Judging The World

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“When one of you has a dispute with another believer, how dare you file a lawsuit and ask a secular court to decide the matter instead of taking it to other believers! Don’t you realise that someday we believers will judge the world? And since you are going to judge the world, can’t you decide even these little things among yourselves? Don’t you realise that we will judge angels? So you should surely be able to resolve ordinary disputes in this life. If you have legal disputes about such matters, why go to outside judges who are not respected by the church? I am saying this to shame you. Isn’t there anyone in all the church who is wise enough to decide these issues? But instead, one believer sues another—right in front of unbelievers!”
1 Corinthians 6:1-6 NLT

Paul made the astonishing statement that one day “believers will judge the world”. And he went on to make another astonishing statement, that believers “will judge angels”. Where did Paul get all this from? I don’t believe for a moment that he made this up, because he must have had a revelation from the Holy Spirit when he wrote it, but Scriptures to confirm this are not exactly plentiful in the Bible. The commentaries point to Revelation 2:26, “To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations”, quoting the words of Jesus to the church in Thyatira. We also read in Revelation other indications that believers will rule and reign with Jesus. In Revelation 20:4-6, John wrote, “I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshipped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years“. Earlier in Revelation we also read, “You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth” (Revelation 5:10). In Matthew 19:28 we read, “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel“. I believe Paul had a glimpse through the Holy Spirit of a time to come when believers today will be in a position to judge unbelievers, but how that will be isn’t very clear. Perhaps the reference to judging angels applies to the time when the devil and the fallen angels are judged and then cast into hell (see 2 Peter 2:4).

We mustn’t forget, however, that today, in the here and now, we pilgrims are in a position to judge the world. Although Jesus said, “do not judge lest you be judged”, we have to be aware of God’s position on sin and evil. If God has said something is sinful, then we too must agree, and this effectively means that we have to make a judgment about another person’s behaviour, or a situation that has arisen in our society, or even about a law that our secular lawmakers have passed. Such a judgment has to be made in accordance with God’s absolute truth, not the relative truth that the world adopts. Take abortion, for example. Our lawmakers have passed a law legalising the abortion of babies still in their mother’s womb, even though God’s truth is that a new life starts at the point of conception (see Psalm 139). So we believers judge that the very act of abortion is wrong and sinful, because we have God’s authority from His Word to say so. In a similar, less dramatic way, if we see someone “shoplifting”, that is stealing goods from a shop or somewhere, then we have the right to judge this act because the Bible is clear about the fact that theft is a sin. However, Jesus was clear that those who observe such a thing happening must be careful about casting judgement because He said, “For in the same way as you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Matthew 7:2). We must also be careful that we don’t judge someone based on what they look like. For example, if a person looks a bit shifty or is dressed in a way that offends us, then we mustn’t cast judgment on them purely because of their appearance. In John 7:24, Jesus said, “Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly”. A quote from “Gotquestions.org”, “Christians are often accused of ‘judging’ or intolerance when they speak out against sin. But opposing sin is not wrong. Holding aloft the standard of righteousness naturally defines unrighteousness and draws the slings and arrows of those who choose sin over godliness”. John the Baptist got his head chopped off because he called out Herodias for her adulterous relationship with Herod. He may have been silenced, but Herodias and Herod’s sins were clearly written in God’s books; Revelation 20:12, “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books”. 

If we pilgrims find ourselves in a situation where we are judging, then we must be careful about what we judge and how we go about it. Jesus said, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:3-5). We need discernment and courage as we interface with a sinful world. We need to pray, and pray again, to properly receive God’s truth and His recommended course of action, because without it, we might end up in a difficult situation that impacts us directly. We may one day find ourselves in a place where we are judging the world, but today, this is not something we need to concern ourselves about, because perhaps the only person that we should be judging is ourselves.

Dear Heavenly Father. You are Truth, the whole Truth, and everything about You is true. We pray for discernment and a reigned-in tongue, so that we will not speak out of turn, or in error, in judgment in any situation in which we find ourselves. Please lead and guide us, we pray, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

In The Spirit

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“For my part, even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this. So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 5:3-5 NIVUK

Just to recap, a man in the Corinthian church is having a sexual relationship with his stepmother, and the church seemed quite comfortable and accepting about what was going on. The news about this had reached Paul, but how did he find out, in that age, without the internet and mobile phones? In 1 Corinthians 1:11, we read, “For some members of Chloe’s household have told me about your quarrels, my dear brothers and sisters”. ‭‭So some people from this family must have travelled to Ephesus, and there they found Paul and updated him about what was going on. I suppose the other thing we can infer from this is that not all the people in the Corinthian church were in agreement about what was happening there.

In this day and age, a true Christian church would not accept any form of sexual immorality and would deal with it along Biblical lines, but it is true to say that some denominations are quite “liberal” in their teaching and ethos, believing that the verses highlighting the need for sexual purity don’t apply today. Quite how they overlook verses such as Galatians 5:19-21 is a mystery to me. These verses read, “When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarrelling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God”. Sadly, today, as an example, the Anglican church has a liberal or modernist faction that views scripture as being interpreted through reason and tradition, an approach that acknowledges that Christian beliefs and practices can evolve over time and that social and political action can contribute to God’s kingdom. But in the process, they have abandoned what the Bible says. So perhaps in the Corinthian church, there was the start of a liberal theology that gave more weight to love and acceptance rather than sin and restoration. But Paul was having none of it, and perhaps it is a shame that he cannot speak today in the Anglican corridors of power.

Paul called for the Corinthians to hold a church meeting, and Paul said that he would be with them “in the spirit”. Did that mean that Paul had some form of supernatural power able to transport him to their meeting? Or was it less dramatic, by Paul announcing his spiritual authority as an Apostle and making his views clearly known to the meeting as though he was there in person himself. We note from the previous verses in 1 Corinthians 5 that Paul treated the matter extremely seriously, and he expected the church there to adopt a state of mourning and evict the man from their congregation. 

