If I love you, I won't insist on having my way.
This is the LifeSpring One-Year Bible Rewind, and coming to you from Riverside, California,
I'm your OG Godcaster, Steve Webb.
This is the podcast that comes to you every single day, and we're reading the entire Bible
together in a year.
I'm so glad you're here.
Welcome.
The website is lifespringmedia.com.
I usually bring a sort of lighthearted observance right here in the beginning of the show, but
today's is more of a celebratory one.
Today is World Braille Day.
Think about how Braille has opened the scriptures for countless people.
That's certainly a worthy invention to celebrate, wouldn't you say?
I'll have more on this later in the show.
And this is Epistles Sunday.
We'll read 1 Corinthians 7 and 8, after which I'll have some comments on the reading,
then we'll have on this date in church history.
And since it's Sunday, we will have a time of prayer.
So let's begin.
Our Heavenly Father, as we open your word today, we thank you and ask you to teach us.
We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
1 Corinthians chapter 7
Now, to deal with the matters you wrote about. A man does well not to marry. But because there
is so much immorality, every man should have his own wife, and every woman should have her own
husband. A man should fulfill his duty as a husband, and a woman should fulfill her duty as a wife,
and each should satisfy the other's needs. A wife is not the master of her own body,
but her husband is. In the same way, a husband is not the master of his own body, but his wife is.
Do not deny yourselves to each other, unless you first agree to do so for a while,
in order to spend your time in prayer. But then resume normal marital relations.
In this way, you will be kept from giving in to Satan's temptation because of your lack of
self-control. I tell you this not as an order, but simply as a permission. Actually, I would prefer
that all of you were as I am, but each one has a special gift from God. One person this gift,
another one that gift. Now, to the unmarried and to the widows, I say that it would be better for
you to continue to live alone as I do. But if you cannot restrain your desires, go ahead and marry.
It is better to marry than to burn with passion. For married people I have a command which is not
my own, but the Lord's. A wife must not leave her husband, but if she does, she must remain single,
or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife. To the others I say,
I myself, not the Lord. If a Christian man has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she agrees to go on
living with him, he must not divorce her. And if a Christian woman is married to a man who is an
unbeliever, and he agrees to go on living with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving
husband is made acceptable to God by being united to his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made
acceptable to God by being united to her Christian husband. If this were not so, their children would
be like pagan children, but as it is, they are acceptable to God. However, if the one who is not
a believer wishes to leave the Christian partner, let it be so. In such cases, the Christian partner,
whether husband or wife, is free to act. God has called you to live in peace. How can you be sure,
Christian wife, that you will not save your husband? Or how can you be sure, Christian husband,
that you will not save your wife? Each of you should go on living according to the Lord's gift
to you, and as you were when God called you. This is the rule I teach in all the churches.
If a circumcised man has accepted God's call, he should not try to remove the marks of circumcision.
If an uncircumcised man has accepted God's call, he should not get circumcised. For whether or not
a man is circumcised means nothing. What matters is to obey God's commandments.
Each of you should remain as you were when you accepted God's call.
Were you a slave when God called you?
Well, never mind.
But if you have a chance to become free, use it.
For a slave who has been called by the Lord is the Lord's free person.
In the same way, a free person who has been called by Christ is His slave.
God bought you for a price, so do not become slaves of people.
My friends, each of you should remain in fellowship with God in the same condition that you were when
you were called. Now concerning what you wrote about unmarried people, I do not have a command
from the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who, by the Lord's mercy, is worthy of trust.
Considering the present distress, I think it is better for a man to stay as he is.
Do you have a wife? Then don't try to get rid of her. Are you unmarried? Then don't look for a
wife. But if you do marry, you haven't committed a sin. And if an unmarried woman marries,
she hasn't committed a sin. But I would rather spare you the everyday troubles that married
people will have. What I mean, my friends, is this. There is not much time left, and from now on,
married people should live as though they were not married. Those who weep as though they were
not sad. Those who laugh as though they were not happy. Those who buy as though they did not own
bought, those who deal in material goods as though they were not fully occupied with them.
For this world, as it is now, will not last much longer. I would like you to be free from worry.
An unmarried man concerns himself with the Lord's work because he is trying to please the Lord,
but a married man concerns himself with worldly matters because he wants to please his wife,
and so he is pulled in two directions. An unmarried woman or a virgin concerns herself
with the Lord's work because she wants to be dedicated both in body and spirit. But a married
woman concerns herself with worldly matters because she wants to please her husband.
I'm saying this because I want to help you. I'm not trying to put restrictions on you. Instead,
I want you to do what is right and proper and to give yourselves completely to the Lord's service
without any reservation. In the case of an engaged couple who have decided not to marry,
If the man feels that he is not acting properly toward the young woman, and if his passions are
too strong, and he feels that they ought to marry, then they should get married, as he wants to.
There is no sin in this. But if a man, without being forced to do so, has firmly made up his
mind not to marry, and if he still has his will under complete control, and has already decided
in his own mind what to do, then he does well not to marry the young woman. So the man who marries
well. But the one who doesn't marry does even better. A married woman is not free as long as
her husband lives. But if her husband dies, then she is free to be married to any man she wishes,
but only if he is a Christian. She will be happier, however, if she stays as she is.
That is my opinion, and I think that I too have God's Spirit. 1 Corinthians 8
Now, concerning what you wrote about food offered to idols, it is true, of course, that all of us
have knowledge, as they say. Such knowledge, however, puffs a person up with pride, but love
builds up. Those who think they know something really don't know as they ought to know,
but the person who loves God is known by Him. So then, about eating the food offered to idols,
we know that an idol stands for something that does not really exist. We know that there is
only the one God. Even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, and even though
there are many of these gods and lords, yet there is for us only one God, the Father, who is the
creator of all things and for whom we live. And there is only one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom
all things were created and through whom we live. But not everyone knows this truth. Some people have
been so used to idols that to this day when they eat such food, they still think of it as food
that belongs to an idol. Their conscience is weak, and they feel they are defiled by the food.
Food, however, will not improve our relation with God. We shall not lose anything if we do not eat,
nor shall we gain anything if we do eat. Be careful, however, not to let your freedom of
action make those who are weak in the faith fall into sin. Suppose a person whose conscience is
weak in this matter sees you who have so-called knowledge eating in the temple of an idol.
Will not this encourage him to eat food offered to idols?
And so this weak person, your brother for whom Christ died, will perish because of your
knowledge.
And in this way, you will be sinning against Christ by sinning against other Christians
and wounding their weak conscience.
So then, if food makes a believer sin, I will never eat meat again so as not to make a believer
fall into sin.
Today I've got thoughts on both chapters 7 and 8.
Let's quickly take a look at a couple of different points from chapter 7.
These are things that cause some people to wonder what Paul meant, so maybe I can clear
them up for you.
Let's first tackle the parts where Paul says he's expressing his opinion.
Does that mean that we can discount what he says if we don't like what we hear?
No.
Those parts don't somehow become the uninspired Word of God.
If they did, then they would not have been included in the Bible.
What Paul was saying was that there were no scriptures yet in existence that dealt with
that issue, so he wasn't able to quote any verses to support what he was teaching here.
But if you look at how he ended the chapter, he was declaring that he was led by the Holy
Spirit.
When he says, I think that I too have God's Spirit, he was not expressing doubt.
In the language of the day, he was saying, I am convinced that I have God's Spirit.
And since that's true, his teaching on the subject is from God.
Now, the next thing that causes some difficulty for many people is where Paul mentions that
the unbelieving spouse is made acceptable to God by the believing spouse.
Some people mistakenly think that this means that an unbelieving husband or wife gets a
free pass to heaven because they're married to a believing spouse, or the children of
a believer get a free pass.
Of course, that's not true.
each person must accept Christ on their own. There are no coattails upon which you can ride to heaven.
And if you look at the passage again, you'll see that Paul was talking about divorce.
He was saying that if the unbeliever agrees to live with a believer,
then their marriage will be recognized by God as a holy, valid marriage. They don't need to be
divorced, in other words, just because they are not both believers. And since their marriage is
acceptable to God, then their children are not deemed as illegitimate as they would be if their
parents were unmarried. Paul goes on to say that God has called you to live in peace. Of course,
he doesn't want lives to be turned upside down by divorce over this. And in staying together,
the unbelieving spouse might be convinced of the reality of God's love by the loving example of the
believing spouse, and therefore be brought to the cross of Christ. Obviously, that's never a
guaranteed thing. So, if you're not married yet, and you're thinking about marrying someone who
is not a believer, this is something that Paul calls being unequally yoked. And an unequally
yoked marriage is sometimes a very difficult thing to sustain. So, my advice is, if you're a Christian,
be sure you marry a Christian person. That makes life so much better.
