1 Corinthians 8 -- No, I DON'T Have The Right

“Be careful that your freedom does not cause those who are weak in faith to fall into sin … This weak believer, for whom Christ died, is ruined because of your knowledge.  When you sin against your brothers and sisters in Christ like this and cause them to do what they feel is wrong, you are also sinning against Christ.”

“It’s my right!” we can angrily cry out.  “There’s nothing wrong with doing that!  I’m a Christian.  I know!”  Paul was having to address a problem with these relatively new Christians who were now unshackled from worry about their former lifestyle of idol worship.  Yes, they were correct that what they were proposing was not forbidden, but there was a hitch – and it involved new Christians whose faith was not yet strong, who still had qualms about doing some of the things they’d formerly done that were merely matters of moral indifference.

Romans 14:23 contains a general rule for all of us, and I use it a lot.  “Anything done without believing it is right is a sin.”  So if we can’t find a prohibition about it in the Bible, God tells us to use our consciences, guided by the Holy Spirit, as our basis for making decisions.

We may not think something is wrong, while another Christian might disagree.  When they therefore see us doing it, rather than deciding that it is not forbidden, they instead think, “Well, if he can sin, I suppose that I can, too.”  In effect, our exercise of our rights has just caused another to sin.  Although we may feel that this is an unfair judging of our own actions, Jesus mentioned several things that ought to give us pause.  He said that we’d better watch out if we cause one of the little ones to sin.  It would be better if we were thrown overboard with a huge stone tied around our neck.  He also said that anything done to the least of these His brethren was also done to Him.  While we usually take that to mean things done in charity or love, it equally applies to causing them to sin, so we’re effectively sinning against Him – a grave error.

My commentary says that we must not only consider what effect such an action would have on ourselves, but even more importantly, what effect it would have on others.

Father, I thank You for the liberty You’ve given me through the death of Your Son for my sins.  In my freedom, help me to exhibit the love of Christ for those who have not yet grasped that freedom.  May I love You enough that I will be willing to forego something if, in doing it, another Christian brother will feel that I am sinning.  For having that knowledge, it would be a sin to do anything I do not absolutely believe is right.  Help me to love my Christian brothers more than my freedom.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

1 Corinthians 7 -- To Marry Or Not? What To Consider

I noticed that Paul repeatedly sees that self-control is a huge issue for unmarried believers, and he prefers that we not change our status (single or married) once we become believers.  Paul was single, and he was wanting each believer to be able to devote their lives in service to God.  I sensed that he was almost weighing things on a balance scale – weighing the ability to commit more time to God against natural God-given sexual desires and the struggles we have because of them.

Since marriage was instituted by God, Paul had no problem with singles marrying.  He simply realized that when a single becomes a Christian, his or her affections to God will increase.  Someday, if a potential spouse comes along, he understood that not just time, but affections would have to be divided between God and that future spouse.  I think he understood that we would feel the struggle of that “cleaving”.  Relationships require time, and if only 24 hours are available each day, you can do the math.

I’ve wondered about all this myself.  However, I’ve watched as God led me to adopt my two boys, and my duties as a father have become great time consumers.  While I have seen some reduction in my availability for Christian service, I do feel that I am much closer to God than I was before becoming a father.  God seems to have designed all this so that it would be improving my relationship with Him while “tweaking” my service to Him.

If we put God in control and seek His guidance, also asking Him for grace to lead the single life, everything Paul says here falls right into place and God is glorified.  Our one thing to watch is that issue of self-control.  If the gauge ever gets into the yellow or red zones, it’s possible that we’d do better married with less time for Him than allowing ourselves to fall into sin that might wreck both our relationship with Him and our witness.

Father, I trust You.  Direct me in this area of my life as You also directed me to my sons.  You know best.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

1 Corinthians 6 -- This Body Isn't Mine!

The last half of this chapter fits in nicely with the True Love Waits Bible study I’ve been teaching that finishes this weekend.  Starting in verse 12, Paul reminds the Corinthian Christians of their God-given freedom, but also he gives them some divine wisdom:  “All things are not good for me to do” and “I will not let anything make me its slave.”

