Daily Bread Pastor Mike Anderson

Concerning Spiritual Gifts 12  Now about the gifts of the Spirit,  brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed.   2  You know that when you were pagans,  somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols.   3  Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,”  and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,”  except by the Holy Spirit. 4  There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit  distributes them. 5  There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord.   6  There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone  it is the same God  at work. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.   8  To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom,  to another a message of knowledge  by means of the same Spirit,   9  to another fait...

1 Corinthians 11:1 " Follow my example,  as I follow the example of Christ ." When you sense someone is following you, it can get a little unnerving, especially in today's society.  But it might be even more intimidating to think someone is following you to see an example of Christ.  Paul has spent 10 chapters addressing the concerns of the Corinthian Christians.  They are living in a culture of sexual immorality, idolatry, and following personalities rather than Jesus.   What they need is a leader they can follow who represents Christ well in what they teach and how they live.    Some might think Paul is being prideful here.  Is he comparing himself to Jesus?  Is he asking people to follow him in the same way people follow Jesus?  Shouldn't we only be pointing people to Jesus not ourselves?   Paul said something similar to Timothy, his disciple in 1 Timothy 4:12.  " Don’t let anyone look down on you  be...

1 Corinthians 10:12-14  If you think you are standing firm,  be careful that you don’t fall!   No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful;  he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.  But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. Since there was so much sexual immorality and idolatry being practiced in Corinth, Paul gives the church a model for withstanding temptation.  I think it is the most helpful and practical model the bible gives us.  First of all let's all admit that we are all prone temptation all the time.  We are deluged by messages that incite us to indulge our sinful nature whenever we feel like it.  Note I am not talking about developing a puritannical, rigid and legalistic viewpoint of the gift of sex, or other pleasures God gives us to enjoy in the right context and within God's guidelines.  Paul is talking a...

1 Corinthians 9:3-14 This is my defense to those who sit in judgment on me.   4  Don’t we have the right to food and drink?   5  Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife  along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers  and Cephas?   6  Or is it only I and Barnabas  who lack the right to not work for a living?  7  Who serves as a soldier  at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its grapes? Who tends a flock and does not drink the milk?   8  Do I say this merely on human authority? Doesn’t the Law say the same thing?   9  For it is written in the Law of Moses: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” Is it about oxen that God is concerned?   10  Surely he says this for us, doesn’t he? Yes, this was written for us,  because whoever plows and threshes should be able to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest.   11  If w...

1 Corinthians 8:9-13 7  But not everyone possesses this knowledge.  Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food they think of it as having been sacrificed to a god, and since their conscience is weak,  it is defiled.   8  But food does not bring us near to God;  we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.  9  Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block  to the weak.   10  For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol’s temple, won’t that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols?   11  So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed  by your knowledge. 12  When you sin against them  in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.   13  Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, ...

1 Corinthians 7  Concerning Married Life 7  Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.”   2  But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband.   3  The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife,  and likewise the wife to her husband.   4  The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife.   5  Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time,  so that you may devote yourselves to prayer.  If you ever doubted that Paul gets practical in his letters, you haven't read 1 Corinthians 7.  There are many instructions given in this chapter and it is VERY important to understand the context in which this chapter is wr...

Sexual Immorality 12  “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial.  “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything.   13  You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.”  The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord,  and the Lord for the body.   14  By his power God raised the Lord from the dead,  and he will raise us also.   15  Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself?  Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!   16  Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” [ b ] 17  But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.  18  Flee from sexual immorality.  All other sins a person commits are outside the body...