Weekly Update: Suffering and Rejoicing in the Body of Christ Pt. 2

By -

 


A close up of a logo Description automatically generated

This is the second part of my two-part article describing our fellowship of suffering and rejoicing. In Chapter 12 of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church, he talks about spiritual gifts and how we should use them for the building up of the body of Christ (:7). Paul also describes how the Holy Spirit, the bestower of these gifts, unites the Church, who function like a human body. Each believer is a part of the body and has something unique and important to offer the other believers in the church body. This teaching applies to each local church, but I think it also applies to the Universal Church (all born-again believers everywhere on the planet).


A close up of a logo Description automatically generated

Later in the chapter, Paul writes something important that I think we should remember. He writes, “And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it,” (1 Corinthians 12:26). This text teaches us two important things that are especially important during this season of ministry. This week, I discuss rejoicing. We are a fellowship of rejoicers!


Our culture does not embrace the idea of communal rejoicing. We’ve accepted the lie that when someone else has something about which to rejoice, that we have something to mourn. For instance, when someone else gets a promotion at work, we should mourn because we didn’t get the promotion. When someone else buys a new car, we should be jealous because we don’t have that car. When someone else is recognized by others for something, we disregard and disparage their honor. That kind of attitude should not be present in the hearts and minds of believers.


Consider again Paul’s comparison of the church to the human body. When one part of the body is honored and cared for, the rest of the body rejoices. Have you ever taken a towel soaked in cold water and laid it over your head after spending a couple of hours out in the hot Key West sun? It makes your whole body feel cooler. Likewise, when someone in our church body is honored (has something great happen in their life), we should rejoice with them because we are a church body and things that affect individual members impact all of us.




A close up of a logo Description automatically generated

Let’s praise the Lord for those promotions, new marriages, births, and steps of faith. When one of us receives a blessing from God, we all receive a blessing from God! Church, we have much for which to be grateful. We have much for which to be joyful. Let’s be movement-makers and culture-changers. Why don’t we start by rejoicing?


In His Service,

Pastor Josh

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Casting Lots and Determining God's Will

By -
What is the deal with casting lots in the OT and why is it used in the NT? Was this a valid way to determine the will of God? Can we cast lots today to determine God’s will for ourselves? When I first became a Christian and began to read through the Bible, This subject led to some very challenging questions that I could not find answers to. Recently, our pastor, David, has been taking the church through the book of Acts on Sunday nights and last Sunday we read about how the disciples used lots to decide who the replacement disciple would be for Judas Iscariot. This reminded me of my own question that I had before and how many others may also be questioning this as well. Why would believers use what would appear to be a system of chance in order to distinguish the will of God? To answer this question, let’s look at 3 things. First, we will need to understand just what “lots” is and what it was used for. Second, we will look at an OT passage in which it was used. Finally, we wil
Read more

Inclusionist, Exclusionist, Pluralist...What do they all mean?

By -
While I was preparing this week to be on a panel for the discussion of theological issues I came across a very difficult question that pushed me to spend some time solidifying my own doctrine on a certain issue. The question came from a student in our youth group: "How can a person who has never been exposed to the gospel (through no fault of his own) be expected to come to a saving knowledge of Christ?" This simple question has been discussed for centuries and divided denominations since the first denomination was formed. Dr. Ken Keathley, now a professor at a Southern Baptist seminary wrote an interesting work on this very question. His paper delineates the differences between the three schools of thought on the issue presented. The excerpt presented below is from his paper titled, "None Dare Call it Treason: Is an Inclusivist a Paul Revere or a Benedict Arnold?" appearing in the Journal for Baptist Theology and Ministry, Vol. 1 No. 2. "Exclusivism holds that
Read more

The Trinity and The Triple Point

By -
In our monthly theological discussion group, a group of men and I recently discussed the Trinity . We now understand the Trinity to be: The unity of God subsisting in three distinct persons. We reviewed the different views of the Trinity, how the concept is defined in the Bible, and how it has come to be accepted as the orthodox view currently. At the close of our discussion , we began to discuss the different analogies of the Trinity. Here are a few that we discussed through the direction of Millard Erickson's book "Christian Theology." First, we talked about the egg. The egg has the yoke, the surrounding liquid, and the shell. All of these make up the egg. The egg is like the Trinity in that it has three parts unified into one egg. This is obviously an incomplete analogy since each of the parts of the egg are not really completely separated and yet totally unified. Each part of the egg has a different nature. So the egg analogy fails. What about the human/humanity ana
Read more