It’s Day 59 and we're in I 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.
Questions You Have:
- "I don't know if I'd ever studied the verses regarding head covering before today. I have a male pastor friend who cut his hair shortly after he was saved and was convicted by those verses.
I think it could be one of those grey areas, like alcohol. Some people have strong conviction they should never touch it, while others can enjoy a beer or glass of wine and there is no issue with that.
My only question is that drinking alcohol is in the Bible, and it's clearly stated to not get drunk. So if the head covering/hair verses are clearly spelled out, why wouldn't they apply today? The "that was the culture of the day" argument is one people use to justify premarital sex...that people in Biblical times got married in their early teens, but surely God doesn't expect us to wait until we're 30-40 to have sex. So how can we say some instruction was only applicable during that time and others still apply today?
I have some praying to do on that one." - You raise an interesting point. Let me first acknowledge that it does take discernment to handle these issues. There is always the danger that we throw out something because we find it inconvenient when God intends it to be binding for us. Second, we do need to recognize that we are "reading over the shoulder" of the original recipients of these letters. Paul and the other New Testament writers were writing to various first century churches and the specific problems and issues that they were dealing with. Because that is the mode that God chose to convey His teaching to us, we do need to recognize that some of the things that are said may be limited in their application to the original people who received the letter. Third, I should note that some Christians do take all this literally and believe that women should still wear head coverings (as well as taking all the other passages literally also). You see women from these denominations always wearing something (even if it's relatively small) on their head as a head covering. I don't agree that it's necessary, but I do respect their attempt to do what they think is right.
We'll be starting the new round of "60IN60" tomorrow.
