EP 15: SCC Savor, Month 4, Days 7-13

Allen, Jeramie, Teddy: Well, welcome back to the SCC Saver podcast. It's your boy, Pastoral Apprentice friend of... I have a new friend on this episode. I'm going to build a little attention here. They have no idea who it is. The drama. The suspense is killing me. suspense is killing you. I'm Alan and I'm always joined with Jeremy Rini, senior pastor, Sanibel Community Church. Yes. Hey, I'm looking at my friend. Who's my friend I'm looking at? Is this your imaginary friend or the real guy? ⁓ real guy. ⁓ yeah. This here would be Teddy, Pastor Teddy, T-folks, T to the folk. T to the folk to the... What up, folks? I'm here. ⁓ folks. I'm savory. ⁓ yeah, we savor God through everybody's scripture on this podcast. ⁓ it's savor, not savory. Well, you're savory. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Dude, you're kind of smooth as butter. Mm-hmm one of us is savory one of us is sweet and one of us is salty and we'll let the listeners decide Which is which yeah, which one Ted is definitely savory. Just look at him easily. Yeah easily. Yeah I think we have a couple questions for our friend Teddy who so faithfully I've been encouraged by Teddy in this season. Yeah of life because This man has been caring for his wife so well loving her so well caring for the church the people so well I have no idea how you do it ⁓ And actually I do because you really love God and you're dependent upon God and your faith is very evident through this season of trial that you've been through and I know so many people in this church and people listening I know are praying for you like greatly and tons I mean I can't go to any gathering of any of our people or the people I will study prayer night Church anything we're in there not like hey, let's pray for Teddy and Ellen. Yeah, it's amazing. It's great body life you know, it's just a healthy church people loving caring for each other and ⁓ This is your first time on the podcast though, Teddy. So tell us, ⁓ just tell us one thing you love about Sanibel Community Church and tell us one thing you love about being a pastor. What do I love about saying about Community Church? think it's this podcast, ⁓ you know, made manifest that the people here love to grow. know, being a non-denominational church, we get people from all sorts of different backgrounds, all sorts of different, you know, walks of Christianity and denominations. But I feel like one common factor is everyone here is hungry for the word. And that comes through in their gobbling up your preaching that comes through in all our Bible studies being so heavily attended. Yeah. But ⁓ it feels like every, you know, pastoral lunch, you get questions and ⁓ and I just I just love being a part of this this culture. Yeah. People are hungry to learn to grow. It's great. How about being a pastor? What do you like? You've been a pastor now for like two years? Two. Yeah. Yeah. After my extensive intern career, a pastor for two years, I think favorite part about being a pastor is and you know, it It's also just being a Christian, but I get a front row seat to what God is doing in a bigger way, in a more widespread way than just you would as just a normal Christian living in the church because I get to meet with so many people. You get to see firsthand the stories of people being baptized. You get to see firsthand ⁓ the faith of that's being tested as people are in the hospital. Or with young adults right now, I haven't told you this, Alan, but Ali ran into some ladies on island. And two young ladies who live on the island have been coming to church apparently a little bit, but want to come to Bible study now. You know, it's just like, I don't know what the Lord's doing there. But being a pastor, you get a front row seat to see so much of what the Lord's doing. And yeah, it's a blessing. Yeah, that's so cool. That's great. Well, our people love to grow and they listen to this podcast because they want to grow. So ⁓ as you guys have been reading, as you're growing and learning because God's Word transform, it shapes us into godliness, into conforming to His character. We read month four, days seven through 13, large chunk. We're going to be concise, brief. And it's regrettable that we have to pass over so much. But we try to do our best to aid in your reading. And you guys, if you have insights that we didn't talk about, that's great. You should. But you read, we finished up Joshua 15 to 24. Then we began another book, Judges 1 through 5. And then in the Psalms, we're going 78 to 83. In the Gospels, we're in Mark chapter 2, verse 18 through the end of 5 there. And then 1 Corinthians 6 through 9. So we're going to jump back in with the book of Joshua. Jeremy, if you wanted to to give her, Yeah, I think one of the big sections in this ⁓ part of the reading was the dividing up of