Category: Ethics

1 Corinthians 8:13 I Can, But I Won’t

1 Corinthians 8:1 (KJV)
Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.

1 Corinthians 8:13 (KJV)
Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.

The student of the Bible ought to bear in mind that the church in Corinth had stretched grace to the point of abuse.

  • They knew that God is forgiving
  • They knew that salvation is forever
  • They knew that idols were nothing
  • They therefore behaved presumptuously.

This chapter addresses that presumption of grace. The Apostle began by first acknowledging their understanding concerning things offered to idols. Truly they are nothing. Then he inserts a contrast; “knowledge puffeth up but charity edifieth.”

The chapter progresses along the line of that contrast until it arrives at the conclusion in verse thirteen. I think the chapter might be summarized by a single statement, “I can but I won’t. ” That, I believe, is a quality that Christians should strive to possess; the awareness that in Christ we are perfectly free coupled with a heart that places boundaries around us for the sake of others.

To my readers:
I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

 

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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1 Corinthians 8:13 I Can, But I Won’t

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Ezra 7:15-18 When We Give

Ezra 7:15-18 (KJV)
And to carry the silver and gold, which the king and his counsellors have freely offered unto the God of Israel, whose habitation is in Jerusalem,
And all the silver and gold that thou canst find in all the province of Babylon, with the freewill offering of the people, and of the priests, offering willingly for the house of their God which is in Jerusalem:
That thou mayest buy speedily with this money bullocks, rams, lambs, with their meat offerings and their drink offerings, and offer them upon the altar of the house of your God which is in Jerusalem.
And whatsoever shall seem good to thee, and to thy brethren, to do with the rest of the silver and the gold, that do after the will of your God.

The king’s offerings were to be used:

To speedily buy
The purpose was so there would be no hindrance in buying and doing what ought to be done in the house of the Lord. They had already waited. This offering was meant that no delays should continue.

To provide offerings of all sorts in God’s house
The work of God has many facets. We:

  • Preach
  • Sing
  • Worship
  • Evangelize
  • Welcome
  • Encourage
  • Assist

All of these in alignment with our commission. All of them require financial resources. All of them are to be supported by the freewill offerings of God’s people.

To do what seemed good
The king’s offering was generous and would certainly cover the necessary things. It was anticipated that it was also generous enough that there would be money enough for things that were unanticipated. In that case it had been released to be used at the discretion of Ezra.

See here lessons in our own offerings to God. We have been made not only priests, but kings. We give not of necessity but freely. When we give generously as we ought, our offerings are meant to meet the needs of the house of God and the rest to be used at the discretion of our preacher for the good of the ministry.

(More applications are found throughout the rest of the chapter)

 

To my readers:
I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

 

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others

Ezra 7:15-18 When We Give

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1 Corinthians 4:5-6 The Most Disobeyed Passage in the Bible?

1 Corinthians 4:5-6 (KJV)
Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.
And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another.

These may be some of the most disobeyed verses of the Bible.

Paul urges us, with respect to those ministers of Christ we have come to admire, not to judge anything “before the time”. We tend to disregard this.

  • We judge which pastors are successful and which are not
  • We judge which preachers have the anointing of God and which do not
  • We judge which preachers are effective in the pulpit and which are not
  • We judge who is worthwhile to follow and who is not

We have all sorts of ways to justify this behavior; we aren’t, in our minds, calling one better than the other. We are only identifying which ones to follow. After all Paul said to follow him as he followed Christ.

Paul warns that the danger is that we would get puffed up; not in ourselves but in our favorite preacher. Tell me it isn’t true that whole fellowships of churches have been built around a favorite preacher. Tell me that those fellowships of pastors and churches have not engaged in thinking their leader (or leaders) is better than some other group’s leader (or leaders). Tell me that no one has ever been puffed up against another believer because they think the guy they follow is more of a man of God than the guy this other group follows.

I realize that false doctrine exists. I say we should carefully judge doctrine and denominations. We should and we must. However, within the ranks of sound Baptist churches, no one should ever judge one man’s ministry over another.

We do not know how the Lord will judge them in His time.

 

To my readers:
I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

 

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others

1 Corinthians 4:5-6 The Most Disobeyed Passage in the Bible?

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at Bible Baptist Church Fundraiser. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free. Email me for a free one month VIP membership.

Romans 15:1 Win-Win

Romans 15:1 (KJV)
We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.

