The Devotional – 1067 – Foot Steps in First Corinthians, On Going

The Devotional – 1067 – Foot Steps in First Corinthians, On Going

During my teenage years I was given a job to stack a pile of bricks, this was no small pile by the way, I must have been around four and half feet tall and the bricks were at least three feet over my head. The men who asked my friend and me to stack the bricks were taking down an old building and they intended to sell the used brick. There were plenty of bricks to choose from but to select one always seemed to be a challenge. What I mean is that since some of the bricks had mortar attached, they did not want to sit properly next to the others. So we made a trash pile of these, in fact; the man in charge said to do just that. To my surprise stacking the bricks in a four by four foot pattern did not take five years like I thought. It only took about a week. We also used a chipping hammer and knocked off the mortar from the bricks in the trash pile. In all we salvaged all but twenty (plus or minus a few) bricks that were broken and unusable.

CHALLENGES & COMMENTS – 1 Corinthians 14:20-25

The apostle Paul looking into the matters of the Corinthian church says in verse 26 of chapter 14 – “Let all things be done for edification” another word could be used here – “for building up”! It would be very naïve for us to think that all churches are perfect, honestly if we allow our self to ponder this – even the perfect church we attend has issues and the apostle points this out in the earlier words of this 26^th verse.

There is plenty of evidence that any church attended by the brethren (you and me) is always in need of sound doctrine. All of the epistles in the New Testament warn of the coming apostasy. In 1 Timothy 4 the apostle Paul warns Timothy to instruct the brethren and to be a good minister of Christ. Now I do not wish to go off on a rabbits trail here so let me get back to that pile of bricks! Yet I will say that I personally believe that the soundness of all doctrine hangs in the balance of Paul’s teaching in these three chapters of 1 Corinthians (12-14).

Let me ask a question for edification purposes, “Is it necessary to speak in a tongue, why even the thought of this for me is like seeking to say something that fails interpretation. I for one have enough trouble with this in just speaking “plain ole English!” and truly there have been times that after a statement I have said: “Do you understand”? And in return I get a blank stare instead of the nod of agreement.

To some degree when we “fellowship” in the LORD we are revealing to one another the things we spiritually gain during “biblical edification”. Also, two or more of us may be gathered together in a Bible study, we together will be discussing the study. The Holy Bible uses words that were culturally acceptable in the days it was written, when the apostle talks of things being revealed…he uses the word prophesy.

We do the same thing among ourselves in these small group conversations and studies and we are afraid to call this prophesy because of the spiritual stigma assigned to the whole conversation of the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 12-14. Well I for one believe this is to our shame, since in doing so we have crippled the work of the Holy Spirit who if we believe God by faith will guide us into all truth, John 16:5-15.

Certainly we should not toss the doctrine of 1 Corinthians 12-14 aside as many have done; that is unless of course we intend to knock the stigma (mortar) off of this section and place the apostle’s work in the good pile of doctrine along with the rest. Certainly there will be broken pieces to send to the dumpster, but these will not be from the written Word, but from the heart of an evil mind.