All right, let's move on to chapter 8. In this chapter, Paul talks to the Corinthian church about
food offered to idols and whether a believer should eat it. This seems a little strange to us today,
but in Greece, in which the city of Corinth is, the worship of many different gods and idols was
common. We talked about this before. And often, certain foods were sacrificed to these idols
before it made its way to the marketplace to be sold. So the question for some in the church of
Corinth was whether or not this food should be eaten. Some felt that food offered to idols was
tainted or unclean. Certainly the Jews who were there avoided it for this very reason.
Paul's teaching on this was surprising to those who thought they should not eat this meat.
He said, Look, idols are nothing. They aren't gods. They're just inanimate objects. So eating
food offered to them will not separate you from God. Paul wrote, Food will not improve our relation
with God. We shall not lose anything if we do not eat, nor shall we gain anything if we do eat.
But Paul didn't leave the subject there. There's more to it than just eating food.
Some of the believers in the church in Corinth had previously been idol worshippers.
They had participated in offering meat to these false idols. And because of this,
they felt that the meat was defiled. So, instead of forcing them to violate their consciences,
Paul said that believers who would otherwise not have a problem with this meat should not eat it
if doing so would cause one of these other brothers or sisters to stumble,
because for these who had been idol worshipers it was a sin since it went against their conscience.
Beloved, personal freedom is a gift of grace.
But if your freedom causes someone to violate their conscience, thus causing them to sin,
then you too have sinned.
It's really all about love, beloved.
If I love you, I won't insist on having my way.
What do you think?
Comment on the show notes page at lifespringmedia.com slash s12e83.
Or you can email me at steve at lifespringmedia.com or comment at comment.lifespringmedia.com.
So many choices.
Our reading tomorrow will be Genesis 44 through 47.
Verse of the day is 1 Corinthians 9, verse 24.
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize?
So run that you may obtain it.
1 Corinthians 9, 24.
Beloved, everything I produce for you here on the LifeSpring One Year Bible Rewind is
offered to you as a gift.
We read the Word together, and I offer some thoughts on it, and then I publish each episode
for free.
If this daily time in the Scriptures has helped you in any way, I invite you to respond in
the same spirit it was given.
Value for value simply means this.
If it has value for you, you're free to return value in whatever way you can—time, talent,
or treasure.
It might be through prayers, your encouragement, or your financial support.
You can find out more right here.
I got a 100-sat boost-a-gram from Minion on yesterday's show, Mark 1 and 2, Faith Has Legs.
He says, speaking as a homeowner who recently spent a painful amount on roof repairs.
You too? I did too, Minion, and yes, it was painful.
But with the rain we've been having here in Southern California lately, I'm glad we finally bit the bullet.
Minion continues,
I often wonder what went through the mind of the host in Capernaum as he watched his roof
being ripped open by the men trying to get their friends some help from Jesus.
Probably enough lessons there to fill a whole sermon.
Yeah, I'm sure you're right, Minion.
There certainly is sermon material there.
But your boostogram, Minion, got me to thinking, and I did some research.
How were first-century homes in Capernaum constructed?
How destructive were these guys?
I mean, when we hear this story in Mark chapter 2, we imagine chaos.
Dust everywhere, shattered tiles, a furious homeowner.
But that is not what first century readers would have pictured.
Homes in Capernaum had flat roofs made of wooden beams, and then on top of the beams, branches,
and they were covered with clay, packed clay.
They were built to be used.
You could walk on them.
You could access them by stairs going up the outside of the house.
And if you needed to open up a roof, you didn't smash stone.
You'd scrape mud off from the branches.
So these friends did not actually destroy a roof.
They did something bold.
They did something urgent.
But they also did something that was fixable.
And that matters because the real disruption in that room was not the hole above Jesus and
the roof.
It was the words he spoke next.
Before healing this man's body, what did he do?
He forgave the man's sins.
Everyone there expected some sort of power from Jesus, but they didn't expect authority.
It takes authority from God to forgive sins.
They didn't expect that.
The roof could be repaired by the afternoon, but forgiveness like that challenged everything
they believed about God, about sin, and about who Jesus really is.