It’s awfully tempting to want to cry, “Hey, no harm, no foul!” with some sexual things, but Paul says still it’s not good for us and we run the risk of becoming slaves to it.  He also mentions that some things are perfectly lawful for the believer and yet their value is temporary.  About verse 13, my commentary says, “They should not be given an undue place in the life of the believer.  Don’t live as if the greatest thing in life is to gratify your appetites.”  And he’s not talking only about food there.

That verse also says, “The body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord is FOR the body.”  I hadn’t really caught that before, and my commentary said, “This means that the Lord is interested in our bodies, their welfare, and their proper use.  God wants our bodies to be presented to Him a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable … Without the Lord, the body can never attain its true dignity and its immortal destiny.”

I also read that, because He is going to one day raise us up, His interest in our bodies does not end at the time of death.  “We will not be disembodied spirits in eternity.  Rather, our spirit and soul will be reunited with our glorified body, thus to enjoy the glories of heaven forever.”

Because Jesus bought me by bearing my sins on the cross, I do not have permission or authority to use my body any way I choose.  I can no longer think of my body as my own.  It is His now.  If I try to use it the way I desire, I’m being a thief.  It must only be used to glorify God.

Father, in the eyes of the world, our bodies are our own and no holds are barred.  What a selfish mentality.  Yet this sin infection often tempts us all to do just that.  When You see me trying to do that, show me the cross in my mind.  Point out those blood-stained timbers and remind me that His blood bought me.  I am not my own.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

1 Corinthians 5 -- What We Dread, We Often Fail To Do

Paul tells the Corinthian Christians in no uncertain terms that there is real danger in allowing a Christian who habitually practices a sin that is publicly known to remain in fellowship with the church.  There are several reasons for dealing with such a member, according to my commentary:

1)       The church cannot retain its holy character in the eyes of the world.

2)      The Holy Spirit will be grieved, and His work will be hindered.

3)      The church might become proud of its tolerance.

4)      The church might become more interested in numbers than in holiness.

Paul wants them to understand that they were not sufficiently shocked by sin.

Also, it wasn’t just sexual sin that Paul felt was deserving of this discipline.  On the same level, he put greed, theft, idolatry, verbal abuse, drunkenness, and cheating others. 

They were to put such members out of the fellowship.  “This discipline of believers is always calculated to bring about their restoration to fellowship with the Lord.  Excommunication is never an end in itself, but always a means to an end,” my commentary said.

Paul uses what to them would have been a vivid picture of sin:  yeast in a batch of dough.  “If they tolerate a little moral sin in the church, it will soon grow and expand until the whole fellowship is seriously affected.  Righteous, godly discipline is necessary in order to maintain the character of the church.”  In this illustration, Paul reminded them of how, “on the first day of the Passover feast, a Jew was required to remove all leaven from his house.  He went to the kneading trough and scraped it clean.  He scrubbed the place where the leaven was kept till not a trace remained.  He searched the house with a lamp to make sure that none had been overlooked,” my commentary added.  WOW!  If we would all only do that in our own lives with our sin, there’d be no need to exercise godly discipline in the church.

Paul lets us know that “we are not to judge men’s motives because we are not competent for that type of judgment.  But the word of God is equally clear that we are to judge known sin in the assembly of God so as to maintain its reputation for holiness and so as to restore the offending brother to fellowship with the Lord.”

When and if a believer must ever be removed from fellowship, a public announcement is called for, made in genuine sorrow and humiliation and should be followed by continual prayer for the spiritual restoration of the wanderer, according to my commentary.

Father, I pray that our church – particularly its members – will deal gently but firmly, and in a private way, whenever sin like this if first discovered, in order to restore one of Your children to fellowship.  I pray that we will never be proud of our tolerance, and that we will not fail to love a member enough to confront early on, so that we may prevent these drastic steps from ever being needed.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

1 Corinthians 4 -- What I Am NOT

Paul saw something happening with the Corinthians that didn’t make him feel particularly proud.  It was almost an air of elitism.  “Who says you are better than others?  What do you have that was not given to you?”

