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.)