Paul begins the concept delivered in this passage by assuming that all of his audience would assume they were the strong. It occurs to me that this is a win-win position. There is really never a need to define who is the strong and who is the weak. If we all assumed that we are strong and that everyone else is weak then we ought to treat everyone else as this passage teaches us to treat them:

We bear their infirmities
It can be challenging to put up with errors missteps and nuisances of people we assume to be educated enough sophisticated enough and mature enough to behave better. When someone who is handicapped or someone young presumes upon us we tend to be more patient and forgiving. We understand their plight. If we just assumed that we were stronger than them then we would not be arrogant towards then but bear more with them.

We choose not to please ourselves
The handicapped and weak are pleased by different things than the mature and strong are. If we think of ourselves as the strong ones in every relationship then we would sacrifice our pleasures for others.

We choose to treat them as neighbors and seek both their good and their edification
If we thought of ourselves as the strong ones and others as the weak ones we would constantly see our place as to help lift them and strengthen them.

This is a win-win. We never have to wonder who to minister to. We never have to belittle ourselves and think of ourselves as the weaker. We never have to judge others and divide them into stronger and weaker camps. We just minister to them all as the weaker brother.

And, everyone else will be doing the same for us.

To my readers:
I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

 

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others

Romans 15:1 Win-Win

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at Bible Baptist Church Fundraiser. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free. Email me for a free one month VIP membership.

Acts 15:2 (KJV) Be Different

Acts 15:2 (KJV)
When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question.

The chapter begins with a dispute Paul and Barnabas had with certain men from Judea, and ends with a dispute Paul and Barnabas had with each other. Apparently having sharp dissension is not the evil modern Christians make it out to be.

I don’t want to make it sound like dissension is good or that it is preferred. Dissension certainly hurts. But I would like to suggest that it is often necessary and that it is only because of our:

  • Mamby-pamby
  • Soft societied
  • Sissy

generation that we see dissension as more evil than toleration of evil.

Come on people let’s get some backbone! Let’s:

  • Study God’s Word
  • Come to some convictions and
  • Be vocal enough about them that others of like conviction find and join us

Let’s make a difference in our world because we’re not embarrassed to be different.

 

To my readers:
I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

 

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others

Acts 15:2 (KJV) Be Different

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at Bible Baptist Church Fundraiser. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free. Email me for a free one month VIP membership.

2 Samuel 12:10 (KJV) David’s Love/Hate Relationship with God

2 Samuel 12:10 (KJV)
Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.

I know David to be a man after God’s own heart. That David loved God there can be no question. But in this instance the actions of King David caused God himself to say to David, “thou hast despised me“.

If God could say that to David is there any one of us who couldn’t be guilty of the same? We love God and show it in many ways. At the same time we despise God and demonstrate that too.

David reduced himself to this lowest of places:

  • By taking it easy when he should have been engaged in the work of Warfare
  • By acting on temptation
  • By attempting to cover up his sin
  • By failing to immediately confess his sin

Though there were terrible consequences the fix for all of this was Psalm fifty-one; confession pouring from a broken and contrite heart.

 

To my reader:
I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

 

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

2 Samuel 12:10 (KJV) David’s Love/Hate Relationship with God

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at Bible Baptist Church Fundraiser. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free. Email me for a free one month VIP membership.

2 Samuel 1:14-16 (KJV) Dying with Dignity

2 Samuel 1:14-16 (KJV)
And David said unto him, How wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand to destroy the LORD’S anointed?
And David called one of the young men, and said, Go near, and fall upon him. And he smote him that he died.
And David said unto him, Thy blood be upon thy head; for thy mouth hath testified against thee, saying, I have slain the LORD’S anointed.

Life is so precious that, even though Saul was wounded and (he thought) would surely die at the hands of the enemy, David required the life of the Amalekite that assisted in Saul’s death.

In a day when “death with dignity”, “dying with dignity,” otherwise known as assisted suicide,  is a popular idea, it would be wise to take a fresh look at this passage:

  • Every human is the Lord’s anointed
  • Every human has life from God
  • Every human life is valuable
  • Every human, one day, will face an enemy he believes he cannot defeat, therefore

Every other human should see his role as helping the one defeat his enemy and not helping the enemy defeat him.

To help a person die with dignity is to put their blood on your hands.

 

To my reader:
I do not mean to sound harsh but only to reflect the teaching of the Bible. If you are suffering I would love to hear from you and pray for you. Leave comments below.