They seem to have forgotten (or perhaps they may have never learned) that they were and most likely still were sinners saved by grace.  They’d decided to start reigning while on earth rather than waiting for Christ to return first.  Paul wanted them to look at the apostles as an example.  They would then see none of that arrogance in the apostles.  Only humility and a strong desire to be a servant of Christ.

Just as these people might witness a certain level of snobbery in the lives of earthly monarchs they might chance to encounter, Paul was seeing it happen in the lives of Christians, and this was far from what Christ preached and lived.  He made Himself the servant of all – dying for us.  Through their actions, however, people weren’t getting pointed to Christ.  The focus was on themselves.  They weren’t allowing God to get the glory.

Father, in this world I am nothing without You and without the sacrifice Your Son made for me on that cross.  None of my natural abilities, which are nothing other than gifts from You, would even be worthy of mention when compared with what Jesus did for me.  Please help me to remember that I am nothing without You.  Everything I have, You gave me.  I am Yours.  Guide me to what You want me to be doing.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

1 Corinthians 3 -- A Definition Of "Spiritual"

Paul knocked the props out from under a lot of people in the Corinthian church (and all over the world down through the centuries) who thought they were being super spiritual.  He said, “You are still not spiritual, because there is jealousy and quarreling among you, and this shows that you are not spiritual.”

The sidebar in my Bible on this chapter was from The Best Of Tozer by Warren Wiersbe, and he quotes:  “True spirituality manifests itself in certain desires:

1)       The desire to be holy rather than happy … The truly spiritual man knows that God will give abundance of joy after we have become able to receive it without injury to our soul;

2)      A Christian is spiritual when he sees everything from God’s viewpoint.  The ability to weigh all things in the divine scale and place the same value upon them as God does is the mark of a Spirit-filled life;

3)      The desire to see others advance at his expense is another mark of a spiritual man.  He wants to see other Christians above him and is happy when they are promoted and he is overlooked….”

His overarching comment was that growing spiritually requires that we look to Christ for our identity.  We cannot base our identity on any person other than Him.

Father God, those are tough measures, and they take a lifetime with You to become an integral part of us.  Yet how much better it would be to learn them early on, so that we could have the remainder of our lives on earth to practice such spiritual living!

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

1 Corinthians 2 -- What We Never Imagined - Right Here, Right Now

Paul quotes Isaiah 64:4 here – “No one has ever imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him.”  Isaiah wasn’t talking about heaven, according to my commentary, for Paul was talking about God’s wisdom and “the deep secrets of God,” and the fact that God has now shown them to us through the Spirit.  Since we haven’t seen heaven, that seems to say Isaiah wasn’t talking about it.

What we can’t imagine as natural men is God’s plan that began before the world was created to save men from hell.  Paul says that it’s impossible for a person to even conceive of these thoughts without the help of the Holy Spirit.  It’s only when the Spirit opens the mind of Christ within us that those deep truths are revealed to us.

But even that is not enough.  It takes illumination by the Holy Spirit to shine the light of truth on those revealed words, unlocking our spirits to be able to understand them.

I can remember hearing the word “grace” used so often in church and yet I could not comprehend what it meant.  It was one of those “church words”.  It was only after the Holy Spirit’s revelation that I was able to understand that grace was “getting what we don’t deserve from God”.  But the Spirit didn’t stop there.  He illuminated in my life many incredible instances of God’s providing grace to me – not just once, but daily.  It was humbling to discover.

A good illustration would be radio waves.  They are at any moment blasting through the air all around us, yet we are totally unaware of them.  Science could lead us to be able to detect them with a radio wave meter, for instance.  That would be revelation – to become aware that they are there when before we didn’t know.  But then we could utilize AM, FM, satellite, or short-wave radio, say, or even a cell phone to understand the information conveyed through those waves.  Before Marconi, no one had ever imagined what could be sent across the air by radio or even television.

In the same way, before we receive the Holy Spirit, we cannot imagine what God has prepared for us – His great truths that He reveals to us through the Holy Spirit to help us know Him.  To the unbeliever, it is all foolishness.  We’d call someone foolish who refused to believe in radio waves as well!

Father, I remember how foolish I felt when You finally opened my heart to Your truths and I saw all that I had been missing.  Your truths are hidden from the unbelieving world.  Thanks for sharing them with me.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford