Category: 1 corinthians

Temptation

.Reading time 6 minutes.

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. 1 Corinthians 10:13

As a teenager, I thought of this verse strictly in the physical sense. Tempted to take the car when your folks told you not to? God will provide a way out! Tempted to go to a wild party and get drunk? God will provide a way out!

And, lately, with a young child, temptation is so obvious. Tempted to touch that electrical socket? Tempted to eat that cookie when I said wait until after dinner?

And, surely this verse applies to these things in the physical sense. But, I’m coming to see that these verses go deeper than these physical-type things. I think the temptations to sin are more insidious than that, and it is also against these insidious temptations God will provide for us so we can stand up under them.

Since context is king, what was Paul talking about before this classic verse about temptation?

For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert.

Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: ‘The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry.’ We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did-and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. We should not test the Lord, as some of them did-and were killed by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did-and were killed by the destroying angel.

These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. 1 Corinthians 10:1-13

What were some of the temptations of the Isrealites who lived by the obvious supernatural providence of God? Some real physical-type sins: worshiping idols, sexual immoratlity. But also some inner-heart things: testing the Lord, grumbling. Most of them died in the desert because of their unbelief.

When I think of temptation, grumbling and testing the Lord aren’t usually high on the list. “Unbelief” doesn’t usually crop up.

But I think that’s because I’m not looking closely enough at myself. How many times this week was I grumbling about something? More often than I’d care to admit. How many times this week was I just plain ungrateful for the many blessings that God has poured out on my life because I was caught up in some fleeting problem? How many times this week could I have lent a hand or spent a kind word but didn’t because I just plain didn’t feel like it?

These moment-to-moment decisions and attitudes are also choices. On the one side lays (lies?) temptation. On the other side, the way out to stand up under the right choice. I’m praying for the Lord to help me see his providential way out so I can stand up under these moment to moment temptations!

Maybe today would be a good day to ask the Lord to help you see an area in your life where you are tempted and instead of dwelling on the temptation, asking Him to help you see the way out that He has provided so you may stand under it by his grace!

The Message of the Cross

.Reading time 7 minutes.

When I was a teenager and really involved in a charismatic church, I was always looking for some miraculous sign from God about this or that. Should I go to this college? Should I date this boy? Should I befriend this person?

I’ve since concluded that God does work through miraculous signs–but mostly when I’m headed down a path I have no business setting my feet to. Now, instead, I see a bit of miraculous in the way circumstances work themselves out.

Let me explain. Since I’ve been on bed rest the last three weeks, I’ve been reading a lot of fantasy novels. I always like a good story with a good plot. You know, the kind where the author has thought out the end from the beginning and put little clues throughout the book, shaping the plot, chance meetings and key ideas at crucial times. Then it all comes together at the ending and everything is wrapped up, you step back and can see the entire thing, like a tapestry.

I’m beginning to see themes and plot in my life like this, with God as the author and me a character. This kind of well-thought out road — the way several things will all work together in my life to point to one main thing all at the same time — I’ve begun to see as miraculous. Sure, it’s not the dramatic affair of the healing of blind or lame man, but it’s astonishing when I sit back and think about how this had to lead to that for this other thing to occur.

Not that I’ve seen the tapestry of my life, but I’m beginning to see some patterns here and there.

I say all this because the sermon this Sunday tied into my own devotional time again, and I think God is too big for coincidences, there’s something here for me to learn.

In my devotions, I’m continuing through Acts, seeing Peter and John and Stephen give messages that just shake people up and I’m thinking to myself, like some of the more educated persons who heard the disciples message: these men are ‘simple’ uneducated fishermen. Wow.

Then there’s the opposition. The rulers of the Jewish people wanting to quash the message by imprisoning or killing the disciples — these same disciples who, a year before, had not even the courage to stay and be arrested with Jesus — and the disciples saying, ‘we must obey God rather than men’ and preaching in the streets despite the threat of imprisonment or death. (Acts 5:29).

What was it that inspired these men? What was it that had them running for cover? What was it that powerfully moved the people?

Not clever preaching, not persuasive words, but the message of Jesus Christ crucified. That’s what this week’s sermon was about. When I came to you brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power. (1 Corinthians 2:1-5).

The basics. That’s what was moving people and shaking the Jewish leadership. That’s what was changing people’s hearts and making miracles. That’s what caused cowardly men to continue preaching publicly when they knew they would get in trouble.

And, this is the basics: Jesus Christ was God, yet he was born as a little baby in a borrowed barn, to a young family with no prestige. This child grew into a man and never once sinned. When he reached an age, he began his ministry — proclaiming that he was God, that all men are sundered from God the Father by our sins and the only way to heaven, the only way to know God is by accepting that Jesus is the way to God. Because of his message, Jesus was crucified on a cross. He died. Three days later, Jesus was raised to life. He then visited with his friends, preached and taught some more and then, before his disciples’ eyes, he ascended into heaven. And he is coming back again to receive those who believe in him, who claim him as their Lord and to judge those who reject him.

This is the message: Jesus Christ crucified to save humanity from itself. Jesus Christ crucified to save any person from the ultimate outcome of their choices. Jesus Christ crucified to set us free.

And, this message is the powerful thing. Not the way a person tells it. Not the clever arguments or rhetoric a person uses. Not the big, fancy words or short, simple phrases someone may employ. It’s the message itself, the fact that these things happened. So that a believer’s faith does not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.

That’s what I’m thinking about of late. That’s another reason why God uses the seemingly foolish to proclaim his message. And I wonder, what application this has in my life today.

I wonder what you’re thinking about today? I would love to hear about it!

Ordinary People

.Reading time 5 minutes.

My last post talked about how Peter was just an ordinary man with some pretty big flaws, but God managed to use him anyway. I am beginning to understand that this is a theme throughout the New Testament. God seems to delight in using our weaknesses for his glory in order that we human beings can focus on his glory, rather than our own efforts.

A little while after Peter’s sermon on Pentecost, he and John were dragged before the Sanhedrin — the Jewish government — for preaching about Jesus. Peter again gives a sermon ending by declaring: Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.

Well, all the hoity-toity, well educated Jewish leadership didn’t know what to think, “when they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13).

This must be a message that the Lord is trying to tell me right now, because, what do you know? I disobeyed the doctor’s orders and went to church yesterday, and a big part of the sermon was on this same idea. Paul says in 1 Corinthians:

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel — not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For is it written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.’ Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did nto know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe…For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.

Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things–and the things that are not–to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. … Therefore, as it is written: ‘Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.’

One of the big points in all this is that, the bigger and more I think I am, the less room there is for God–the more it all depends on me, the less it is that God has done. Which is maybe part of the reason who so many of the people in the Bible were so foolhearty and flawed. And why the Bible doesn’t skate over those flaws. It’s easier for God to use people who know they are flawed. They are more teachable, they are more willing to acknowledge that it was God who did the thing, rather than them. And, like the Jewish leadership, it’s easier for other people to see that it MUST have been God doing the thing because that person could absolutely not do it on their own.

It’s like trying to teach somebody something when they already think they know it all. Even if they don’t know it all, good luck trying to teach them something when they just aren’t willing to listen. A person has to have a teachable attitude or else you’re just wasting your time and breath.

It’s … true humility.

So, now I have to wonder … in what ways am I not ‘teachable,’ in what ways am I proud? For purely selfish reasons (the answers to these questions are often embarrassing and painful) I’m not sure I want to look this particular question in face. But I’m thinking it bears some thought.