60IN60 Next Round

The next round of 60IN60 will begin Monday.

60IN60 Day 60 - Thurs Sept 3

It's Day 60 and we're in 1 Corinthians 13.

Congratulations! You made it through the 60 days! We will begin a new 60 days next Monday. To continue for another round, you don't have to do anything - the updates will just keep coming.

Where God Spoke To Me:
- Verse 7 - Love gives the benefit of the doubt.

If you want to read the chapter online, here's a link.

If you have a question or comment, email me at butcher@ymail.com.

Your Questions and Comments:

- 1 Corinthians 12. "You said in your comments that the gift of speaking in tongues is not a relevant gift today. Are there any others?  And why are some spiritual gifts active today and others are not? In the last verses of the chapter, apostles are listed as 'first',  prophets 'second', and teachers 'third'. Does that give these gifts a higher importance? A lot of people feel that if they can't teach or preach or sing, they have no spiritual gifts. I think that is typical of the world-view of value, beauty, and importance. There are so many behind-the-scene gifts and talents that aren't considered spiritual gifts." - I think similar to speaking in tongues another example would be the gift of healing as it was administered by the apostles. That is, it was not a rare, occasional thing but the book of Acts shows them routinely healing people. That example isn't to say that God doesn't heal people today but that such a common expression of it doesn't happen. The Bible doesn't specifically say why some of those gifts, such as speaking in tongues, disappeared after the early church, although we know as a historical fact that that happened. I think the most likely reason is that there were some gifts that God gave the early church as proof of the Spirit's power before the New Testament was written as evidence of God's blessing. Once the NT was complete and the parameters for orthodox belief was established, those gifts could fade away. Obviously, my Pentecostal brothers and sisters believe that the gift of speaking in tongues returned about a century ago, but I do not find their arguments convincing. Regarding the list of gifts at the end of the chapter I think those gifts are listed first because they are gifts of leadership and therefore impact the church as a whole. God is the one who assigns each person a gift (and every Christian has at least one spiritual gift) and each is important to the health of the body. (If you don't know what your spiritual gift is and you're a part of Milton Baptist, I am teaching the 301 class about spiritual gifts starting in a couple weeks.)

60IN60 Day 59 - Wed Sept 2

It’s Day 59 and we're in 1 Corinthians 12.

Where God Spoke To Me:
- Nothing really jumped out to me. 

Help

- Verse 1 – Every believer is given a spiritual gift by God at the moment of salvation for use in service.
- Verses 7-10 – Some of these gifts are not active today, but were only active in the early church. One example is the gift of tongues. Of course, my Pentecostal brothers in Christ would disagree with me. ;-)

If you want to read the chapter online, here’s a link.

If you have a question or comment, email me at butcher@ymail.com.

60IN60 Day 58 - Tues Sept 1

It’s Day 58 and we’re in 1 Corinthians 11.

Where God Spoke To Me:

- Verse 1 – Can I honestly encourage people to follow my example?

Help:

- Verses 2-7, 14-16 – Some people believe these instructions are binding on us today. Others, including myself, believe these are instructions that had to do with the culture in Paul’s day and are not binding on us today.

- Verse 10 – “because of the angels” – This is obscure and its meaning is not clear.
- Verses 27, 29, 31 –These are reminders to us that partaking in communion is a serious thing spiritually.

If you want to read the chapter online, here’s a link.

If you have a question or comment, email me at butcher@ymail.com.

60IN60 Day 57 - Mon Aug 31

It's Day 57 and we're in 1 Corinthians 10.

Remember that your daily reading in the Bible isn't about gaining information - it's about changing your life to be more like Christ. That means that you need to take action on what God speaks to you about. 

Where God Spoke To Me:
- Verse 31 - That's a good question for making hard decisions: will be pursuing this bring glory to God?

Help:
- Verse 2 - That simply means that the struggles they went through made them the Israelites they were.
- Verses 6-10 - These are all historical events from Israel's journey and they serve as "bad example" warnings.
- Verse 23 - We have great freedom in Christ rather than a pre-cut list of acceptable behaviors.  But I need to not misuse that freedom to pursue sin.
- Verses 25-28 - There was meat sacrificed to idols back then and Paul is giving guidelines for how to handle situations involving that food.

If you want to read the chapter online, here's a link.

If you have a question or comment, email me at butcher@ymail.com.

Your Questions and Comments:

- A comment from one of our 60IN60 participants. Psalm 40. "This is one of my favorite psalms, although I prefer another translation."

- A comment from one of our 60IN60 participants. Psalm 38. "Taste and see that the Lord is good" is a visceral image, that the person knows in heart that God is a good God because he has  experienced him in a way most Christians don't.  It's as if he's taken a bite of a perfect fruit."

60IN60 Day 56 - Sun Aug 30

It's Day 56 and we're in 1 Corinthians 9.

Where God Spoke To Me: 
- Verse 24 - This isn't a lazy river; it's a foot race.  Run like you plan to win.

Help:
- Verse 1 - There were some in Corinth who were questioning whether Paul was a real apostle.  They were doing so because they disagreed with his leadership.
- Verses 2-15 - The basic argument Paul is making is this: Christian workers have the right to be paid for their labor, although I chose not to exercise that right and worked for free.  (Paul worked as a tentmaker to support himself while planting churches.)
- Verses 19-22 - There are parts of the gospel that are unchanging (example: Jesus is the Son of God); there are parts of the gospel that can be adapted according to the situation and culture (example: the type of music sung in church services).  Paul is saying that he's going to do all he can to make the gospel accessible by removing those unnecessary barriers (relating to that second category) that might keep someone from hearing and accepting the gospel.

If you want to read the chapter online, here's a link.

If you have a question or comment, email me at butcher@ymail.com.

60IN60 Day 55 - Sat Aug 29

It's Day 55 and we're in 1 Corinthians 8.

Where God Spoke To Me: 
- Verse 13 - I can't just think about the impact of my actions on me, but on those around me who are new in the faith.

Help:
- Verse 1 - This is obviously not a big issue today, but it was back then.
- Verses 2-3 - This is simply a call to humility and realizing that we're not as smart as we often think we are.
- Verse 5 - When he says there are many gods, he saying that there are many things that people treat as gods and that people call gods.  Obviously, there is really only one actual God.
- Verses 7-8 - The mature person realized that when food was sacrificed to idols that the idol wasn't real so it really didn't make any change in the food.  Some, though, newly out of paganism, still thought something was going on in that moment of sacrificing the meat to idols.

If you want to read the chapter online, here's a link.

If you have a question or comment, email me at butcher@ymail.com.