Old Jerry

This passage says that they are demons. Then that spiritual danger to us if we participate in idol worship is that we would be worshiping demons. We cannot worship both demons and the one and only God.

The way that the priests participated in the altar was by eating the sin offerings in the sanctuary area. This was part of the atonement for the sins that they had committed. We are to eat the Lord supper as an atonement for our sins because Jesus died on the cross.

To describe the believers relationship to the blood and body of Christ. The meaning to “participate” or “share” in the blood of Christ is to take the symbol of the blood and bless God for Jesus.

I think that the human make-up that causes us to face temptation we are either finding an easier way out or we trying to find a comfortable way in this world. We are trying to always satisfy ourselves. This passage tells us that we are going to facing temptation but that God will always give us a way of not yielding to the temptation.

Some of the excuses that Paul is combating is that the liberal Christians seem to know everything and it is puffing them up. They were eating meat that was sacrificed to the pagan gods and the newly converted Christian were have a problem with that. We do have of pretty lame excuses but if we would listen to that we are saying then I think that we would correct our ways. But we can always assess the validity of our excuses by bouncing them of what the Bible has to say. I know my behavior has in influence on new believers. They will want what I do in a certain situation and may react with that behavior.

The advantages of celibacy that Paul discussed was that we would that we would try to please the Lord more. If we have a spouse then our devotion is split and we wouldn’t be spending more time with the Lord. A married believer can maximize full devotion to the Lord by promoting God in the family.

I think that these verses teaches us that divorce for married believers should be avoided. But there is always circumstances when this is not possible. A divorce where one spouse isn’t a believer the believing spouse should not be the one that initiates the divorce. It seems to me if the divorce was for a legal reason the remarriage should be allowed. But then we would come up with all kinds of reasons that we think that it was ok to divorce.

Verses 9 and 37 teach that there should be no sex between couples who are engaged but not married. If they can’t control themselves they should get married.

Paul’s concedes that “it is good for a man not to touch a woman because that would a man to have more time be doing the Lord’s work. He teaches about sexual intercourse within the marriage so that the evil one won’t be tempting the partner to seek intercourse outside the marriage. He teaches mutual rights within marriage by saying that a husbands body belongs to the wife and the wife body belongs to the husband. Paul teaches us that using sex as a bargaining chip within the marriage should not be done because the spouse’s body belongs to the other spouse.

The implications of the truth that I don’t belong to myself, but to God is that I am here to be doing the work that God wants me to do. He doesn’t want me to sin against my body but this is his body also. If we resist this truth then that puts us in the category of not being very smart.

The meaning of “our bodies are members of Christ himself” is that our soul is what has been placed in us and makes us a member of Christ himself. The implications of that with guard to sexual sin is that we are sinning with our bodies and not just our minds. The implications of this is that we are to keep ourselves from sin and when we do sin we ask for forgiveness.

The reason that the gospel is such good news to those who have been involved in gross sin is that we know that Jesus will forgive us those sins. All we have to do is repent from those sins and accept Jesus Christ is our savior.

The scripture says that participating in homosexual acts is a sin. It also teaches that Adultery is also a sin. It is important for a believer the repent so that we can turn our life around and be in fellowship with God.

The way it hurts the Christian cause when Christians take each other to court is the outside community don’t think that we can love each other. If we have a dispute in the church we should have the elders or leaders of the church decide the issue. I don’t know how we might institute this in a local congregation or on a geographical location.

According this passage the sinners that we should be willing to associate with are those that are in the world, not those that are in the church. The reason for the distinction is that we are trying to bring the unbeliever to the saving grace of Jesus Christ. The believers have already had at one time been taught about this saving grace and have decided that they didn’t need it. The danger with associating with unbelievers is that we all seem to fall to the lowest denominator and associating with non-believers they just might bring us down to their level. Just look at what has happened in the United States.

The presence of openly sinning members affect others in the body because they see that the church will do nothing to get rid of them. Then that person that is sinning will be talking to others that might not be grounded in Christ and will start to lead them away. The thing that is in Paul’s background that might explain his use of “getting rid of the yeast” is that the feast of unleavened bread was celebrated for a week. That is when the Jews would clean their houses and try to find all the yeast containing products and get rid of them.

The levels of correction and discipline short of excommunication is to go to that person and address the situation with them. If they don’t listen then we are to have two or three others go with us to see if we can correct the problem. The person who should exercise that kind of correction is a member of the church. When that sinning member repents we accept him back into the body of Christ. If the person doesn’t want to repent of their sins and the procedure that is in the Bible has been followed then we are to excommunicate that person. The reason that we are so unwilling to exercise it in our day is that would make us intolerant. It is not politically correct to be seen as intolerant.

I think that the Corinthians were as proud of their tolerance of immorality as we are today. We don’t want chastise anybody for the way that we are living because we want to be able to accept everybody into the church. That means that their morality has dipped about as low it can go.

The qualities about Timothy that encouraged Paul was that he was a faithful child of the Lord. I God were to send me to a sensitive mission I would be very reluctant to do so. That would be really kicking me out of my box. But in the end I would probably go.

I think that the reason that Paul listed the abuse he has taken is to show the people that it isn’t going to be easy being a Christian. It isn’t all honey and cream and that things won’t work out the way that you think that they should. The effect that he had on the readers was that they would stop bragging and begin to learn more about Jesus. The effect it has no me is that it doesn’t matter how much I go through, I will probably never go through as much a Paul did. The reason that I avoid ministry that comes with abuse is that I don’t like to be abused. But I am learning to get out of my box and face reality of this world.

Paul doesn’t care how others judge him because he knows that he has a God that can see the heart and He know what is going on with him. Paul doesn’t judge himself because he knows that it doesn’t do any good to keeping thinking about the mistakes that he has made and so he just moves on. Our motives are so important in God’s judgment process because he can see if we were really doing it for him or for ourselves. Were we trying to promote Him or ourselves? The way I see God is a just God after all He sent his Son here to be sacrificed for our sins.

The sense that a Christian worker is a “steward” is they are to watch after the flock of Jesus Christ. They are to help them in time of need. When you have a Christian worker who wasn’t faithful the church seems to go downhill. They become demoralized and then they start seeking a new church where they can be nourished. Some of the reasons that we become unfaithful in our area of ministry is we lose interest and think that the things that we are doing are not worthy of our position. This can be remedied by not thinking so high of ourselves.

I think that there is harsh punishment for those involved in hurting Christ’s church is because God is wanting to bring everybody to him. When there is a split in the church that hurts everybody involved. It probably even drives some people out the church and they will their hope in Jesus Christ. A better way to deal with differences in the church is to bring the difference up to the leadership in the church. If they are really trying to bring harmony to the body then they will listen and take the appropriate action. But we have to remember that they will not please everybody so they need to insure that they are following God’s instructions.

I would assess quality vs. slip-shod building materials and methods by the beliefs of the congregation. For example if they believe that there is only one way to get to heaven, which is Jesus Christ, and some of the other core beliefs then they have a quality congregation. I think that they only way that we can improve our ministry skills is through prayer, practice, diligence, faithfulness doctrinal accuracy, devotional life and openness to the spiritual gifts.

I didn’t know that denominations encouraged Christian unity. I thought that denominations usually came about because if disunity in the church. Once in a while you will hear one denomination uplift another, but that isn’t very often. Being a non-denominational church doesn’t make any difference regarding unity throughout the body. Usually that means that they don’t have a chain of command. Tearing down those barriers is going to be difficult. When there was only one denomination they men at the head became to powerful and abused the power that they had.