the land among the tribes. And maybe if you were reading it, you were like, ⁓ and here's, why is it like chapter after chapter, then this tribe gets its inheritance with all the descriptions of, you know, where the territory was. And ⁓ it really points us to the fact that God's people ⁓ have an inheritance where everyone, every tribe fits, every person fits. I mean, think about this. By the time this inheritance allotment was done, every single Israelite had a place to live. And it was their gift from God. And really it gets picked up in the New Testament and points us forward to our heavenly home, the new heavens and the new earth. In fact, the Bible calls it our inheritance. So anytime you hear inheritance language in the New Testament, it's echoing back to this dividing of the inheritance of the land of Israel. So, you know, you think about it now, we're not like the Israelites in the promised land. We're more like the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, going to the promised land where we will be someday as Christians. You know, we're strangers and aliens in this world. We're not home yet. Yeah, yeah, that's great. It's a call back to God's faithfulness. They all have a place to live because God said, I'm going to give you a place to live. Genesis 12, 1 through 3. fulfillment of the promise of the land given to Abraham. So God is just displaying his faithfulness to provide for his people. And as you're just mentioning our New Testament connection here, we're more like in the wilderness, we're on the way to promised land. If you've ever read Pilgrim's Progress, Christians on his, the characters on his journey, right, up to celestial city. That's right. So that's kind of where we are a little bit. Yeah. And I feel like it kind of ⁓ finishes off a big major tension, you know, Since the spies entered the land, they were too scared. God punishes them. God even punishes Moses. He's not able to get there, and it's the fulfillment of so many promises that, like you said, is still pointing forward. Yeah, despite those early failures and missteps, yeah, God brings it to pass. Yeah. Something I think is interesting in here ⁓ is that God first gives promises, shows His character, His grace, but He also, He demands obedience. At the end of the book, we're really ⁓ thematically throughout the entire book, be careful to do all that Moses commanded you. Joshua 22, five and six. Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses, the servant of the Lord commanded you to love the Lord, your God, and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cling to him and serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. So Joshua blessed them and sent them away and they went into their tents. So a love for God because of hate. I've provided for you. I've displayed my mercy and my grace. I've freed you. Be careful to do all that I say and love your God. I like to talk about it as like grace-fueled obedience. Just we love God because He first loved us, right? Yeah. And I think this, it sort of wraps up with Joshua now. He's passing the baton to the next generation. Yeah, that's right. And he's challenging them. Decide, are you going to follow? know, so each generation has to decide for themselves, will they follow? Which we get the answer in the book of Judges. Can I make one quick plug here? Yeah, I'm a guest. I'm a guest. You gotta let me. Verse 32, Joshua 24. Yes. As for the bones of Joseph, which the people of Israel bought from Egypt, they buried them at Shechem in the piece of land that Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for a hundred pieces of money. It became an inheritance of the descendants of Joseph. The end of Genesis, Joseph died. in Egypt and was buried. It's just a bummer of an end to the book of Genesis that this super godly dude dies away from the promised land. now is. He's been brought back to the land that God promised so many books, so many years, so many chapters later. Yeah, that's cool. That's great. Well, unfortunately, his ⁓ his descendants did not follow in the footsteps of godly Joseph. We come to the book of Judges and what? What do you mean? Disobedient people. Very discouraging book judges encouraging how faithful God is discouraging how quickly the next generation totally flops. Yeah. And they immediately start sinning. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they flop in a way that the book Judges, it presents us now kind of it's a different reading. Right? Then we're kind of what we've been used to a little bit. ⁓ It's similar in that we see this generation, past the second generation disobedience, God's faithfulness, but it's a different reading because we have a different structure, right? Where now we've had kind of leaders and then we're leaders raised up and then these are judges, which is why the book is called Judges, because the Lord raised up judges. And so ⁓ what was the purpose of judges? Why did God give judges to the people of Israel? Really, it was an act of mercy. the people, the next generation began to follow the ways of the Canaanites. Not all the Canaanites were driven out. In fact, Judges tells us that some were left in order to test the next generation. And they failed. They worship the gods of the Canaanites. And so you start this cycle that as you read forward in Judges, just watch this cycle. It's like around and around. It's same. It's like Groundhog Day. They just keep doing it over and over where they like, like they worship the gods of the nations. God punishes them with foreign oppressors. At some point, they cry out for mercy. God in His mercy sends a judge. The judge delivers the people. The people come back to a state of ⁓ stability with God. And then they worship the idols just over and over. Yeah. I think all this too flows from the end of chapter one where the author really highlights the people's failure to eliminate the foes in the land. Yeah. Right. The they failed. Verses 27 through 34 talk about how all the tribes failed to drive out the rest of the inhabitants. And just that that failure led to so many temptations, so many sins. I feel like that's applicable in our own lives. The failure to finish the fight against sin, it's just going to keep coming back again and again. Yeah, you can't really manage sin, can you? You got to kill it. What do mean by that? Like, you know, can't trim it. You can't trim it. You can't you can't just kind of keep it under control. It's you know, it's like putting a dog in like a cage outside. It's like you just manage it. Keep it nice here. You can't have the whole yard. You can have this little part. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And sin doesn't work. You know, it's like the person who maybe, ⁓ you know, is enslaved to alcohol. And they're like, they're like, well, I can control it. I got no control. I only drink at this time. But, you know, the people who've struggled with that sin and have overcome it, they look at that person and be like, dude, you're kidding yourself. And so, we all have to be just attacking sin, killing sin, and not just kind of like making excuses and letting it live. Yeah. The old theologians used to say, mortify and vivify. Put to death and make alive. That's right. Put to death sin and make alive Christ in you. I think Alan once said, be killing sin or sin will be killing you. That was you if hey if you want to attribute that to me, I'll gladly take it Alan or Owen or John Owen the mortification of sin There's a great YouTube video If you just looked up I think it's called a man the modification of sin like rap AI. It's really funny. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anyway back to the book of judges. Um Where are we down? Okay, my study Bible put it this way. I was like, this is a great description of judges downward spirals to the depths of degradation. Downward spiral. Yeah. Downward spiral. Yeah, it gets worse and worse. Yeah. Which by the way, that also just as you're interpreting the book of Judges, because something happens in the book of Judges, don't necessarily think therefore it's normative, like, well, this is how we should be. Because remember, like, you know, mean, as some people do, they get things in Judges and they're like, well, it's in the Bible. It's like, yeah, but this is describing. Yeah. Like sometimes we're like, why is this happening? And it's like, well, this was the messed up times. This is when everyone did what was right in their own eyes. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, that's their frame. In those days, they did whatever they thought was right in their own eyes. Jeremy, you told me one time that Ehud and Eglon, that passage had a really important part about you coming to know the Lord. Tell us about that. It did. I'm not aware of that. The you mean the guy thrusting the sword with his left hand all the way through him? Yeah, that was you, right? No, that wasn't me. Though I kind of now wish it was because that would be awesome. All right. Yeah, we got to on. Yeah, we got to move on. I call the question. Yeah, we'll see if Teddy's ever allowed back on the podcast again after I I just I think he just earned a permanent seat Okay Psalm 83 Jeremy you said you wanted to talk about this a little bit tell us a little bit. Yeah, many three I just thought it was no notable that we ⁓ that if you've read the judges thing you've read about ⁓ Deborah and them ⁓ conquering ⁓ know, they're enemies. And it shows up here in Psalm 83, ⁓ which is really, it's, so it kind of shows you again that this is lot of historical Psalms in this section, and so they're looking back to God's previous salvations and then making present