STRAIGHTENING OUT THE GIFT GAFFE (17)
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12
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Straightening out the Gift Gaffe (17)
Series: 1 Corinthians
Robert Dawson
1 Corinthians 12
When I was younger, I remember going to the County Fair each year when it came to town. You'd buy some tickets and head for the rides, attractions and games. Two of my favorites as a kid were the fun house with its moving floors, shaky steps and spinning tunnel and the house of mirrors through which you had to navigate the glass maze. In the maze there were always some mirrors that could make you look tall, fat, short or (my favorite) skinny.
As you stared into this crazy looking glass what you saw looking back was not an accurate reflection of the person standing before it. The mirror distorted the reality it was supposed to express.
That is what was taking place in Corinth. They were distorting the image they were supposed to accurately reflect, the image of Christ. The church, according to Ephesians 3.10, is to make known the ''manifold wisdom of God'' to the world around us. They were so dysfunctional it is hard to believe that anyone outside the church could look inside the church and find Jesus anywhere.
- They were divided over different personalities.
- They were proud of their tolerance toward sin while being intolerant with one another.
- They were taking each other to court over frivolous issues that should have been settled within the church.
- Some were engaged in sexual immorality while others, in an overreaction, had managed to rob marriage of the beauty of sexual expression.
- Others were eating meat, dining out, in the temple precincts where idol worship took place and it muddied their testimony because of the optics of being part of the feast even though they did not worship the idols.
- Last week we saw, they had made a mockery of the Lord's Supper by turning it into a drunken feast that clearly divided the church even further along socio-economic lines.
Paul is laboring with this church, trying to help them for their own good and t ...
Series: 1 Corinthians
Robert Dawson
1 Corinthians 12
When I was younger, I remember going to the County Fair each year when it came to town. You'd buy some tickets and head for the rides, attractions and games. Two of my favorites as a kid were the fun house with its moving floors, shaky steps and spinning tunnel and the house of mirrors through which you had to navigate the glass maze. In the maze there were always some mirrors that could make you look tall, fat, short or (my favorite) skinny.
As you stared into this crazy looking glass what you saw looking back was not an accurate reflection of the person standing before it. The mirror distorted the reality it was supposed to express.
That is what was taking place in Corinth. They were distorting the image they were supposed to accurately reflect, the image of Christ. The church, according to Ephesians 3.10, is to make known the ''manifold wisdom of God'' to the world around us. They were so dysfunctional it is hard to believe that anyone outside the church could look inside the church and find Jesus anywhere.
- They were divided over different personalities.
- They were proud of their tolerance toward sin while being intolerant with one another.
- They were taking each other to court over frivolous issues that should have been settled within the church.
- Some were engaged in sexual immorality while others, in an overreaction, had managed to rob marriage of the beauty of sexual expression.
- Others were eating meat, dining out, in the temple precincts where idol worship took place and it muddied their testimony because of the optics of being part of the feast even though they did not worship the idols.
- Last week we saw, they had made a mockery of the Lord's Supper by turning it into a drunken feast that clearly divided the church even further along socio-economic lines.
Paul is laboring with this church, trying to help them for their own good and t ...
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