Sometimes faith doesn't politely wait at the door.
Sometimes it climbs the stairs, tears through the obstacles, and lowers a broken life right in front of Jesus,
trusting that whatever he does next will be worth the mess.
Thanks again for the Boost to Grand Minion. God bless you.
On this date in church history, January 4th, I mentioned at the top of the show that today is World Braille Day.
Well, they chose January 3rd because on this date in 1809, Louis Braille was born in Couvray, France.
And after losing his sight as a child, he went on to develop the tactile reading system that we now know as Braille.
It was a breakthrough that transformed literacy for the blind.
Braille himself was not a church leader, but his work has had a lasting impact on Christian life and ministry.
Braille made it possible for blind believers to read scriptures for themselves, study theology,
and participate more fully in worship and discipleship.
And for the first time in history, access to God's Word was no longer limited by having sight.
And a quick note before we move on.
I need to correct something from a previous On This Date in Church History segment.
I said that Isaac Watts was baptized on January 2, but that was not correct.
I always want this segment to be accurate, so thank you for your patience and your understanding.
Praises and prayer requests.
I have an update on Grandma Noni.
On Thursday's show, I told you that she'd been taken to urgent care with shortness of breath and back pain,
symptoms that she had in the past when she had fluid around her heart.
Well, it turns out that this time it was fluid in or around her lungs.
Not sure which, but they sent her home the same day that she went in with a drug that helps her body to get rid of the excess fluid.
I haven't heard much more than that, and I don't know the prognosis or any details.
The lovely lady Leanne said that she thinks her mom will have a follow-up appointment with her regular doctor this week, so hopefully we'll get more information at that time.
And Anonymous sent a prayer request in.
It says, I would like to request prayers for my wife.
I would ask that the scales would fall from her eyes to see God's love, hope, sacrifice, and forgiveness.
Pray for us as a couple as we work out some adult issues that we don't agree on so we can be a good example of a Christian couple for our kids.
And he says, thank you, Steve.
Well, Anonymous, you're welcome.
And I have been praying about this since you sent it in this past Thursday.
And we'll take it to God as the Lifespring family right now.
Our Heavenly Father, what a wonderful day to worship you, Lord.
Of course, that's true of every day, but Sunday is the day that most Christians set aside specifically to lift up your name, which is why we're here now.
We do love you, Lord.
You are worthy of our worship.
You are the King of kings and the Lord of lords, the Alpha and Omega, the creator of all that is, and the author of life.
We owe everything to you, Lord, and all we can do is offer all that we are.
Thank you, Lord, for loving us.
I pray right now for Grandma Noni.
We thank you that she was able to come back home so quickly after her visit to the hospital.
And we pray that she'll not have any recurrences very soon.
Give her strength, Lord. Bring healing to her body, we pray in Jesus' name.
And Lord, we pray for Anonymous.
You know what's going on in their home.
You know what the issues are.
And we pray that you will show his wife who you are and how you love her, what you've done for her.
Help them to work out whatever issues there are and help them to be excellent examples of a godly couple for their kids.
May there be your peace in their home.
Holy Spirit, we ask that you fill their home and them.
And now, Lord, I pray for the LifeSpring family, and I thank you again for each one who's listening right now and any time in the future.
As they go through their day today, I ask that your Holy Spirit would speak to their heart.
Help them to feel your presence.
Lead them today, Father, and help them to follow you.
We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Wednesday will be our next time to share praises and prayer requests.
So if you'd like to participate, if you have a praise report, share it with the LifeSpring family.
If you have a need in your life that you'd like us to pray with you about, share that with the LifeSpring family.
Go to prayer.lifespringmedia.com and you'll find an easy to fill out form there to tell me what you want to share.
And if you'd like to remain anonymous, as anonymous did today, you can say so on that form.
Or you can email me at steve at lifespringmedia.com.
And you can text me or leave a voicemail right here.
When you send your prayer requests in, as I did for Anonymous, I will pray for you in my daily prayer time.
And I'll pray for you on the show so that we can all agree together as we take our requests to God.
If you enjoy the show, tell someone.
Tomorrow, beloved, we will read Genesis 44 through 47.
Among other things, we'll hear about how Joseph deals with the brothers who sold him into slavery.
What would you do?
Until then, may God bless you richly.
Thank you so much for being here and inviting me to be a part of your day.
I'm Steve Webb. Bye.