applications. it's just one of the reasons why we read the Bible. It's like, why are we reading all these old stories? Because God is the same. And so here's someone writing the Psalms looking back on the book of Judges that we read. And they're looking about Judges in the past just like we do, and they're making present ⁓ encouragements that God saves His people, that God defeats His enemies. And so we can do the same thing with God's Word. Yeah, that's great. ⁓ Same thing with Psalm 78, a historical Psalm. It talks about telling of the coming generation, we will not hide them from their children, but to tell the coming generation, the glorious deeds of the Lord and his might and the wonders that he has done. And then throughout the rest of the Psalm, it's really, it's really long. ⁓ It recalls the Exodus events and God's faithfulness to the Exodus, Exodus, how God was faithful, but they tested and rebelled. God was full of wrath. He utterly rejected Israel. But then at the end of Psalm 78 says he chose David and took him from the sheepfolds and from following the nursing use, he brought him to shepherd Jacob, his people. Israel has inheritance with upright heart. He shepherded them and guided them with this skillful hand So it's calling back to God's continual provision and faithfulness and looking back which has been a common theme throughout these Psalms we talked a little bit about and I think in the book of Numbers Memorial stones of like hey, look what the Lord God has done. Although we've been disobedient He's provided for his people and of course, this is Jesus and We'll talk about that in Mark, which is an encouragement by the way, just to keep reading daily with the reading plan because, know, it's like, why are we reading this? I mean, a lot of reasons. Number one is that first current to savor God, to delight in God. But another reason is just to remind ourselves of who God is because, you know, our problems feel so urgent, the voices around us seem so loud. But when we're just reading through Scripture daily, we're being reminded this is who God is, this what He's done, and He still is the same God. And it just builds us it builds us up to have faith in the present. Yeah. Yeah, all right mark. You mentioned mark. Yeah. Yeah, we met woman. I mentioned Jesus. I didn't mention mark. I mentioned Jesus. Okay. Yeah, I'm if you might be a mark guy. I'm a Jesus guy. There we go. Some follow Paul. Some follow mark. ⁓ some follow put the words back in my mouth. Yeah, gospel mark. ⁓ This is a great section. You know, the first half of the gospel of mark is laying out ⁓ who Jesus is, that He's the King. And then we've talked about before, the second half of Mark is more what He came to do to die on the cross. So He's the King who goes to the cross. But His Lordship here really comes out in three ways. ⁓ He's first contrasted with the Pharisees and their teaching. So you get a lot of back and forth with Him here and the Pharisees who are like, why are you eating with the tax collectors? Why don't you fast? Why are you eating food on the Sabbath? Where are you going to heal this guy in the Sabbath? And each one, he's showing the Pharisees that he really is the Lord of the Sabbath. He's the Lord of all these things. And then the second big contrast you get in chapter three is now he's with the crowds and they're all pressing in. But then he tells that parable about the soils, which we studied in Matthew, about how the parables are sifting the crowds out. Sifting the crowds and then you see what he does right after he contrasts is he calls new people. So he's sifting. So then he calls the 12 apostles. Yeah. Right. And then he says, hey, this is verse 33 in Mark three here. He said, who are my mother and my and my my brothers? Because people that come to Jesus saying, hey, your mother and your brothers are looking for you. He's like, what are you talking about? Who are my mother and brothers? He goes, here, my mother. my brothers, whoever does the will of God, that's my brother and sister and mother." So he's sifting to say, whoever does the will of God, that's my people. I'm sifting out those people versus the people that just honor me at the lips, but in their heart, they're actually far from Christ. They're far from him. And then he goes to tell the parable of the soils, which talks about, you know, the path where Satan comes, immediately takes away the word, those on the rocky ground. And then when tribulation and persecution arise on account of word, They fall away, those amongst the thorns, they hear it, but then the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires of other things enter, choke the word, and then only the good soil. Those seed, which Jesus is the sower, right? He sows in the good soil, the one whom ⁓ the word gets in their heart, it bears fruit some 30, 