The Devotional - 1025 - Foot steps in First Corinthians, ongoing

The Devotional – 1025 – Foot steps in First Corinthians, ongoing

Looking over my desk this morning I notice five Bibles, three of them are opened to passages of study. Out of an abundance we talk, write, teach, preach and carry the information of Christ with us. Just in the other room there is another Bible on the table and oh yes I forgot the three pocket Bible also on my desk. And then the thought comes to me, the versions. Of all of these Bibles, there are four versions. All of this and I am thinking seriously of buying another Bible because my favorite one is falling apart, but I am not sure that the one I see on line is like the one I have in front of me. “What a FRET!”

Comments and Challenges:

1 Corinthians 2:1-5

And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. (The word testimony here in verse one can be translated ‘Mystery’). If we took a serious look around Christian circles today we would no doubt see serious men, even women who claim to have a word of wisdom. Yet this wisdom does not come from the Holy Bible, but from the commentaries of people or ministries of various ISMS they have chosen follow.

For me I feel there is a shift from TRUTH or better, from the SIMPLICITY of the gospel of Christ. There are many ISMS, and doctrinal thesis rolling around in the circles of Christendom these days and again, many are simply a demonstration of the wisdom of man and not in the Wisdom and Power of God expressed firstly in the death and resurrection of our LORD and secondly in the Wisdom and Power of God. Truly the apostle Paul would be saying that we gentiles have lost our grip on the message of the CROSS.

In the days ahead, if the LORD agrees, I intend to reach further into this subject. This is what is currently on my mind. In 2005 I went on a short trip to Ukraine, on the plane there were several Ascetic Jews, ‘self-denying and religiously focused men’. They took to prayer at least three time while in flight, they ate only foods that were blessed by a certain Rabbi to be kosher for them. I thought “wow” these men are holy men of God. Of course that was before I began talking with one who was sitting next to me.

“The Bible, he laughed” we do not study the Bible! We are followers of Rabbi So-in-so”. I said, “Really, how did that happen?” the young man in his late twenties said, “I have followed the Rabbi all my life, my parents do and I do too”. So with that the man showed me just one of the books this dead Rabbi wrote and I said, “How do you know that what is written is TRUTH” and his comment was. “It is not truth until we pray and after prayer, we stick a marker in the pages randomly, then we read where the marker is, this becomes truth and we follow his words. You may think I’m exaggerating here but I am not.

We in Christendom today are rapidly moving in that direction. We follow men who we believe are the spiritual giants of Christendom past and present, but we go one step further, we include them in our study Bible, have them on our book-shelves and follow them on their web-sites, even those who have gone to be with the LORD, their followers use every avenue to keep the teaching alive. Yes, I know the aggravation I am causing here, but it is past time to take a serious look at the bigger problem.

 What we have accused the Jew of doing, we are doing and the hour-glass is turning over for the final hour. The Jew is turning back to God and the gentile is turning away. For me this is evident and while I am excited I am also saddened for one day soon we will be like those in Zechariah 8:22 because we have lost our way as gentiles and the Jews rapidly returning to their God.  

The devotional - 1024 - Foot Steps in First Corinthians, ongoing

The Devotional – 1024 – Foot steps in First Corinthians, ongoing

Several years ago in a Campus Crusade for Christ Program under the ministry of the “Weekend of Champions” a Bill Glass Ministry out of Texas; I was given the opportunity to teach a ten week Bible Course for new believers in one of our local prisons here in Connecticut. The class sign up was over seventy men (not all were new believers) and many continued for the full ten weeks. Of the several men I remember, two of them stand out. One a young man of twenty years serving a life sentence and an older man who was due to be released within the year. These men were given Bibles, the young man accepted his, but the older man rejected. Holding up the Bible in his hand he said, “I got saved twenty years ago and this is the Bible someone gave me then, so I am going to keep it and use it till the end”.

Comments and Challenges:

1 Corinthians 1:26-31

The Holy Bible through the guidance of God the Holy Spirit and the words of the apostle Paul encourages the church at Corinth to consider the call of God to the brethren. He (Paul) says that there are not many in Christ who are wise according to the flesh, not many are mighty and also not many are noble. The word noble in 1 Corinthians 1:26 can be translated – “well-born”, interesting!

Of the men that attended the ten week course mentioned above, all of them were incarcerated for very long periods of time. Two brothers; carpenters by trade would never see the parole board and the stories of others, including the young man of twenty years old were horrifying and yet they made up the church in this prison. The ten week lesson was for new believers and yet; are we not all “on this side of the sun” somewhat new at living for eternity and should we not all be in a “new beginners class or two”?

I would suppose that it is very easy for us to think that we are something special, but if we do then shame on us. God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise as He has also put to shame the mighty in the same way. If your sail is full of the wind (pride) it should not take long for the LORD to knock the wind out, since the “base” (the insignificant or lowly) which are despised by the world are chosen by God, so then why should you boast in your insignificance. 

Therefore as the apostle has recorded earlier in the chapter, those who relish in the sin of sectarianism (I am following Paul, Apollos or Peter) will not glory in the presence of God. We belong to Christ Jesus, He alone is the wisdom from God to us – Jesus is our Righteousness, our sanctification and our redemption. Nothing else matters in that if we do not have the understanding that Jesus is our “All in All”, then even if saved our reward will be small.

Notice what the Prophet Jeremiah says: “Thus says the LORD, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might. Nor let the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me. that I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment (justice) and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight says the LORD – Jeremiah 9:23-24.

The Devotional - 1023 - Foot steps in First Corinthians, ongoing

The Devotional – 1023 – Foot steps in First Corinthians, ongoing

In our world today we see what I would like to call “controlled panic” but I am not sure that this is just the wording that truly explains my intent. Someone said recently that they were not worried about Ebola just concerned. So concerned they were that they cancelled their scheduled surgery in a hospital because someone returned to their home state after being in the country where Ebola is present and had showed symptoms. The persons did not live in the same town and were miles apart from each other. You could say “maybe” that the closest thing the two people had in common is that (if needed) they went to: “two different hospitals together”! There is no “wisdom” in this powerless, but concerned thinking!

Comments and Challenges:

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

The words or the message above is just a small example of how well the “debater” of our current worldly conditions are. Where is the wise? Where is the lawyer? Have they not all gone “MAD”! I say is not God making the wisdom of this world His footstool? Matthew 22:41-46 is a fitting passage even as Jesus says in verse 42; “what do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?

Our days are filled with actions of “panic” and “hopelessness” some children are afraid to go to school because they feel that they will be shot to death by a classmate, others go to school with the mindset of being the shooter, except they have no weapon. Yet people; even good friends or relatives will boldly say; “don’t tell me about the Cross, it is foolishness”. 

And we who are being saved understand clearly that the Cross is not a message of Ebola the disease and panic, nor is it a message of fear, death and hopelessness at the hand of some troubled person. The message of the Cross is the WISDOM and the POWER of God, whom the world has turned their back to. The world is seeking a sign or a word of wisdom, the problem is that the world is looking to itself for the answer, rather than to God.

But if you are saved like me, whether you are Jewish or not we see that the message of the Cross is the only HOPE for the hopeless world. A world where “good and evil” flourish so well together that if you are of the world, you cannot tell what is good or what is evil. Why is that? Because the foolishness of GOD is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men – 1 Corinthians 1:25. So my warning to you my friend is STOP being a “dunderhead” and turn to the LORD, Jesus who is the wisdom of God, not of man.