1 Corinthians Archives - Page 7 of 10 - Pastor Marvin McKenzie

1 Corinthians 12:4-7 The Same Difference

1 Corinthians 12:4-7 (KJV)
Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.
And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord.
And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.
But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.

The Spirit of God is at work but we had better not put Him in a bottle of our own making. The Apostle teaches us that:

The Spirit works differently in every one of us.
There are:

Different gifts
Different administrations and
Different operations of those gifts

The Spirit works in every one of us.
Each believer is a unique member of the local church being uniquely gifted by the same Holy Spirit.

The Spirit works for the profit of the whole.
The profit is not for the individual but for the whole; the body, the local church God has placed them in.

We are different, but we are the same, so we can be helpful to the whole.

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1 Corinthians 12:4-7 The Same Difference

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1 Corinthians 11:2 Do Not Tamper

1 Corinthians 11:2 (KJV)
Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you.

This chapter begins on a note about following and ends with the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper. While there is the supplemental subject of authority brought up, it is reasonable to assume the ordinances to which the Apostle refers are baptism and especially the Lord’s Supper. There was a problem in the spirit of the participants that is addressed in the chapter but there is also a compliment paid to them; they kept the ordinances as they were delivered.

Let a lesson be learned here. The ordinances are not to be tampered with. We do best when we keep them the way we were taught them. Paul learned them from Christ (having not been present when Christ instituted it.) He then told them to learn them from him.

I get that different local churches have differing views concerning the ordinances; whether we practice the Lord’s Supper open or closed for instance. I am convinced the Bible teaches a closed table but my point is, whatever you believe the Bible teaches on how to keep or observe the ordinances, you are best to follow. It’s not ok to tweak it for convenience’s sake. The ordinances are to be kept how the Bible delivers them. Period.

There will be those who judge you because you observe the ordinances differently than they. Untold thousands were killed because they believed baptism was by immersion, after salvation and under the authority of a church having no lineage in Catholicism or its offspring, Protestantism. We are all judged in one way or another for our position on the ordinances. The only judge who matters is the Lord.

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

For this and more than 3900 earlier Daily Visits with God visit http://bit.ly/18XDiAs. 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.

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1 Corinthians 11:2 Do Not Tamper

1 Corinthians 10:29 I Am Free

1 Corinthians 10:29 (KJV)
Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other: for why is my liberty judged of another man’s conscience?

What an interesting perspective on the subject of conscience.

It’s not my conscience that should guide me but that of another.

I am free.
I do possess liberty in Christ.

But my liberty constrains me to seek the welfare of others before myself. My liberty is misguided if it is employed in the work of harming others.

Each man has the right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience but what if my actions skew his conscience in a wrong direction?

I am free.

I am free to make choices for the benefit of others rather than self.

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

For this and more than 3900 earlier Daily Visits with God visit http://bit.ly/18XDiAs. 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.

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1 Corinthians 10:29 I Am Free

1 Corinthians 9:22 Paul Never Crossed This Line

1 Corinthians 9:22 (KJV)
To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.

Paul did everything he could to win people to Christ. He attempted to reach Jews, Gentiles, the wealthy and the poor. No matter who, he worked to save them, not offend them.

But there were Biblical limits how far he would go in avoiding offense. He knew he could not win them all. Therefore avoiding all controversy would have been fruitless and vain. Paul reached out in every way he could but he chose never to cross the line into worldliness in his effort.

We could learn from him.

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

For this and more than 3900 earlier Daily Visits with God visit http://bit.ly/18XDiAs. 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.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

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1 Corinthians 9:22 Paul Never Crossed This Line

1 Corinthians 8:12-13 I’d Rather Be Like Paul

1 Corinthians 8:12-13 (KJV)
But when ye sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ.
Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.

Paul was such a different sort of Christian than our modern believers. Paul had clearly taught that he/we could eat meats, even if they had been sacrificed to idols, so long as we did not eat them in worship of those idols. The idols are nothing. They exist only in the imaginations of pagan men and women. They have:

No life
No power
No influence

other than that which their followers allow them. They to not:

Eat
Breath
Walk
Think or
Act

They are benign. They are less than dead; they are nothing. Consequently, to eat the meat offered to them is no different than eating any other meat.

Except if eating that meat could be construed as worshiping the idol. In this case the eating of it would fall under the principle of 1 Thessalonians 5:22,
Abstain from all appearance of evil.
And this – if eating the meat would offend another believer.

Paul willingly surrendered his right to eat the meat for the sake of another.

Today’s Christian would:

Be angry that someone has a conviction that infringes on his or her right,
Call him a legalist,
Purposely do the thing that offends the brother,
Write a blog about how good it felt to exercise his liberty and then
Separate himself from the church that taught the “legalistic” doctrine

I would rather be like Paul.