60, 100 fold. So he says, this is the people who are my mother and my brothers and sisters who do the will of God, who bear fruit 30, 60 or 100 fold. So it's actually sifting. And it's a radical redefining of things. So he's redefining who is the right interpreter of the law when he goes head to head with the Pharisees. And then he's redefining who are the people of God. And it's those who listen to him and follow him and receive him. So it's not just enough anymore to be his physical descendants or to be a Pharisee or a Jew. You have to be follower of Jesus. And so, he's redefining the law, he's redefining the people of God. And then I think that the section ends with just Jesus showing his raw power. ⁓ He overcomes four forces. He overcomes the storm at the end of chapter four, and then he overcomes ⁓ Satan with the casting out of the demon. And then he overcomes sickness with the woman with the issue of blood and then finally the greatest enemy of all he overcomes death by raising the girl from the dead So this is the ultimate flex at the end of this Yeah, it's a new kingdom in which this king who has dominion and power overall is the ruler and is the king Yeah, that's right. And he's showing his power and who the citizens are and the extent of his power Yeah, and it starts small. right as again The opposing idea was that it's going to come in and be big and grandiose. But that's what the parable of the mustard seed is given us. This is starting small. It's a small smart to the kingdom. Right. So we see Jesus's kingship, yet his humility in his service and the radical redefining of things. As you mentioned, Jeremy, that's great. The first Corinthians. Yeah. Nothing to talk about there. Nothing to talk about there. Nothing to talk about. Paul didn't have anything to say to them. They were so great. They were chilling. Paul's like, you guys are awesome. That's all I want to say. End of book. No, no. Actually, they had all kinds of problems. Both problems that he was hearing about, but also problems they were writing about. That's right. So today we get the last problem he was hearing about in chapter six, which is he hears they were suing each other in court. And he's like, guys, pick the noobiest noobs in the church membership and they can decide the case before you go out to the unbelieving judges. And why? Because, well, two reasons. One, he's saying about the church, you guys, well, don't you know you'll judge angels? So these are the people of God. So entrust yourself to the people of God. Right. You know, it's not like you have to be an elder or a pastor to be able to render godly judgments. ⁓ Any member can do that. But then the second reason is so that we don't have a bad witness in front of the world because we're sorting out our problems in front of the world. Why not rather suffer wrong? Right. have a bad witness. Instead of going to court. And then in ⁓ end of chapter six and into chapter seven, we get a lot of teaching on marriage and singleness and sex. Yeah. It's a really helpful section because they were wrestling with this. And we also cross the line into like, hey, here's things now you wrote me about. Right. Yeah, and the things that they were writing about, a little bit of context for you guys, Corinth was a very pagan place. Lots of idol worship, lots of pagan rituals, pagan sexual morality, or immorality rather. And he starts off with contrasting as like, the unrighteous one here at the Kingdom of God, the sexually immorally, the idolaters, the adulterers, those who practice homosexuality, thieves, greedy drunkards, or violent swindlers, Well, inherited the human of God and then there's this key verse in here, which is kind the whole ethic of the of the the ethos of Corinth in the gospel of what it's done as Such and such were some of you. So these people he's talking to are people who were saved Newly saved and goes but you were washed you were sanctified you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God and so it shows the radical transformation of the power of the gospel in the cleansing of their formerly pagan lifestyles. But now they need to be taught. So what do we do? Yeah. So what do we do? We've been forgiven, but now we have all these relationships. So you could take chapter seven and sort of divide it into two parts. The first, he talks about ⁓ people who are married and different sort of situations where you might find yourself. And then what does he say to the unmarried? Yeah. Right. So I think the key that unlocks both is in between. That's right. And the key is in between. there's three parts, right? Yeah. Yeah. The verse 17, cause he's talking about married people and unmarried people, but then in between that, he's talking about servants, slaves, you know, in circumcision. And he's, and the key I think is, correct me if I'm wrong, that, you