There was an occasion in the Bible where someone was transported by the Holy Spirit to another location. Philip was one of the early deacons engaged to serve the church in Jerusalem, but an angel told him to go to a certain place where he met an Ethiopian eunuch, a civil servant to the queen there. We can read the account of the interaction between Philip and the eunuch in Acts 8, which resulted in a baptismal service taking place in an adjacent lake or river. And we then read in Acts 8:39, “When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing”. In another place, we read what happened to the Apostle John in Revelation 1:10, “On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet“. John was caught up into a spiritual realm where he received his amazing Revelation. But as far as Paul was concerned, there was nothing more dramatic than the spectre of his letter and the instructions contained therein hanging over the Corinthian congregation as they discussed what to do. 

What happened to the man that Paul said should be evicted from the church? We don’t really know, although this might have been the man in 2 Corinthians 2:5:8, “I am not overstating it when I say that the man who caused all the trouble hurt all of you more than he hurt me. Most of you opposed him, and that was punishment enough. Now, however, it is time to forgive and comfort him. Otherwise, he may be overcome by discouragement. So I urge you now to reaffirm your love for him“. If it was the same man, then Paul’s presence “in the spirit” was enough to bring about change and reconciliation. 

Practically, today, for us pilgrims, we too must be careful and observant in listening to the Holy Spirit about what is happening in our churches and fellowships. The enemy will always try to find a way to drive wedges between believers over something that starts small and apparently insignificant, but in the end grows into a big issue that splits a church. There is a tendency for believers in a congregation to “go with the flow” when it comes to certain matters, but instead, believers must be led by the Spirit to make sure a situation as occurred in Corinth never happens. We must pray for our leaders and congregations that God’s wisdom will prevail.

Dear Father God. We do indeed pray for our pastors and other leaders, that You will grant them wisdom and power through Your Spirit. Please also fill us afresh with Your Spirit so that we can walk in Your ways. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Living In Sin

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“I can hardly believe the report about the sexual immorality going on among you—something that even pagans don’t do. I am told that a man in your church is living in sin with his stepmother. You are so proud of yourselves, but you should be mourning in sorrow and shame. And you should remove this man from your fellowship.”
1 Corinthians 5:1-2 NLT

What a mess! A man in Corinth, presumably a member of the Corinthian church, had remarried and introduced another wife and mother to a family that included at least one male child, and this boy, now a man, and his new stepmother were having a sexual relationship. And not one apparently undertaken behind closed doors and in secret. The whole church knew about it, and the scandal was such that news of it reached Paul in Ephesus. Worse, the Corinthian church apparently condoned it. First of all, this was a situation that the Jews took extremely seriously, as we read in Leviticus 20:11, “If a man violates his father by having sex with one of his father’s wives, both the man and the woman must be put to death, for they are guilty of a capital offence”. In other words, in the days when this was written by Moses, stoning to death would have resulted. What was happening in Corinth was an incestuous relationship, and even the secular standards of those days in the Greek culture did not think this right. From a Christian perspective, this was a terrible situation because any sexual relationship outside of marriage was considered a sin. 

In Genesis 2:24, the basis of marriage was laid down as God’s order for husband and wife relationships. “This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one”. The writer to the Hebrews was also very clear about any sexual relationship outside marriage. Hebrews 13:4, “Give honour to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage. God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery”. This man in the Corinthian church was committing adultery with his stepmother, and Paul was angered enough to write to the people there. Adultery is defined as voluntary sexual activity between a married person and someone other than his or her spouse. It is included in what the Bible calls sexual immorality, and there are plenty of verses that warn against getting involved with such a sin. For example, 1 Thessalonians 4:3-6, “God’s will is for you to be holy, so stay away from all sexual sin. Then each of you will control his own body and live in holiness and honour— not in lustful passion like the pagans who do not know God and his ways. Never harm or cheat a fellow believer in this matter by violating his wife, for the Lord avenges all such sins, as we have solemnly warned you before“.  

Jesus upheld the Law concerning adultery, but He went further in His definition of adultery. He said, “You have heard the commandment that says, ‘You must not commit adultery.’ But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28). Jesus called out the men in these verses, but it equally applies to women as well. And He went on to include divorce in His definition of adultery. “But I say that a man who divorces his wife, unless she has been unfaithful, causes her to commit adultery. And anyone who marries a divorced woman also commits adultery” (Matthew 5:32). But in these 21st Century days of provocative dressing, it is very hard for believing men and women to follow Jesus’ teaching and we need to call upon the help of the Holy Spirit to keep us pure and holy before God.

God gave us very strict laws about any form of sexual immorality, and that hasn’t changed since the days of Creation. So, it is a damning indictment of the Corinthian church that they allowed an adulterous and immoral sexual relationship to flourish within their midst. Paul was quite right to call it out and deal with it. His remedy was for the man to be removed from the church.

For Christians today, “living in sin” is prohibited. It is joked about in our society, but in reality, it is a serious situation. Records of marriages in recent years show that over 90% of them were between couples who were previously “living in sin”, perhaps indicating that such relationships outside of marriage have become socially acceptable in our secular societies. So what happens when one of these cohabiting couples comes to church, wants to become members, and the congregation finds out? There has to be an acceptance of them in love, of course (not accepting what they are doing, though), but the pastoral team will embark on a course of correction, involving repentance and restoration to the way God has ordained. But with an adulterous relationship that involves a couple who refuse to change their ways, there is no alternative but to ask them to leave the church or fellowship. Sad, but that is what our faith teaches.

As with any sin, restoration to a position of righteousness and holiness comes through repentance involving turning away from committing the sin any more. In Ephesians 4:30, Paul wrote, “And do not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption“. Just a few verses before, Paul also wrote,“Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy” (Ephesians 4:21-24). In God, we are a new creation, living for Him. This life is a training ground for what is to come. We can’t get to Heaven with one foot in the kingdom of the world and the other in the Kingdom of God. Look what Jesus said to the church in Laodicea, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:15-16).

