The Devotional - 1055 - Foot Steps in First Corinthians, ongoing

The Devotional – 1055 – Foot steps in First Corinthians, ongoing

One of the first things a person learns to conform to in the military is unity. For some of us that can be difficult if the family values within the home life of a young person is full of disunity. We call people who cannot conform to unity “lone rangers” but this is a misnomer, since in most cases the person is a disarranger of things that keep the unit together. At times I find myself as the disarranger in the way things are done. This can be very disheartening to friends and when one brings these ways into the church, the red flag goes up within the church brethren. Such should not be the case of the next three chapters of 1 Corinthians, as the three chapters devote the reader to the unity of the Spirit of God within the church as the Body and not to disunity.

CHALLENGES & COMMENTS – 1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Verse 1 – Now concerning spiritual gifts. Brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant:

Let me say at this point that I will have to cut short today’s devotional. I have an appointment at 8:30am and it is already 7:10am. Time flies but I enjoy searching the scripture and this has taken time this morning. Certainly a blessing for me. 

As indicated in verse 1 the word gift is in italics meaning that in the original writing the word gift is not present (ton pneumatikon) is the Greek rendering of “The Spirituals” a term used by the apostle to point directly to the Holy Spirit. So he is directing the attention of the Corinthian believers to the ministry of the Holy Spirit and not Spiritual gifts at this opening statement.

Verse 2 – First the apostle must clear away their idolatry in that before they were saved they were believing in “dumb idols” and following mystery religions and pagan cults. After being saved many Corinthian saints failed to free them self from pagan attitudes and thus they confused the true work of the Holy Spirit of God with the former ecstatic or emotional characteristics of these cults and religions in their country.

Dumb idols do not speak, but in the religion of Apollo, a Dionysian religion, people spoke for Apollo, reference 1 Corinthians 10:20 in that sacrifices to demons in the pagan temples provide food for the temple restaurants and meat market which we looked at a week or two ago, so the point is that the Corinthian believers were very aware of false religion and seemed ready to adopt several pagan spiritual practices of which we will take a deeper look at on another day. (study source: notes of Dr. Constable).