know, it's, it's lived as the Lord assigned you. Cause the days are few, the world's passing away as he says later on. Yeah, that verse. Only let each person lead the life the Lord has assigned to him to which God has called him. This is my role in all my churches. Yeah, I think you're right. So if you're married, then it's like, stay married. I mean, that's kind of the big principle. Don't get divorced. If you do get divorced, stay unmarried or be reconciled. Same thing. If you're married to a non-Christian and they're willing to stay married to you, stay married. Yeah. It's really cool, actually, in encouragement. Hey, if you're a listener or you've gone through something like this, he says that ⁓ He argues that the spouse's faithfulness can actually win over the spouse. And I think what that means is either to salvation or just more holy conduct. That's not like the pagan culture. So it's actually really encouraging. It's like, your holiness can actually win over your unbelieving spouse. And I've talked with people in our church who have had this happen. If they stayed faithful and then eventually their spouse came to salvation, like praise God. Yeah. And you can see how they'd be like, they had this radical personal transformation as a Christian. and now they're suddenly married to someone who's still offering sacrifices to a false God. And maybe they think like, I'm spiritually compromised or I need to separate. And it's amazing for him to say like, no man, just stay married to that worshiper of Zeus and that guy who goes to the temples, because who knows? And then the other thing, same principle applied to singleness, which is if you're single and... You can really serve the Lord as a single person. Don't feel like you have to get married. Which is really contrary to the way people think typically. Yeah, totally. I said this already, but he keeps saying that time has grown very short and the present world is passing away. And that our relationships, we always think about them as so permanent, but they're temporary right now. At least like these marriages that the covenant ends when someone dies. Yeah, when you die. You know, you're not married anymore. Yeah, that's right. Well, you will. I'm going to push back and say you are married. But not to a physical human person here on this earth right now, because it's always pointing toward to the final consummation of the bride when his groom returns for his bride. Yeah. So you pass on from marriage to a person here on earth to now finally will be realized with Christ at the very end of the age. ⁓ Yeah. So even if you're unmarried, you, ⁓ you know, sometimes you think like, I'm missing out on, I want to have a wedding day. want to be married to someone. want to be one with someone. And those are all natural good desires. And it's not wrong to want that or pray for it or to do it if you have the right person. ⁓ if, let's say none of that happens, but you long for it, what the, you know, we ultimately aren't going to miss out on anything because when Jesus comes, we'll all experience the ultimate wedding, the ultimate union, the ultimate marriage that will make even the best marriage on earth seem like nothing in comparison. So in the end, nobody will miss out on anything if you're in Christ. Totally. That's amazing. Just like your sermon on Sunday, you're talking about how Ecclesiastes helps like heighten our desires for what's actually coming towards us instead of what the earth can offer us. Even the best marriage can't offer us. The single person is going to experience the fullest extent of the satisfaction of being betrothed to Christ than, like you said, the best marriage. I think there's a ton of encouragement for single people in our church. Yeah, I think so too. And, you know, some of us, you know, we have people in our church who are widows, widowers. know, they're single again. I think... That's a very disorienting place to be. I think 1 Corinthians 7 gives people permission to be like, be anxious about that. If God brings you someone, great. But like, don't, you're okay. Like, you don't need to find someone to kind of get your life moving forward again. And to encourage the single person, he's saying that, you know, it's okay because you're going to experience all that. And it's okay because it frees you up. You get to serve the Lord. you know, without these other responsibilities and hindrances. Shout out young adults. I think our young adults are doing this really well. They're serving in the church. Serving in child care, serving all over the place. you know, I know a lot of them desire to be married, but they're using the time that God's given them well. Which they wouldn't be able to do if they were married and they have families. true. Praise God. Yeah. In God's wisdom, He knows what He's doing. Well then suddenly he finishes talking about marriage and goes to the next logical topic which is food sacrifice to idols. Yes. And we're all like what? are you talking about? are you talking about? Yeah. Obviously a problem we deal with all the time on Sanibel. True. I'm going to Doc Ford's and I'm like do you have like this is a gluten free menu do you have a non-idle food menu? Like because I can't. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. You should try that. Next time we go to Doc's, like, do have a non-pagan menu? What? What? Okay, what's going on, Jeremy? Well, ⁓ historical background, it helps us, is to realize in Corinth, if you wanted to get meat or eat meat, you didn't, you know, go to Publix meat section. Typically, you would go to an idol temple because meat doesn't keep. Right. So you have to get it fresh and the place where it's being sold fresh is the temple. some pagan brings his goat to Zeus, kills the goat, gives some blood to Zeus, maybe a little piece is burned, but then they don't burn the whole goat. So that the goat is either sold or they actually would have kind of like places you can go eat there. Not as part of active worship, but just kind of like money. The temple turns around and sells it. Yeah, turn around and sells. So they're making money on the goat. So the question is now, used to be a pagan, you used to worship this God, you now reject this God, you now love Jesus, can you go to that temple and get the goat for dinner? Can you go and sit at that temple and eat in the little cafeteria or whatever it was? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I this is big question. No, it's a huge question. And their pushback was in 8.1, the Corinthian slogan was like, hey, ⁓ we know that all of us possess knowledge. And then he goes, this knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. So they're saying, we have knowledge. We know that these other gods are just fake. They don't have real effect. You know, they're, yeah, yeah, they're, you know, they're, puny. They're nothing. We know that the one true God, that's his point. Yet there's, we know there's one are other people in Corinth who are like, no, no, no, like this is spiritually contaminating. Like we're going to, we're going, we're participating. I can't do it with a clear conscience. So then here's the question then, how do those two groups of people be members together at the same church? Do you have like, you know, an early service for you know, the idol food worshiper eaters and a light service for those who don't. you have two different churches in town? You know, like, how do you handle that? And Paul's answer is love. That you don't do anything that would cause your brother to stumble. In other words, to do something that he thought was wrong. That's right. Yeah, that's the principle. Don't cause weaker Christians to stumble and sin because he argues, because, hey, Christ died for your brother, right? So don't cause him to sin and to fall away. Sending, he goes, thus, sending against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you actually sin yourself. You sin against Christ by wounding the weaker brother's conscience who thinks something's wrong. again, just to be clear, the situation we're talking about is one Christian who feels like eating the meat is not a sin, and then somehow inviting or encouraging the other Christian to participate so that he does it, but then He feels guilty inside. So it's not just that it's like, there's two different people in the church who have different opinions. Therefore you can't ever do it. But it's that when you're doing things that causes someone to take an action that they personally believe is wrong. So these are matters of conscience. it's of the conscience, right? think the encouragement to the people is like, if you're listening, you're like, hey, don't, because we can talk about modern examples here, but maybe principle first, it's like always obey your conscience because it's It's a sin not to obey your conscience, but others may have differing consciences and no one's conscience is perfectly aligned with the will of God. ⁓ started when I was reading this whole section. I dug deep into I'm recommending this you guys have read it and I just started it ⁓ Conscience by Andy Naselli in I can't remember fantastic book. Yeah. Yeah, our whole staff read it. Yeah, super helpful. Yeah, really really helpful short clear. Yeah, short. Yes. Yeah Totally. He's got some great graphics in there. Yeah, check out that book conscience by any Nisali. I can remember the guys other guys name there because this is this is this is a problem today Although we're not sacrificing, you know, people aren't sacrificing meat to idols. We have debatable matters. We have debatable matters What are some of those issues of conscience that are debatable matters