But as with any sin, we pilgrims are always on the alert. Our adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, and leading people, even believers, into sexual sins is one of his weapons. Remember the snake in the Garden – “surely God didn’t say …”?

Father God. We repent of all our sins, sexual or otherwise. And for those who are weaker in the faith and caught up in situations seemingly beyond their control, we pray for opportunities to help them and restore them to Your ways. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Punishment and Discipline

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“Some of you have become arrogant, thinking I will not visit you again. But I will come—and soon—if the Lord lets me, and then I’ll find out whether these arrogant people just give pretentious speeches or whether they really have God’s power. For the Kingdom of God is not just a lot of talk; it is living by God’s power. Which do you choose? Should I come with a rod to punish you, or should I come with love and a gentle spirit?”
1 Corinthians 4:18-21 NLT

There were some intransigent believers in the Corinthian church, arrogant people who thought they, and not Paul, knew what was best for themselves and their fellow believers. Apparently, they were great talkers, giving “pretentious speeches”, but without offering anything like the Holy Spirit’s power in their lives. So Paul gave them a choice, like any parent would do to a naughty child – punishment or change. In those days, apparently, children were disciplined with a “rod”, as was the case in this country up until relatively recent times. I can remember when I was at primary school, the headmaster kept a cane in a corner of his office, and, although only rarely used, it was a remarkably good deterrent. In Scotland, the teachers had a leather strap, or tawse, used for the same purposes. Today, legislation against smacking has been implemented, but a public display of physical punishment has been rare for many years. But Paul was never going to return to Corinth wielding a big stick. He was speaking metaphorically, of course, but making the point that there is such a thing as discipline for believers.

In Hebrews 12:5-6,  we read, “And have you forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you as his children? He said, “My child, don’t make light of the Lord’s discipline, and don’t give up when he corrects you. For the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes each one he accepts as his child””. I don’t know about you, fellow pilgrims, but I can’t remember recently ever hearing a sermon based on these verses. Hardly something we would like to hear from the pulpit, I’m sure, but these verses are in the Bible for a reason. So, why would God ever need to discipline us? In the case of the Corinthian church, perhaps divine discipline was required to focus the minds of the rebellious talkers on the basics of their faith, with a view to changing their thinking. And so it might be with any believer. We all have a tendency to continue in sin and rebellion against God, and sometimes God allows something to happen that puts a stark choice before us. He pushes us to a point where we have to decide to follow Him, regardless of the potential pain and His ways, or continue in sin, taking the easy way out. But what choice do we make? A true Christian will submit to the disciplining process and come through all the stronger for the experience. Sadly , though, many will abandon the faith, the pull of sin and the world too strong to resist. It is difficult to know what form God’s discipline will take until it happens, but the Holy Spirit will reveal to us what we need to know and do.

The writer to the Hebrews continues, “As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father?” (Hebrews 12:7). Even without physical punishment, a child growing up in a loving home will experience some form of discipline and punishment, such as the loss of privileges. As the old Proverb says, “Those who spare the rod of discipline hate their children. Those who love their children care enough to discipline them” (Proverbs 13:24). Sadly again, this proverb, containing so much sense, is rejected because of its reference to a physical remedy, and missing the whole point that discipline has a root in love. The next verses in Hebrews explain the reason why God disciplines his children. “If God doesn’t discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children at all. Since we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us, shouldn’t we submit even more to the discipline of the Father of our spirits, and live forever?” (Hebrews 12:8-9). The last thing God wants is the prospect of having a spoilt, rebellious child joining Him in Heaven, and so He brings discipline through His love and grace.

Back in the Corinthian congregation, what would Paul’s threat of a rod of punishment look like? The implication is that he could use a demonstration of the Spirit’s power to bring about correction and change. We know that Paul moved in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and they were demonstrated to the church there in Corinth. He wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:4-5, “And my message and my preaching were very plain. Rather than using clever and persuasive speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit. I did this so you would trust not in human wisdom but in the power of God”. The contrast was stark. Paul used the gifts of the Holy Spirit to give authenticity to his preaching, but the arrogant Corinthians preferred to talk with “pretentious speeches” without power. The signs and wonders through the Holy Spirit were widely known in those First Century days. And even in my life as a believer, I have been in congregations where a word of knowledge has publicly exposed something that is wrong in a church or even calling out someone in the congregation, resulting in much soul searching and squirming in seats!

Paul said to his Corinthian “children” that he would come either with a rod or “with love and a gentle spirit”. But in reality, his love for the people there would have underpinned anything he had to say and do. God never acts in a harsh way, and it is always with love that his discipline is delivered. And so it was with Paul.

So, fellow pilgrims, are any of us going through a difficult time at the moment? Is God seemingly far away, and our prayers difficult and unanswered? Are we struggling with an issue that we seem to be unable to overcome? Well, it is always possible that through our circumstances, God is disciplining us. We need to get on our knees and repent and ask for His forgiveness, bringing before Him the issues that we are finding so difficult, praying for guidance and a straight path through our dilemma. Hebrews 12:11, “No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterwards there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way”. And the previous verse reminds us that ” … God’s discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in his holiness”. God desires children who are righteous and holy, like His Son, Jesus. There is no other way we can enter Heaven overburdened with the worldly baggage of sin and unrighteousness.

Dear Heavenly Father. A sobering thought this morning, and one which our souls recoil from experiencing. But we thank You for Your love and discipline, because it prepares us for life eternal with You. Amen.

