that affect our brotherhood, I don't think so, we are both following Jesus. However we first have to understand what we stand for and what our foundational beliefs are (search archives for more on foundational doctrines).
1Corinthians 1:10-13 "I appeal to you brothers, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers some from Chloe's house have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another "I follow Cephas"; still another, "I follow Christ." Is Christ divided?...
What Paul is eluding to is no different than what we see today in the church in form of denominations. The Corinthians were getting it twisted and focusing on things that weren't of the utmost importance and allowing this to break them up. You see that Paul is explaining that people are saying that they follow different people. Johnny Mac says that the Corinthians started to break up and follow who they thought was the coolest (High profile personalities), for example someone who hangs on every word from a pastor as opposed to every scripture/word from Jesus. Be reminded that all men are sinful and eventually will make an error, Jesus never has and never will so you know His word is always good. This brings back the conversation of foundational doctrine that can't be misinterpreted. As Christians we can't misinterpret the resurrection, virgin birth, substitution (life for life, Jesus for our sins), and various other doctrines. However we can disagree on drinking (having a leisurely drink versus no drinks), methods of witnessing, worship music style, and other issues that don't affect the foundation of our faith. We have to stay together despite having different opinions on things that don't affect salvation. One of the biggest turnoffs to non-believers is the division in the church, we see all the time. "Why would I want to belong to a group and have to oppose other groups when I can just stay neutral." It's ugly!
A problem I had was I used to dislike the Catholic church and claim that they were openly committing blasphemy on multiple accounts. Then I met a great Catholic follower and we talked ever day about our differences and shared beliefs, coming to find out that our foundation was the same. His church chooses to put a high focus on things I don't agree with but should that affect our brotherhood, I don't think so, we are both following Jesus. However we first have to understand what we stand for and what our foundational beliefs are (search archives for more on foundational doctrines).
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