Spiritual gifts part 7: Selfish is the opposite of the cross.

 Pastor-Teacher
John Farley
Sunday,
August 1, 2010

Spiritual gifts part 7:  Selfish is the opposite of the cross.

Schedule
Wed 7 PM
Thu 7 PM
Sun 10 AM

The Doctrine of Spiritual Gifts

Point 1: Setting the scene for Paul’s teaching on the Spiritual Gifts.

The most extensive treatment of the subject of spiritual gifts is found in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, chapters 12 through 14.

When Paul came to Corinth to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the city teemed with commerce as the vital link between Rome and its eastern provinces.

The city was transformed from ruin to riches.

Isa 14:14
’I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.’

Ostentation =
the vulgar display of wealth.
Pretentious display meant to impress others.
Boastful showiness.
A display intended to excite admiration or applause.

2Ti 3:2
For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,

a person who in every breath is talking about himself.
(courtesy of Pastor R.B. Thieme Jr.)

So our situation really is not all that different from the situation of the Corinthian church in the first century, 2Ti 3:1-5.

The ills of Corinth had crept into the church at Corinth.

What is the mind of Christ on the matter of boasting?

The core values of the society in Corinth were that of trade and business, in the pursuit of success.

Freedmen (libertine) were former slaves who had been freed. Freedmen are people who had been released from legal servitude.

There was opportunity to move up on the social scale.

With no existing aristocracy to contend with, the freedmen colonists had that rare opportunity to complete with one another for the marks of status that would enable some of them - a precious few - to become the local aristocracy.

Corinth has been described as “a city designed for those who were preoccupied with the marks of social status.” The definition of social status was “the value which others place on one’s goods and achievements”.

An individual’s status was tied to a variety of factors:
your occupation, your income, your wealth, your education, religious purity, family and ethnic group position, and local community status.

Wealth, marriage, social ties.

1. Sponsoring private entertainment, games and festivals.
2. Patronage of new cults or collegia.
3. Demonstration of rhetorical skill or philosophical acumen.
 

4. Sponsorship or receipt of an approved honorary statue with appropriate epigraph.
5. Socially conspicuous displays of a private retinue of slaves and freedmen.

Cn. Babbius Philinus, a Greek freedman, who during the reign of Tiberius served as Aedile.
 

Aedile = An elected official of ancient Rome who was responsible for public works and games and who supervised markets, the grain supply, and the water supply.

In return for his generous gifts , the colony of Corinth made him “pontifex and duumvir”; his family became one of the first houses of Corinth.

Their society - like ours - was a “winner take all” kind of affair.

There were a lot of poor people in Corinth as well, and especially in the surrounding countryside.

“ I learned in a short time the nauseating behavior of the rich and the misery of the poor”.

The Bible does not condemn the wealthy. The Bible condemns an attitude that loves money. 1Ti 6:9-10.

The Bible tells the rich to be generous and to share. 1Ti 6:17-19.

The problem in Corinth was not the wealth per se, but rather the insensitivity of the wealthy to the needs of the poor.

This insensitivity had seeped into the church at Corinth and was causing divisions.

Selfishness is the opposite of the cross of Christ.

Lighthouse Bible Church
LORD’S Supper

Sunday,
August 1, 2010

He wanted so desperately to escape the misery of the trouble that he had caused for himself that he faked his own death to be done with it.

How many of your problems would remain if YOU were taken out of the picture?

“One of the most wonderful things that the cross of Christ does to a man who knows its meaning is that it delivers him from himself.” (Lloyd-Jones)

The real burden is the fact that we have any kind of self-image at all!

What most of us need above everything else is to get away from ourselves - to forget ourselves.

As long as you are self-centered, self-absorbed, self-monitoring, you are a mess. You are nervous, worried, and afraid.

The cross reveals that the self-centered beast is a horror. It is all wrong.

You don’t have to fake your own death to get out of that tyranny. Mr. Self-centered died on the cross with Christ.

When Christ died on the cross, He freed us from the tyranny of the beast of self-centeredness.

They were unaware of the self-centered beast, and they were totally focused on the other person.

Part of what the redemption by the blood of the Lamb bought for you is freedom from the futility of being Mr. or Mrs. Self-Centered.

 


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