Spiritual Fathers

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“I am not writing these things to shame you, but to warn you as my beloved children. For even if you had ten thousand others to teach you about Christ, you have only one spiritual father. For I became your father in Christ Jesus when I preached the Good News to you. So I urge you to imitate me.”
1 Corinthians 4:14-16 NLT

Is Paul on an ego trip here? He was claiming to be the Corinthians’ “spiritual father” because it was he who brought the Gospel to Corinth and started a church there. Other men (and presumably at some point women), may have taught them about Christ, but Paul reminded them that he was the one who started it all. Paul was, however, only doing what Jesus had asked of all of us – “Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20). Even though Paul would not have heard Jesus’ words at the same time as the rest of the disciples, he had a personal revelation of Jesus, and he also spent time with the other Apostles and early disciples, learning what he could. But why did Paul have to remind all the Corinthians of his pedigree? It was because they had moved into error by neglecting their own missions, and they were squabbling over who was the best teacher. 

The use of the word “father” can be a bit contentious in a religious sense because Jesus explicitly told His disciples, and by implication us as well, never to give anyone such a title. As recorded in Matthew 23:9, Jesus said,  “And don’t address anyone here on earth as ‘Father,’ for only God in heaven is your Father“. But there are references in the New Testament to the Apostles having spiritual children. Peter made such a reference about Mark in 1 Peter 5:13, “Your sister church here in Babylon sends you greetings, and so does my son Mark“. We know enough about Mark to know that he wasn’t naturally related to Peter, so the reference must have been spiritual. And of course we have the reference to Timothy being Paul’s son “in the faith” – “I am writing to Timothy, my true son in the faith. May God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord give you grace, mercy, and peace” (1 Timothy 1:2). And another Apostle, this time John, referred to the church he founded as his “children” – “My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous” (1 John 2:1). But in all these cases, there is never a reference to anyone in the congregations calling their mentors “father”. 

The references to parents and children may seem a bit strange until we understand that there is a birthing process in operation. Jesus clearly spelt this out in John 3:5-7, “Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again’”. I suppose it must be a natural conclusion because just as a physical birth resulted from a mother and a father, there is an analogy that a spiritual birth also has a parent. Perhaps we can also extend the analogy to include a “foster parent”, a man or woman who nurtures the young disciples through their early years in the faith. The whole principle of Christian discipleship involves a parent/child spiritual relationship, and the new disciples grow up in the faith and have their own “children” as well, thus fulfilling Jesus’ command to “go and make disciples” everywhere. And of course, we are aware that the ultimate “parent” is God Himself, 

A few years ago, I thought much about my spiritual parents, several men and women who, at various stages in my spiritual life, brought instruction and assistance. Their’s was a solid grounding for me, and I have had the opportunity to thank each one personally for their persistence and patience in keeping me on the “straight and narrow” pathway . Sadly, three wonderful parents are dead now, but their legacy – for me and others – still lives on. Being a parent can be a thankless task sometimes, as any natural parent will testify, but we are all spiritual parents in one degree or another to the “children” we encounter. 

We mustn’t forget the role of spiritual siblings, our brothers and sisters in Christ. For their benefit, we have all been provided with a spiritual gift designed to build each other up in the faith. 1 Corinthians 12:4, 7, “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. … A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other”. Note that all Christians are provided with such a gift, and any believer who may be unsure should seek God through prayer to determine what their gift is. 

It is sad that in society today, being “born again” has such negative connotations, but it is an essential part of entering the Christian life. Being “born again” will divide cultural Christians from true Christians. Cultural Christians are those who want to live a good life (commendable, of course) but without the relational connection with God. Yes, they may go through the motions, singing the hymns and saying the prayers, but they have never come to that point where they submit to Christ through true repentance, trusting God for their future and handing their lives over to Him, and in the process being birthed through the Holy Spirit. The devil hates “born-again” Christians because he knows he has no jurisdiction over them, but there is no other way for a believer to start his or her walk of faith. We who are “born again” must never forget and respect our “spiritual fathers“, thanking them through Jesus for their faithfulness and love, teaching and spiritual nurturing.

Dear Father God. Thank You for the spiritual birthing process, because without it there was no way we could enter Your Kingdom. We pray too that You reveal to us clearly what Your gift is for us, so that we can benefit those around us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

We Have Everything

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“Stop deceiving yourselves. If you think you are wise by this world’s standards, you need to become a fool to be truly wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As the Scriptures say, “He traps the wise in the snare of their own cleverness.” And again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise; he knows they are worthless.” So don’t boast about following a particular human leader. For everything belongs to you— whether Paul or Apollos or Peter, or the world, or life and death, or the present and the future. Everything belongs to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.”
1 Corinthians‬ ‭3‬:‭18‬-‭23‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Paul wraps up this chapter in 1 Corinthians with a resume of the problem of factionalism and disunity in the Corinthian church. Earlier in this chapter, he put his finger on an issue that can still affect people today. We read from verse 4, “When one of you says, “I am a follower of Paul,” and another says, “I follow Apollos,” aren’t you acting just like people of the world?” And Paul was right, because human beings have a tendency to follow and promote church leaders using criteria that are based on human wisdom rather than what God sees. Paul connected true wisdom with this issue, even introducing a clear distinction between worldly wisdom, which would be based on a person’s human qualities, and God’s wisdom, which sees right into a person’s heart. It was this latter wisdom that mattered, and Paul told the Corinthians that although this might look foolish to unbelievers, it was “truly wise” to Him. 

Even today, the same problem can be found in our churches. For example, I know of a church that can guarantee a good attendance when a certain leader is speaking, but when another is preaching, there is a marked reduction in numbers. And yet, it might be the person who is not so popular who God wants to deliver His message. The worldly view is that the not-so-popular preacher isn’t worth listening to, and to attend church that day is considered foolishness. But we know that God’s Kingdom is very different. Paul quoted two Scriptures about the worldly wise people, the first from Job 5:13a, “He traps the wise in the snare of their own cleverness”, and the second from Psalm 94:11, “The Lord knows people’s thoughts; he knows they are worthless!”. An unbeliever cannot discern spiritual truths, and as they try and get their minds around God’s thoughts, they eventually give up and deem it foolishness. A true believer will discern spiritual truth and follow it, running the risk of being called a fool in the process. Was Paul labouring his point? I think he might have had to, as he addressed the Corinthian problem with gentleness and truth.

