In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul isn’t sharing any actual Covenant law, but berating the Corinthians for thinking that spiritual gifts import a hierarchy of some sort. This is actually a continuing warning from the previous chapter about taking the Lord’s Supper in simplicity and true communion. They had turned the gifts of the Spirit into…
Month: May 2023
The Symbolism of Food
We skipped over an issue in 1 Corinthians 9. In the middle of this discussion about food offered to idols, Paul raises another food issue: “muzzling the ox”. He makes it very clear that God wasn’t that worried about oxen so much as He was establishing a precedent that applied much more broadly. People who…
Idolatry and Celebrations
In 1 Corinthians 8 Paul again asserts his eldership for the sake of peace. The underlying principle from God is that food is food and there are no other gods. Food offered to idols does not really defile you. Ritual objects are just objects; demons can’t get you that way. God is not concerned about…
Rightly Dividing Spiritual Leadership
In case it isn’t obvious, we are on a tour of the Covenant of Christ, pointing out the covenant boundaries that would constitute New Testament Law. There is nothing speculative here, but merely an examination of what the Scripture says in its own context. After shattering Western Civilization completely in the first few verses, Paul…
Do It Right
The biblical model for sex is not a mystery: one man, one woman, for life. The challenge is how we get there, and what happens for the duration. If we could just get church people to understand Paul’s message in 1 Corinthians 7:1-7, it would destroy the current social system. With so very much of…
In or Out?
The first few chapters of 1 Corinthians Paul devotes to reminding his readers of the context of serving Christ, and what it means in contrast to serving any other person or system in this world. The spiritual realm is not at all like the world; there is very little overlap. After slapping down the fellow…
What Do You Sow?
Review: Galatians was most likely the earliest writing of Paul that we have today. In it, Paul warns the first batch of churches that he planted in Asia Minor against the initial wave of Judaizers. In their purest and earliest forms, the Judaizers were zealots of Hebrew nationalism. At first, it appears they really did…
Expressing Faith
When Paul advised Timothy to “rightly divide” the Scripture, he was referring to what they had at that time: the Old Testament. The point he was making is not that hard to fathom. Not everything in the Old Covenant applies in the New Covenant. We are obliged to recognize what is merely cultural and particular…
No Back Doors
Someone actually asked ChatGPT how to summon a demon. This has been the subject, or a major element, in a lot of western fiction. It’s entirely natural for your fleshly self to be curious about such things. The problem here is that this query gets things backwards. It’s not a question of being evil, but…
Galatia and Judaizers
A few days ago I mentioned how Paul’s letters to Thessalonica were some of his earliest. It’s quite likely Galatians was a bit earlier, and his earliest writing, but we simply don’t know. The historical context is much harder to pin down. All we have to go on is the strong resemblance between the church…