Teddy? Debatable matters. Yeah, you know, I think you got a lot of classic ones You know, ⁓ things like drinking alcohol. Debatable matter. Drunkenness, no question, a sin. Yes. But can you have one glass of wine? Let's say that. Yeah. Assuming that you can and assuming that you don't get drunk and you don't go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Right. Is that wrong? That's a debatable matter. right. ⁓ Other ones? Entertainment people consume, you know, whether that be games people play. Videos, movies, people watch. I think people's consciences are all over the board there. Here's one that might be kind of similar is trick-or-treating on Halloween. I know Christians in our church here, some are like, what's the big deal? And others are like, no, this is pagan. The origins of Halloween are pagan. So maybe that's a more parallel example because it's a pagan, allegedly, activity. Yeah. So as Christians are thinking about this, what is your exhortation to some of these matters that we've just talked about of how they can not be the knowledge that puffs up, but the love builds up with their inconsciences in the local church? I think it's just, you know, we live life. The Christian life is not the solo life, and it's God designed it that for so many reasons. But because of that, that we always live life with our brothers and sisters in mind. You know, it's not just what's good for me, what's good for my spiritual growth, you know, it's what's good for my brothers and sisters around me. Yeah. And we live in such a rights oriented culture. And as Americans, especially modern Americans, we're so conditioned to be like, it's my rights and my self-expression and my preferences and my personal tastes. we, the worst thing possible is anyone imposing on And here's Paul saying, no, you need to impose on yourself so that you're loving your brother, because you don't want to lead them to do something that they would feel guilty about. It's literally, I think, it's funny because we're talking about the major differences, but it's almost a one-to-one application where the culture says one thing, behaves in one way, and Paul is saying run countercultural to what the culture is telling you. In chapter 9, he gives himself as the great example. That even though he has all these rights, he lists his rights and he doesn't take advantage of them because he's trying to advance the gospel. And, you know, to the Jew, I become a Jew, to the Greek, I become a Greek. In other words, I'm going to make sure if there's anything that I have a right to that's going to hinder the gospel, I want to clear that away. So, he feels fine eating all foods, but when he's around the Jews, he's not going to be like... walking in with, you know, pulled pork sandwich. Like he's going to be sensitive. And he's not going to take advantage of rights he has in Christ. Yeah. And that's the encouragement for the believers to say, Hey, what is best for the advancement of the gospel in the witness of Christ towards people? And then this is, we won't get into this topic, but just brief passing as people we've been thinking a lot about missions is these are maybe not as applicable or easily seen, but when you go into a missionary context, this is for first and forefront. All of the time on missionaries minds because it's like, okay How do I become all things to all people with varying matters of conscience because there is more pagan? Type of rituals and sacrifices and cultures and religions out there. So totally yeah So if you're a missionary, you'll have to think about this more and i'm sure teddy has some great insight on that But we won't get into that for sake of time here but I think the final encouragement is hey the gospel is superior our witness to christ is foremost and We should not build ourselves on knowledge but on love love for Christ and love for others Of course christ commanded love the lord your god with all your heart mind soul and strength and your neighbor as yourself Yeah, which is coming to the big crescendo of first corinthians 13 Yeah, the love chapter which was not originally read at a wedding. It was for weddings It was for weddings for weddings. I'm correct. Yeah. What do mean, bro? Stop? Yeah, weddings or Rebuke a church that was full of itself one of the two I'll let you decide you can decide that yeah great Teddy dude we loved having you on the podcast. This is gonna be a real blessing to our people Yeah, dude, but Alan I are probably gonna have a vote later on by the night and come back Sounds good. Hey, we love you guys keep reading God is for you. No one can be against you because God of love has set his heart upon you and sealed you with his promise totally. Spirit, this has been another episode of the SEC Saver Podcast. Apple, YouTube, Spotify, share with friends. Till next time,

Mark 2:18