Paul continued by saying, “Everything belongs to you …”. That needs a bit of thought to unpack, because from a worldly perspective, we know that it can’t be true. But if we look at it with our spiritual eyes, a new understanding will emerge. If we think about it for a moment, the Corinthians had access to three very able teachers – Paul, Apollos and Cephas (Peter). Why not be blessed by all three and not just by the one they preferred? Come to that, what or whom else did the Corinthians have access to? They obviously had the Hebrew Scriptures and Paul’s letter. And there were probably other resources available, though all with the caveat that spiritual discernment was required to separate the good from the bad, separating truth from error. Only three preachers were mentioned, but there may have been others. Paul finally winds up the chapter with “everything belongs to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God”. Jesus was the ultimate resource, and Paul told his readers that it is to Him that they should ultimately look, because God made Him totally available to them. 

Today, the same thoughts apply to modern believers. There are far more resources available to Christians today, and the “everything belongs to you” is overwhelming in its potential. For a start, we have the canon of Scripture, the Bible as we know it, and then it comes in many different translations. I have some books, and as I look in my bookcase, I see books by authors such as Gordon Pettie, David Pawson, Max Lucado, Selwyn Hughes and many others. I find more on my Kindle reading device. We have on our electronic devices apps that contain not just the Bibles but also commentaries and other helps. We can explore videos on Social Media and video platforms such as YouTube. Television has the Christian channels available to us as well. And then there is the internet and all the resources contained there. A new resource has emerged in recent years, under the heading of Artificial Intelligence and with an app such as “ChatGPT”, I can type in a question such as “Who is God?” and receive a detailed essay of all the world’s religions. I can type in “What is the Bible?”, and an overview quickly appears on my screen. All these resources are available to us pilgrims, but with all this easily accessible knowledge, we need a matching quantity of wisdom, because otherwise we will quickly be diverted into error or drawn up a blind alley, into irrelevance.

I’m writing this on a Sunday morning, and soon I’ll be heading for church. The preacher will have been in God’s presence, finding out what God wants to say to the people gathered in the pews. And with a (hopefully) open heart, I will listen and hear what God has for me, with food for my soul. I’ll spend time in worship with the congregation and chat with the believers there, eventually leaving enriched spiritually by the experience. But on the other days of the week, my resource will be the Bible. Although I will dip into books by Godly men and women, I will always use the Bible as the final arbiter of God’s truth. Paul wrote to Timothy these words, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). 

And so we pilgrims look beyond the modern equivalents of Apollos, Paul and Peter. We instead look to the reality that we “belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God”. Through all the “noise” we find by living on 21st Century Planet Earth, with all the information such as the world news and issues and the worries and anxieties of living, we look for a haven of peace, not as the monks and nuns of old in their cloisters and closets, but in the presence of Jesus, the ultimate Source of all we need that matters.

Dear Lord Jesus. Only You have the words of eternal life, and in the end, that is all that matters. As we go about our daily lives, please always be there for us in times of chaos, providing peace for our souls. We remember that in the middle of a storm on the Sea of Galilee, You were resting asleep. That is the peace we desire, and know that it is a peace that only You can provide. In Your precious name. Amen. 

The Temple of God (2)

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“Don’t you realise that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you? God will destroy anyone who destroys this temple. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.”
1 Corinthians 3:16-17 NLT

Paul said some other things about the “temple of God”. He wrote that “anyone who destroys this temple” would themselves be destroyed, and that “God’s temple” is holy. Just to recap, the temple Paul was referring to was the Corinthian church, and it was made up of the Spirit-filled believers there. It was not a physical “temple” made with stone, bricks, and mortar, but the people who met together as believers in Jesus.

It is an interesting coincidence that the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed just a few years after this letter from Paul was written. Was that because the traditional, Law-bound Jewish leaders had tried to eliminate those who believed in Jesus, those men and women who believed that he was the Saviour of the world? We remember how a man called Saul burst onto the pages in our Bibles with a reference to him holding the coats of those men stoning Stephen, the first Christian martyr. And then we read just over the page in Acts 9:1-2, “Meanwhile, Saul was uttering threats with every breath and was eager to kill the Lord’s followers. So he went to the high priest. He requested letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus, asking for their cooperation in the arrest of any followers of the Way he found there. He wanted to bring them—both men and women—back to Jerusalem in chains“. But Paul’s pogrom was short-lived, because we know what happened to him on the Damascus Road. Perhaps what happened to the Temple in Jerusalem stands as a stark warning to those people today who would desire to destroy God’s people. 

In the UK, we have the Humanists who promote a society based on rational thinking and one without God. It is an obvious tactic of the devil because humanists do everything expected of Christians, but have created a clone that has shifted worship away from God to themselves. Are they, with their evangelistic zeal, trying to destroy the “temple of God”? As an aside, in my case, it backfired because I used to work with a member of the British Humanist Association who was always teasing me about my lack of any sort of belief. I was sitting on the fence when it came to any faith at all, but it was his vision of a self-based humanistic religion that so horrified me that it led to my becoming a Christian (with help from others at that time, of course). My work colleague was not happy when I attributed my faith in God to his humanistic efforts to convert me. Here in the UK, there is no overt persecution of the Christians who make up the “temple of God”, but the signs are ominous, with levels of persecution starting to increase through legislation and societal attitudes. Our schools here are promoting ideologies that are against God’s order and commands. And then we have the nations in other parts of the world that have made a belief in Christ a capital offence. Places such as Afghanistan and North Korea. These regimes will not last for long because God has promised to destroy those who destroy His temple. There are also Islamic militant groups that persecute and murder Christians when they find them. God’s people are under threat in many places in this world.

