June 30, 2013 | 1 Corinthians 6:9-14

Here are the audio and notes from Sunday's sermon taken from 1 Corinthians 6:9-14. Next week we will return to our series on the cross by looking at the doctrine of redemption.

⁹ Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, ¹⁰ nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

¹² All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. ¹³ Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. ¹⁴ Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power.





Audio
Notes

Slavery, Philemon, and the Gospel: The Challenges the Book of Philemon Raises

Tonight we'll be studying the book of Philemon in our ride through the Bible backwards.  One of the major challenges that Philemon raises is that of slavery.  Nowhere in the book does Paul condemn the institution of slavery even though the two main characters in the book are a runaway slave and the master. 

The New Testament itself seems silent on the issue.  I have recently commented on some words from John MacArthur in his book, The Freedom and Power of Forgiveness, where he briefly deals with the issue.  To read that post, click here.

The Power of the Gospel in Bringing Social Change:  Perhaps We Need to Refocus Our Efforts 

Thesis Availble Online

I am finally completely finished with my M.Div. Thesis. It is on the Emerging Church; specifically on Brian McLaren and his understanding of the gospel. McLaren is perhaps the most influential leader in the movement and through such influence, the gospel has been smothered and redefined within the Emergent movement. Anyone interested in understanding how dangerous a cultured-stained gospel can be, I encourage you to read it. However, remember that it is an academic paper and so uses words and concepts for academia.

The title: Brian McLaren and Emergent Soteriology: From Cultural Accommodation to the Social Gospel.

You can download it for free by clicking on the above link. I will also make it available on the left side of this page.

Married With Children . . . Lots of Them!: What We Can Learn From the Duggar Family

This Sunday for Mother's Day, I will likely be referring to an article I wrote regarding the growing Duggar family. As many know, the Duggars have 18 kids and will probably have more. They have their own show and my wife watched it constantly in the weeks prior and after she gave birth to our own son, Elijah.

After their 16th child, an article was written in the San Francisco Gate regarding this family that shocked me. The author goes beyond journalist objectivity and attacks the family as a bunch of homophobes, bigots Christians in whose kids will grow up as mind-numbed robots just like their parents and will not receive the type of attention they need.

In response to the article, I wrote an article critiquing the argument from the SF Gate. I encourage you to read both articles and see what you think. The reason I bring this up is being that this Sunday is Mother's Day, I am reminded of the confusion our culture has regarding children, family, and marriage. The culture is left scratching its head when watching the Duggars and yet as Christians, we must give God the glory for a family willing to raise children, not to mention 18 of them!, to obey and follow our Savior.

As a culture, and even as Christians, we need to recover this understanding of children. They are not burdens, but blessings. Children are worth the investment (lack of better word) and time. There are two ways in which we are called to fulfill the Great Commission: evangelize and have children.

I encourage you to read the articles for yourself as I believe they will open your eyes to conversations taking place in the culture that are rather shocking. It is this sort of rhetoric and nonsense that rationalizes abortion, euthanasia, infanticide, divorce, cohabitation, the culture of death, and the many other issues we face today. Whenever we view children as a burden and marriage as just a certificate (rather than a covenant) is the moment our culture (including the Church) begins, and has begun, to decay before our very eyes.

Here are some excerts from the SF Gate article:

...this might be the most disquieting photo you see all year, this bizarreDuggar family of 18 spotless white hyperreligious interchangeable people with alarmingly bad hair, the kids ranging in ages from 1 to 17, worse than those nuked Smurfs in that UNICEF commercial and worse than all the horrific rubble in Pakistan and worse than the cluster-bomb nightmare that is Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise having a child as they suck the skin from each other's Scientological faces and even worse than that huge 13-foot python which ate that six-foot alligator and then exploded...

...if you study the above photo (or the even more disturbing family Web site) too closely you will become rashy and depressed and you will crave large quantities of alcohol and loud aggressive music to deflect the creeping feeling that this planet is devolving faster than you can suck the contents from a large bong?...

Perhaps the point is this: Why does this sort of bizarre hyperbreeding only seem to afflict antiseptic megareligious families from the Midwest? In other words -- assuming Michelle and Jim Bob and their massive brood of cookie-cutter Christian kidbots will all be, as the charming photo suggests, never allowed near a decent pair of designer jeans or a tolerable haircut from a recent decade, and assuming that they will all be tragically encoded with the values of the homophobic asexual Christian right -- where are the forces that shall help neutralize their effect on the culture? Where is the counterbalance, to offset the damage?

See why I am concerned?

McDanell - Married With Children...Lot's Of Them!

SF Gate - God Does Not Want 16 Kids: Arkansas mom gives birth to a whole freakin' baseball team. How deeply should you cringe?

Official Family Website - http://www.duggarfamily.com/
The family have also written a book which I believe you can check out at our local library - 20 and Counting.

Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! -Psalm 127:3-5a