Tag: division
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Gifts or Curses
1 Corinthians 12:1–14 (read online ⧉) You have probably read this passage many times, and probably heard a few sermons on it. You might have even delved into it during your investigations of your spiritual gifts. And we will get to that. However, there is a warning in these verses that we often miss. “…you…
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Dividing Teaching
Galatians 4:12–20; 2 Peter 1:16–2:3; 1 John 4:1–6 (read online ⧉) While yesterday’s devotional was about the doctrine (and reality) of the Trinity, this isn’t the only issues that face Christians as they try to discern True teaching versus false. While many divisions in the church have been over interpretation and living out of certain…
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A Different Kind of Backsliding
Acts 10:30–47; Acts 15:5–12; Galatians 2:11–16 (read online ⧉) Peter was called/sent to the first “real” Gentile converts, post-Resurrection. There is some fuzziness in this as we cannot assume that there were no other Gentile converts. The likelihood was that they, prior to Cornelius, were converts to Judaism first. This is an important distinction, as…
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Stepping Forward
Psalm 104; Exodus 13:17–14:4; 2 Corinthians 4:14–18 (read online ⧉) What vision must Moses have had to understand why God chose the path for the Israelites? What did Moses think of his own people to think that God’s decision was right? The division is between two paths, a path against man, a path against nature.…
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Receiving Peace
Luke 12:49–53, Luke 14:31–35, Luke 19:32–38 (read online ⧉) Jesus has the title of Prince of Peace, yet our first passage today from Luke certainly causes one to question that. Some scholars align this with the Jewish zealot party, which sought the overthrow of the Roman Empire in Israel by (primarily) violent methods. However, it…
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Countercultural Love
2 Samuel 1:17–27, Romans 12:9–21, Romans 13:1-10 David had been pursued by the House of Saul for many years. Even after Saul acknowledged that David had been acting more righteous than he, there wasn’t restoration. David was cut off from his friends (like Saul’s son, Jonathan), his first wife, his nation. He was in exile.…
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Worship Together
Genesis 28:10–17, Exodus 3:1–6, Luke 23:44–46 Have you ever been confronted by a person who states that they can worship God better in nature than in a church? They might be right. Jacob put a stone under his head, and upon waking declared that the wilderness was the house of God. Moses is wandering in…
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Unity Dream
Psalm 100, Ezekiel 37:15–28, John 10:14–18, Galatians 3:28 Unity is a powerful message, and it calls to the deepest parts of us. E Pluribus unum—Latin for “Out of many, one”—is the motto of the United States. In this motto is the desire that no matter where people came from, and what differences they might have,…