Paul’s final reference to the “temple of God” in this section was about holiness. This is a reminder that the people of God, through their repentance of sin and acceptance of Christ’s atoning sacrifice, are declared righteous and can come into God’s presence as His children. Peter wrote, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9). We are a special people, shown God’s favour, and able to live in the light of His presence, as the Holy Spirit lives and works within each one of us. Paul reminded the Corinthians that because of their identity as God’s holy temple, they had responsibilities to live a life worthy of that identity. He was gently saying, no more factionalism, no more jealousy and quarrelling, no more living as worldly people do, with their sinful natures to the fore. 

We pilgrims are a 21st-century manifestation of the “temple of God”. We may meet in different places, in different denominations, with different skin colours and languages, but we all have one thing in common, and that is that we are God’s children, fellow believers in Jesus, who died for our sins. We are people born again in the spirit, and because of that, we are obliged to function as God’s holy people, with Paul’s warnings and instructions ever in our minds. Peter wrote, “As you come to him, the living Stone – rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him – you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:4-5). Priests? An image of a man or woman decked out in strange clothes and wearing a funny hat comes to mind, but that is not what Peter, or Paul, was referring to. We are all part of God’s Kingdom and have a responsibility to offer sacrifices to God, just as the Levitical priests offered up animal sacrifices so many years before. But our offerings are spiritual and holy, and fitting for the One who died for our sins. “God’s temple is holy”, wrote Paul, and that is what we aspire to. After all that Jesus has done for us, what else can we be? Peter wrote, “So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy” (1 Peter 1:14-16). That doesn’t mean walking around with our hands clasped in an attitude of prayer, a halo delicately poised just above our heads. Being holy has the meaning of being set apart. So we don’t behave in an unGodly way. We avoid places and practices that are, or could be, sinful and likely to draw us back into the worldly society around us. We live differently, we think differently, always remembering that in Christ we are holy, totally and completely. We have a new identity as God’s children. We are now citizens of God’s Heavenly Kingdom, assigned for a time to Planet Earth to bring God’s Message of the Cross, the Gospel, the Good News about Jesus, to the people around us, all the time praying that we will not be drawn back into the ways of the world. We have help of course, and the Holy Spirit living within us will lead us into all truth.

Dear Heavenly Father. We understand that we are set apart from the world around us, but we also understand that we have to live in it for Your works of service. Please help us get the balance right so that we never let You down. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Temple of God (1)

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“Don’t you realise that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you? God will destroy anyone who destroys this temple. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.”
1 Corinthians 3:16-17 NLT

In these two verses in 1 Corinthians, Paul describes a “temple” that consists of all the people in the Corinthian church and he used an analogy of a physical building to describe a spiritual equivalent Already Paul has described the believers in Corinth as a field and building (1 Corinthians 3:9, “For we are both God’s workers. And you are God’s field. You are God’s building”) and now he is telling them that they are God’s temple, all corporate analogies for an ideal Christian church. Such a body of believers started with the “seed” of the Gospel, was then built up by the “washing of the word”, and was now functioning as a Holy-Spirit-indwelling group capable of doing much for God. Or they should have been. We know that the Corinthian church started life in the home of Titius Justus, a Gentile believer who lived next to the synagogue in Corinth (Acts 18), and the believers there then probably met in different home groups as the church grew in numbers. We remember the origins of the early church in Jerusalem from Acts 2:42, 46, “All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer. …  They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity”.  So probably the Corinthian believers did the same, hiring a hall when needed, much as new churches and fellowships do today. But Paul wasn’t bothered by buildings and was only concerned with the “building” that mattered – a group of Spirit-filled believers in whom the Holy Spirit could thrive.

Further on in his first Corinthian letter, Paul reminded the believers there that their bodies individually were “temples of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19), but we’ll get to that later. In the meantime, Paul could see the potential of the Holy Spirit working through a group of Spirit-filled believers in what could be achieved for God. But Paul mildly rebuked the believers in Corinth because he had a concern. What was this? Well, first of all, there was sin present. He wrote, “for you are still controlled by your sinful nature. You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other. Doesn’t that prove you are controlled by your sinful nature? Aren’t you living like people of the world?” (1 Corinthians 3:3). One place the Holy Spirit cannot live is in an atmosphere of sin, and worldly people will not experience the indwelling of God’s Spirit. Another problem with these nascent believers was a lack of harmony between them. 1 Corinthians 1:10, “I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with each other. Let there be no divisions in the church. Rather, be of one mind, united in thought and purpose”. A lack of unity caused by factionalism will severely limit or even destroy the Holy Spirit’s power.

But Paul was on their case and knew what was holding them back. Of course, we believers today, pilgrims heading for glory, will never behave in such ways, but are our churches and fellowships filled with the power of the Holy Spirit with signs and miracles commonplace? In Acts 4, we read about a prayer meeting so powerful that the building shook. The prayer ended, “Stretch out your hand with healing power; may miraculous signs and wonders be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus” (Acts 4:30). The next verse then described what followed. “After this prayer, the meeting place shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Then they preached the word of God with boldness”. Where is this power in our churches today? When was the last time we had a prayer meeting so powerful that the building shook? But we can’t look around at the other believers who worship with us. We have to look at ourselves and our desires for our group of believers. As an aside, we note that it wasn’t just a few believers who turned up for the prayer meeting; it was all the believers. Built together, we make up a corporate setting for the Holy Spirit to move, and if He doesn’t, what are we doing, or not doing, that is stopping him? 

