Rather than keeping issues of sin closeted, Paul wrote to the
Corinthian church to expose their tolerance of an individual practicing sexual
immorality. He took these believers to task for being proud, rather than being
filled with grief. “When you are
assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the
power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan,
so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of
the Lord.” (1 Cor 5:4-5 NIV)
August 01, 2013
Taking to Task
I find it disconcerting that Pope Francis would take journalists to
task for asking questions and reporting on gay priests. The Associated Press
writes that Pope Francis makes the distinction that being gay is an issue of
sin, but sexually abusing children is a crime. The implication being that
journalist should be reporting on crimes, not on issues of sin.Thankfully the
New Testament writers were not of the same cover-up mindset.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Gail;
-----What good would shoving the poor guy out of their fellowship (I Cor 5:6-12) do? How is that delivering him over to Satan? We know from II Corinthians 1:6-7 that the man was grief stricken. He was in their fellowship because he knew it to be the place of the spiritually alive. What he had learned and felt there is the security of being built into a living body. Being put out of that body was indeed a message of impending doom. The knowledge of God is not available where there are no actions and thoughts of God being expressed. The knowledge of Satan is.
-----The destructive forces against God are brought to bear upon man’s knowledge of Him. All of the good things and joys and comforts of life are neither evil nor sinful. But if they are not integrated with the substance of your new life in Christ such that your direct perception of them is apart from your perception of God and your thanksgiving to Him, then they effect your knowledge of Him like a boxful of Styrofoam peanuts. Then they have no substance and only crowd out everything of substance. At the least, this is what happens outside the knowledge of God. And the final results of this least are as bad as the results of the worst.
-----Satan wants to bring the same kind of innocent destruction into the church. He wants to crowd the knowledge of God out of fellowship by introducing in its stead packing peanuts of fancy and frivolity. Then where the lack of knowledge in fellowship cracks a wall true evil can seep through and destroy the body without alarm. After a few cracks have opened up, all knowledge of God fizzles away.
-----And here we have the Pope pomping for more packing peanuts. Wise journalists asking wise questions not only put together knowledge, they also provide the substantive information for you to do the same. If we had stubbornly refused to allow the deconstruction of the concept of sin and its processes of degradation we would not have lost our appetite for knowledge and the truth. But as it is, not only do sexually transmitted diseases yet ride the tide of homosexuality, but so also do the spiritual diseases of envy, bitterness, strife, and deceit. The truth of this is available to anyone humble enough to observe recent history.
-----Thank God we have a few strong churches in almost every community. Although Satan is pulverizing the knowledge of God in many churches and has all but eliminated it from our society, strong churches yet hang around as clefts in the Rock for the wise.
-----”The words of the wise heard in quiet are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.” (Ecclesiastes 9:17-18)
Love you all,
Steve Corey
Post a Comment