Month: November 2023

Week 46  1 Corinthians 6

Last week I discovered two groups of people:
Group A (people with no interest in the Lord) and
Group B (people attracted to the Lord)
Today I landed on a list of a few Group A practices: idolatry adultery prostitution homosexuality theft greed alcohol-abuse dishonesty. So on the upside people in Group A can do pretty much whatever they want. Unfortunately none of them will inherit the Kingdom of God (but I’m guessing Group A don’t really care about the kingdom.)
Anyway last week I was thinking that it was a big change for a person to shift from Group A to Group B. (For instance it’s a bit more complex than – let’s say – deciding to quit smoking.) Since there are lots of attractive & compelling things to do in Group A Paul says that other invisible things need to happen to help propel my decision. For instance:
You have been set apart for God
You have been made right with God
Your sins have been washed away.
Without these Special Assisters it’s unlikely I’d have the motivation to leave Group A. But with them I can make the jump. With them I can start taking some Group B action steps.
While I’m in Group A I love Group A practices.
But when I get help to shift to Group B then having a shot at the kingdom of God starts to be a more attractive option.

Note: quote & Paul’s list are from 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (NLT)

Week 45  1 Corinthians 3

A couple of days ago I saw where Paul identified two groups of people in Rome. Group A people were: dominated by a sinful nature and Group B were: controlled by the Holy Spirit.
Here in 1 Corinthians Paul was talking to church people – Group B people. But he told them he couldn’t talk to them like advanced or mature Group B people: I had to talk to you as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in the Christian life.
This is a pretty useful comment because it looks like even though these (formerly) Group A people had shifted over to Group B they were still so Group A-oriented that it’s like they never left Group A. Other people in Corinth’s Group B showed some Group B qualities – but only at a pretty elementary level. It’s like they had no Group B chops. Group B Juveniles. Paul told them they were still:
controlled by evil desires
jealous of one another
quarrelling with each other
acting like people who don’t belong to the Lord.
So they were technical members of Group B…but with a case of Group B Rookie Blues.
But it’s no real surprise. Starting in on something brand new there’s two things going on. First I’m on a steep up-curve learning a lot of new things. Second – and at the same time – I’m unloading a bunch of old familiar things.

Note: quotes from Romans 8:5 and 1 Corinthians 3:1 & 3 (NLT)

Week 45  Romans 8

Paul categorizes people into two big groups (I’ll call them Group A and Group B).
If I’m in Group A I’m dominated by my sinful nature.
In Group B I’m controlled by the Holy Spirit.
The two groups are obviously different.
In Group A my sinful nature controls my mind. My focus is on sinful things. My destination is death.
In Group B the Spirit controls my mind. I think about pleasing the Spirit. I’m headed for peace & life.
The two seem to be totally separated. Isolated opposites. No common ground. It’s easy to get the impression there’s an Impenetrable Wall between them. But that’s not really the case.
It’s pretty clear that if I’m in Group A I have the potential to move in the direction the Lord. Paul wants people to move to a new master…a new controller. The Gospels & Acts have plenty of stories of people shifting from Group A to Group B.
And it works both ways. If I’m in Group B I could start dilly-dallying with Group A values. Maybe I don’t go back. But maybe I do.
Group Membership has a dynamic element to it. I shift from Group A to Group B. But maybe I shift back from Group B to Group A. It’s not so hard. I think that’s the point of the parable of the farmer planting seed. A > B > A.

Note: quotes from Romans 8:5 (NLT). See 8:5-17 and Matthew 13:1-23

Week 44  Romans 5

Next week the bible study group I’m in is looking at Genesis 3. So reading about Adam today prepped me for that.
Genesis 3 is one of the key chapters in the OT. It would be hard to make any sense of the bible without it. It’s the tipping point of everything.
A simple way to break down bible content is into three events:
1. Everything is Created & Everything is Pretty Good (Genesis 1-2)
2. Adam & Eve Make a Gigantic & Catastrophically Bad Decision (Genesis 3)
3. Almost Nothing is Any Good Any More (Genesis 4-Revelation)
Anyway reading Romans today I wondered about Adam & Eve.
I wondered about how they could be so stupid.
I also wondered how they got to make an insane decision that now affects me. (Of course that’s not a totally unprecedented thing. For instance some guy in Ottawa can make an executive decision that affects me and everyone else in the country.)
Mostly I wondered how it worked…. how Adam’s evil was transmitted. Paul says: sin entered the world through one man.
It’s almost like Adam was working in some isolated lab somewhere with – let’s say – a deadly virus. And then through his own arrogant and self-interested stupidity he opened a valve and every single thing in the whole cosmos got contaminated.
I don’t think sin is a virus-like thing that people catch. I think it’s monumentally worse than that.
But a lab spreading viral contagion is one way to think about total human degradation.

Note: quote from Romans 5:12 (NIV)