The gift of the Holy Spirit was present in the Corinthian church regardless of their problems. We read in 1 Corinthians 1:7, “Now you have every spiritual gift you need as you eagerly wait for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ”. Where did these gifts originate? With God Himself, He is not a stingy God who capriciously bestows gifts on a whim. We only have to ask Him for the gifts we need. Jesus said, “So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” (Luke 11:13). But there is a cost. If we want to be really Spirit-filled people of God, are we prepared for what follows? A power-filled people who attend prayer meetings and expect God to move? Like at the start of the Hebridean revival, where two old ladies, Peggie (who was blind) and Christine Smith, aged 84 and 82, decided to pray. They were greatly burdened because they’d been told no young person attended public worship at their church. They decided to pray twice a week. On Tuesdays and Fridays, they got on their knees at ten in the evening, and remained there until three or four in the morning; two old women in a very humble cottage. And that’s how revival in the Hebrides broke out, leaving a legacy that we can find today, half a century or more later. 

Does the Holy Spirit live within us, pilgrims? I’m sure He does, and He is always able and willing to touch those around us as we preach the Word of God with the same boldness as the Acts 4 Christians. I heard a preacher recently in his evangelist message say that he was a “space invader”. The use of this phrase probably gave away his age, but it is a telling description of someone, full of the Holy Spirit’s power, invading the space of people they meet. People around us are wandering around without hope and full of fear for the future. They need to hear Good News, but who is there to tell them except us? Of course, God could reveal Himself directly to anyone He chooses, but the reality is that He has chosen us pilgrims to do His work for him. So, full of the Holy Spirit’s power, that is what we must do. We may feel totally inadequate for the task, but with the Holy Spirit guiding us into all truth, how can we fail? We may get knockbacks. We may find a lack of fertile ground prepared for the seed we have ready and waiting to plant, but with perseverance, we will succeed because the One who is within us is greater than the one who is in the world.

Dear God. Please lead and guide us to the people You have prepared in advance and who are ready and waiting to hear Your Good News. Please empower us with all the right words to say, and help us speak Your message with boldness, so that the people will know that we have met Jesus. In His precious name. Amen.

Jesus Christ the Foundation (2)

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“For no one can lay any foundation other than the one we already have—Jesus Christ. Anyone who builds on that foundation may use a variety of materials—gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw. But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value. If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward. But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames.”
1 Corinthians 3:11-15 NLT

Paul wasn’t a builder by profession, although his job as a tent maker was close. In his life, he had probably seen buildings erected, and he knew the importance of foundations that would stand the test of time. And he also knew that, then, as now, society had a building industry that sometimes used cheaper and inferior materials, cutting corners and generating more profit for the builders. In the analogy that Paul was using, he was the one who laid the foundations for the Corinthian church. He came to Corinth in about 51AD and started to tell the Jews there about Jesus when he attended their synagogue. “Each Sabbath found Paul at the synagogue, trying to convince the Jews and Greeks alike” (Acts 18:4). But in the end, he gave up because of their hard hearts and left to start the church in a home next door to the synagogue. “Then he left and went to the home of Titius Justus, a Gentile who worshiped God and lived next door to the synagogue” (Acts 18:7). It was here that Paul laid the foundation for the Corinthian church, “So Paul stayed there for the next year and a half, teaching the word of God” (Acts 18:11). What did he teach? 1 Corinthians 2:2, “For I decided that while I was with you I would forget everything except Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified“. This is important in terms of foundation laying, because building on anything other than “Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified” would have been like building on the sand we considered yesterday in the parable of the wise and foolish builders. 

But over the years, there have been many churches, fellowships, groups, sects, and ideologies that all claim to have been founded on Jesus, but many have introduced a subtle change or interpretation that ignores the central facets of the Foundation and have built on something else. It started in the early church days with, for example, movements like Gnosticism. This centred on the idea of gnosis, or secret knowledge, that could liberate individuals from the material world and connect them with a higher spiritual realm. Key to Gnostic thought was the belief that the material world was inherently flawed or evil, created by a lesser deity, while a higher, transcendent God existed beyond it. This movement clashed with Jewish and Christian believers, who considered it for what it was – heresy. Then we have Marcionism, which believed that the God of the Old Testament was different from the God of the New Testament, and its followers rejected the Old Testament. And then we have the Montanists, which was a movement emphasising prophecy and the direct experience of the Holy Spirit, believing their revelations superseded existing Christian teachings. Many others flourished in those early days, and they all were marked out by their false foundations. 

In modern days, some sects that call themselves Christian have attracted followings and have established their own denominations and churches. For example, we have the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who believe that Jesus was not God, and the Mormons, who claim to be Christian but aren’t. Both of these have one thing in common, in that they claimed to have divine knowledge imparted to them by their own founders.  And there are other sects that have emerged over the years. Such groups and sects have confused and misguided people into believing something untrue. 

In yesterday’s blog, we considered Jesus, the only true Foundation. He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). A bold and unequivocal statement that has been the true foundation of the Christian church ever since, and is something central to our faith. After Paul had established the Corinthian church, other men of God built up the believers there, men such as Apollos. What building materials did they use – “gold, silver, jewels?” or  “wood, hay, or straw”? The precious metals and gems were an analogy of the truth about Jesus and what He taught. In those days, there was no availability of the New Testament as we know it today, so the quality building materials used would have been through Godly men and women who knew the Truth. Paul gave a clue as to how when he wrote, “And my message and my preaching were very plain. Rather than using clever and persuasive speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:4). The quality builders like Paul and Apollos had one thing in common, and that was the revelation of Jesus through the Holy Spirit within them. We know this from John 16:13, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future“. Truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Truth in building the foundations and truth in building the Church. 

What would the “wood, hay or straw” have been? Teaching that distorts the message of Christ or waters down the truth. Such a definition fits very well with the JW and Mormon sects we have with us today. As another example, I was once in a church that decided to preach a series of sermons based on a popular Christian book. I can’t remember which one, but the issue for me was that the preachers were being a bit lazy in taking ready-made sermon material from a book rather than seeking the Holy Spirit for “gold, silver and jewels” to include in their messages. Another danger is with AI-based applications, such as using ChatGPT, which will provide a sermon outline very easily and plausibly. Did I use this when writing this blog or any other? No, I prefer to set down thoughts inspired by the Holy Spirit and God’s Word, the Bible. But back to our Corinthian builders. Did they end up building wood, hay or straw in the lives of their audience? As a warning, Paul went on to write what will happen on Judgement Day. On this terrible day, fire will destroy what is of no value, but more on this tomorrow.