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

For this and more than 3900 earlier Daily Visits with God visit http://bit.ly/18XDiAs. 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.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

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1 Corinthians 8:12-13 I’d Rather Be Like Paul

1 Corinthians 5:6 We Need New Churches

1 Corinthians 5:6 (KJV)
Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?

Seems like there is a lot of leaven in the lump these days. Sin has infiltrated churches and the members love to have it so. Almost anything can be gotten away with. Little is preached against. Churches, so-called, are justifying the sins of:

Homosexuality
Living together outside marriage
Transexualism
Abortion
Gender modification
These days sins like:
Fornication
Extortion
Covetousness and
Idolatry

When we have homosexuals in the pulpits of America is it little wonder churches allow divorced men to occupy them too?

We need some churches that accept the challenge to be a new lump. We need churches that will mourn this condition and seek purity.

The world will do as it will. Churches must not do the same. We need to remove this leaven before the whole lump is spoiled.

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

For this and more than 3900 earlier Daily Visits with God visit http://bit.ly/18XDiAs. 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.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

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1 Corinthians 5:6 We Need New Churches

1 Corinthians 4:3-5 The Thing About Judging

1 Corinthians 4:3-5 (KJV)
But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self.
For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord.
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.

It seems to me to be pretty obvious that the subject of judging would come up. The first audience of this epistle must have thought Paul was judging them. He surely already knew they were judging him as less than the Apostles.

First, Paul didn’t let their judging of him offend him
There was no reason to be offended. They were carnal. He had already determined that. Carnal Christians can be expected to behave carnally.

Second, he confessed to having a judge
One better than casting the beam out of your own eye is to let the Lord do it. The highest judge of any was on Paul’s case. This didn’t leave Paul beaten down or falsely built up. It left him free from the worries of man’s judgment.

Third, Paul taught them that any judgment in this world is useless
None of us know the end of a thing. We do not know if this man’s ministry is greater than another man’s. We cannot tell the eternal fruit of one or the other.

We are left with this one thing, be faithful. To the best of our understanding, and as God gives us strength, be faithful to what we understand to be the truth in God’s Word. Leave the rest to the Lord.

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

For this and more than 3900 earlier Daily Visits with God visit http://bit.ly/18XDiAs. 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.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

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1 Corinthians 4:3-5 The Thing About Judging

1 Corinthians 3:3-4 Are You Carnal?

1 Corinthians 3:3-4 (KJV)
For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?

Paul told these Christians that they were carnal. Then he turned the thing around and asked them to consider the matter for themselves. He urged them to examine and judge themselves based upon the evidence. Could they not see for themselves they were carnal, and thus, incapable of receiving meat from God’s Word?

The signs of their carnality are here given:

Envying
Strife
Divisions

Notice that it is not only division, but divisions. They were so carnal they couldn’t get along with anyone.

It is only when we admit our carnality that we have a hope of growing out of it. It is too easy to ignore the one who points it out in us, too easy to point out their problems back to them, too easy to get angry and avoid the issue.

We have to come to it on our own.

Are you carnal?

Then do something about it.

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

For this and more than 3900 earlier Daily Visits with God visit http://bit.ly/18XDiAs. 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.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

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1 Corinthians 3:3-4 Are You Carnal?

1 Corinthians 2:4-5 On What Does Your Faith Stand?

1 Corinthians 2:4-5 (KJV)
And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

This appears to be the choice presented in the passage:

Preaching with enticing words or
Preaching in the power of God

The two seem to be incompatible. You cannot eat your cake and have it too. It is one or it is the other.

Though the congregation has some influence on which one they receive, the responsibility falls on the preacher to give the better. People may want the other but the preacher is responsible to please God, not man. Ultimately he will be held accountable for what he served. No matter what the people asked for, Aaron had no authority to create a golden calf. Preachers have no authority to entice people with their skills of delivery.

The result of one style of preaching versus the other is plain. Our faith stands on the sort of preaching that served to generate it.

One stands on man’s wisdom and therefore will not stand.
The other stands on the wisdom of God and therefore can only stand.

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

For this and more than 3900 earlier Daily Visits with God visit http://bit.ly/18XDiAs. 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.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

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1 Corinthians 2:4-5 On What Does Your Faith Stand?

1 Corinthians 1:26-28 Not Made Nought

1 Corinthians 1:26-28 (KJV)
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:

Adam Clarke, a man who embodies what is Protestantism, says of this passage, “It is very likely that the apostle refers here to the Gentiles and to the Gentile converts, who were considered base and despicable in the eyes of the Jews, who counted them no better than dogs, and who are repeatedly called the things that are not. By these very people, converted to Christianity, God has brought to nought all the Jewish pretensions; and by means of the Gentiles themselves, he has annihilated the whole Jewish polity; so that even Jerusalem itself was soon after this, trodden under foot of the Gentiles.”

Though he views the church as universal and therefore considers this calling and choosing to be of individuals, I see the local church as the audience. It is the local church that is, in this world,

Foolish and
Weak and
Base

God created something that was not (a local, New Testament Baptist Church) and has used them to “[annihilate] the whole Jewish polity.”

The Jewish system has been brought to nought by the New Testament Baptist Church.[1]

[1] It has to be a Baptist church because no Protestant Church sees the Jewish system as “nought.”

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

For this and more than 3900 earlier Daily Visits with God visit http://bit.ly/18XDiAs. 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.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

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My author Page for Kindle/Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/author/marvinmckenzie