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

2 Samuel 1:14-16 (KJV) Dying with Dignity

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at Bible Baptist Church Fundraiser. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free. Email me for a free one month VIP membership.

1 Samuel 30:5 (KJV) How David Handled Hurt

1 Samuel 30:5 (KJV)
And David’s two wives were taken captives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite.

David was in a place in his life he really shouldn’t have been. Fear had driven him to Gath and it was while there that the village where he and his followers dwelt was attacked. I saw a picture of a church sign that said, “Sometimes bad things happen because we do really dumb things.” David had done one of those dumb things.

But David was still a man after God’s own heart and there is much to learn from him here:

He wept and was in distress
Grieving is a healthy and sensible thing to do. David had two loved ones who had been captured. His men had had many more. It was necessary to grieve and it was necessary for David to grieve with them.

He sought counsel
Rather than rashly taking after the culprits he sought counsel from two sources the priest and the Lord. Technically he only sought the priest in order to seek the Lord but that should be true of us as well; we go to the pastor to take us to the Bible.

He pursued
He took action. There was a time for weeping and a time for praying. Then there was a time to correct the situation.

We can do the same when we need:

  • Grieve when it is right
  • Pray and get counsel before acting rashly
  • Take action to correct your life

 

To my reader:
Have you been hurt? How are you dealing with the pain? I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

 

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

1 Samuel 30:5 (KJV) How David Handled Hurt

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at Bible Baptist Church Fundraiser. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free. Email me for a free one month VIP membership.

1 Samuel 24:4 (KJV) Sincere Counsel

1 Samuel 24:4 (KJV)
And the men of David said unto him, Behold the day of which the LORD said unto thee, Behold, I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand, that thou mayest do to him as it shall seem good unto thee. Then David arose, and cut off the skirt of Saul’s robe privily.

These were good men and they were sincere. Their advice to David seemed consistent with the promises of God and it seemed like their advice is justified in that Saul could have been killed here.

David knew better.

There is a difference between what seems to be consistent with the Bible and what is the Bible. We are to heed the Bible completely. We are under no such obligation with the advice of our companions, no matter how sincere and well meaning they are and no matter how much like the Word of God their counsel may seem to be.

Ultimately we, like David, are responsible for just two things:

  • Obedience to the Word of God
  • Worship according to the dictates of our own conscience.

 

 

To my reader:
In order to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience we must have exercised that conscience through study of the Word of God. How is your personal Bible study going? I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

 

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

1 Samuel 24:4 (KJV) Sincere Counsel

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at Bible Baptist Church Fundraiser. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free. Email me for a free one month VIP membership.

1 Samuel 13:3-4 (KJV) Thank a Soldier

1 Samuel 13:3-4 (KJV)
And Jonathan smote the garrison of the Philistines that was in Geba, and the Philistines heard of it. And Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, Let the Hebrews hear.
And all Israel heard say that Saul had smitten a garrison of the Philistines, and that Israel also was had in abomination with the Philistines. And the people were called together after Saul to Gilgal.

We in the United States live under such blessing! In Ancient Greek society every man was a soldier. It was how you protected your land. It was how you advanced your community. It wasn’t optional. It wasn’t a draft or lottery; if you were healthy and male you were expected to be a soldier and you expected there would be battles.

Ancient Israel, though not technically a warlike culture like Greece, was still very similar. There were enemies and there was no choice but to fight them. Jonathan had smitten some Philistines and Saul spread the word. They could expect reprisals.

  • Wives and girlfriends might weep but no one begged any man to stay home.
  • Mothers would fret for their sons but would never have, could never have asked them to stay away from the battlefield.
  • A dad might have feared for his life and wondered who would care for his family if he died.
  • A young man may have wondered what might have been if he were not about to be slain in the field of blood but none of them sought amnesty in another country

there was no safe place to flee. Age was no excuse. Position wealth and influence would no remove the obligation. It was die, or die fighting.

In our current situation with a military made up of volunteers who fight and sacrifice and often die in our place, may we be thankful.

(Wanna see this particular devotion in a video form? Click here: https://youtu.be/-ioSU-qKjxU)

To my reader:
Do me a favor leave a comment below and let me know how you might express thanks to a soldier. I would love to hear from you.

 

 

 

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2007.

1 Samuel 13:3-4 (KJV) Thank a Soldier

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at Bible Baptist Church Fundraiser. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free. Email me for a free one month VIP membership.