In the meantime, are we pilgrims in a place where we are being built up by the washing of the Word? Ephesians 5:25-27, “For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault“. We need to be in a place where we can read, believe and apply God’s Word in our lives. Through personal study of the Bible and through listening attentively to the preaching of a Godly “builder” from the pulpit. There is no other way to be built up in our faith. We are built on the foundation of Jesus Christ, and our lives since have been built by following His truth, and none other.

Dear Lord Jesus, only You have the truth that leads to eternal life. Only You are the One who is the correct foundation for Your brothers and sisters in the faith. And we pray for our leaders, that You will lead and guide them in Your ways and in Your truth. In Your precious name. Amen.

Leaders and Followers

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“For when one says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos,’ are you not mere human beings? What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe – as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.”
1 Corinthians 3:4-6 NIVUK

The Corinthian church was established by Paul, and then a man called Apollos emerged as a leader, building up the church and continuing his work, but the problem seemed to be one where a particular leader was being followed instead of the message that he was delivering, the Message of the Cross. The central fact that it was all about Christ seemed to have become lost in the “jealousy and quarrelling” that Paul was so upset about. We see from 1 Corinthians 1:12, Peter was added to the leadership list: “Some of you are saying, “I am a follower of Paul.” Others are saying, “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Peter,” or “I follow only Christ””. What were the differences between these men, and why were some Corinthian believers saying they only followed Christ? After all, they all preached the same message as far as we know, but there would have been different personalities involved as well, and different nuances in their delivery. We know about Paul and Peter from their letters and, additionally, with Peter from his mentions in the Gospels, but little is known about Apollos. All we have is a brief cameo in Acts 18:24-25, “Meanwhile, a Jew named Apollos, an eloquent speaker who knew the Scriptures well, had arrived in Ephesus from Alexandria in Egypt. He had been taught the way of the Lord, and he taught others about Jesus with an enthusiastic spirit and with accuracy. However, he knew only about John’s baptism”. Although Priscilla and Aquila helped him understand the “way of God” more accurately, there is no mention of the Holy Spirit’s presence in his life. However, I think we can take it as read, because of his endorsement by Paul. 

There is always a tendency for some believers to blindly follow a charismatic figure who presents a plausible message that resonates with his or her listeners, and that allegiance can develop into a following, even a separate church. Some people need a relationship with a leader to help them with their own needs, it seems. Such a leader presents them with messages well presented and mostly accurate representations of Scripture, but there is always the danger that some aspects of the Bible can be promoted over others, leading to a lop-sided rather than well-rounded Biblical message. For example, I once knew a pastor who had a particular ministry in evangelism, and messages from the pulpit were often flavoured by his passion for reaching the lost. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but messages are also needed for building up the body of Christ. Paul wrote about the ministry graces in his Ephesian letter, “Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers” (Ephesians 4:11). We used to call these the “Five-Fold Ministries”. Why did the church need these five graces? The next two verses read, “Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ”. Did Paul, or Apollos, or Peter, even have all these five gifts? Doubtful, although God will often bestow an additional gift, or gifts, on someone to meet a particular need. But to build up a church congregation, so that they “measure up to the full and complete standard of Christ”, requires a leadership team representing as many of these ministries as possible. A person sitting in the pew will find that his or her own particular gifting will resonate with one of these grace ministries, perhaps helping them grow in their own ministry.  Apollos, we are told, was an eloquent preacher well versed in Scripture, so, understandably, some people would enjoy sitting under his ministry. However, what upset Paul was that the different followings present in the Corinthian church were leading to divisions fuelled by “jealousy and quarrelling”. Here is a quote from Bibleref.com: “For Paul, the subtle nuances behind these divisions didn’t matter. The problem is that they exist at all. These squabbles are evidence that the Corinthian Christians are behaving like unbelievers, or immature Christians, demanding their own way, rather than as Holy Spirit-empowered believers learning to express God’s sacrificial love to each other“.

We pilgrims, however, know that Jesus Himself is the One we must follow. And as we develop His teachings in our lives, we will start to, more and more, demonstrate the grace and love that He taught, in the way we go about our daily lives. It’s called sanctification, and we sometimes will fail to enjoy the process. We all know, I’m sure, fellow Christians who have left a church because the message being preached makes them feel uncomfortable. They don’t want to hear things that mean their approach to living must change. So what do they do? On some pretext, they will leave that church and find another, one that preaches messages that don’t expose or challenge their weaknesses. But the Holy Spirit within will never give up on us. Jesus said, “But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you”(John 14:26). God wants us to be holy and blameless in His sight (Colossians 1:22) so he will never give up on us, teaching us just what we need when we need it. Believers who migrate from church to church will never find a perfect home, and sooner or later, they will find themselves facing the same old challenges. Quote from David Pawson,  “God is willing to let things happen to us which may be painful, but which will make us more holy as a result. Our character tends to make more progress in the tough times than the good”.

In following a person rather than God Himself, there is always a danger of arriving in a place Paul warned Timothy about. “For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4). But we pilgrims desire to be well-rounded children of God, growing in grace day by day. We ask the Holy Spirit to lead us to a church where the leaders are Godly men and women, themselves wholly grounded in God’s truth as contained in His Word. Not for us a path that leads to “myths”. We pray that the church we find ourselves in will also be accountable to other Godly leaders, themselves fully grounded in the ways of God. And in such an environment, we know that we can grow secure in the knowledge that God is truly with us.

Dear Father God. We pray that You lead us into all truth through the power and presence of Your Spirit. In Jesus’ name. Amen.