Spiritual gifts part 8: How is the kingdom of darkness seducing you tonight?
Pastor-Teacher Spiritual gifts part 8: How is the kingdom of darkness seducing you tonight?
Schedule 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. 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. Wealth, marriage, social ties.
Schmoozing. 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. “ 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 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. Corinth was a cosmopolitan city, and as such it became a religious melting pot with older and new religions flourishing side by side. One historian listed 15 separate false gods that had their own cult following in Corinth. There were also Egyptian mystery cults like Isis, as well as the practice of magic. “I pray to all gods.” Two places where Christians in Corinth would come into contact with the worship of false gods were at parties held in pagan temples, and at private banquets in the homes of the well-to-to. The “weak” associate the eating of the meat with participation in the cults of pagan gods. Sometimes this dinner would have been held in the shrine of a pagan deity. The poor in fact rarely ate meat; the only time would have been as part of a pagan ritual of some kind.
The rich members of the church, the “strong”, would see their business and social relationships shut down if the ban on meat offered to idols were to be enforced. The temptation to engage in behavior that flirted with idolatry and idol worship was very real and very strong in Corinth, particularly among the more well-to-do members of the local assembly there. Meat sacrificed to idols also caused conflict and division between strong and weak, rich and poor, in the church. How am I being seduced right now by the kingdom of darkness? Your enemy is a sneak. He is a liar and a deceiver. John 8:44 You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Their objective is to stop you from growing spiritually and becoming a witness in the Angelic Conflict. Is this bringing me closer to the Lord Jesus Christ or pulling me away from Him? Is this helping me to get to Bible class, or preventing me from coming to Bible class?
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