One of the roles of the Holy Spirit is distributing spiritual gifts to Christians. These gifts are given according to His will and are given for the purpose of building the church. Here in 1 Corinthians 12 we have one list of gifts, and there are others in the New Testament. These gifts range from apostleship and teaching to faith, and in other passages gifts like mercy and helping. No gift is more important than the others, or any less important. All of them are given to members of the church to exercise in ministry to the body of Christ to build up the church in many ways.

The Corinthian church did not see spiritual gifts in this way. They sought to gain the gifts that were the most visible, the ones that could be seen and admired by the rest of the congregation. They especially valued gifts like tongues, miracles, and healing, which were more obviously supernatural endowments. The Corinthian Christians used the gifts of the Spirit not to build up their fellow believers but to build up themselves and their reputations. Rather than bringing the church together, the exercise of spiritual gifts was creating more divisions in the church.

Paul rebukes the church for their selfish seeking for particular gifts and using them for the wrong reasons. The analogy he uses is that of the human body, a single entity made up of many parts. He applies this to the church, which he calls the body of Christ. As a whole group, the church is a body, but each of the members of the church serve the church in the same way the parts of the human body serve the whole body. Paul notes that if any part of the body is separated from the rest, not only does that part suffer but the entire body suffers. All parts of the body must work together to enable the body to do its best work.

Paul also emphasizes that each part must carry out its own purpose, and that every part is equally important for the body to be healthy. His illustration of body parts wanting to do something they were not designed to do is meant to remind the Corinthians that the gifts they have been given are necessary and important if the church as a whole is to minister effectively. Their desire for other gifts they think are more prominent to satisfy themselves is opposed to the understanding that the gifts they had been given are assigned by God the Holy Spirit Himself. The apostle exhorts them to seek to use the gifts they have been given for the good of the body, and not to pursue the ones they want to satisfy their own will.

We have all been gifted by the Spirit for the ministry to which He has called us. All gifts are needed in the church, and all are of equal value in the sight of God. Our gifts are given by the grace of the Holy Spirit as He chooses, so that the church will have people who are gifted for every ministry needed in the church. As God, He knows what each church needs, what calling is fit for each Christian, and how we all can work together to advance the kingdom of Christ. Our responsibility to the Spirit is to accept what He has given us and to use it as He empowers us to carry out the ministry to which we are called. This doesn’t just mean pastors and teachers; every Christian has a ministry, and all of them work together to meet the needs of the body of Christ and the world around the church. This should encourage us to serve the Lord, to seek to develop our gifts, and to see the Spirit work through us, individually and collectively, to bring glory to Jesus and expand His kingdom.

Rituals are a meaningful part of human experience. When we engage in activities on a regular basis, we feel a tie to the history of our family, our country, our culture, or our religious tradition. Whether it is a daily routine, a weekly observance, or a yearly celebration, repeated practices provide a level of comfort to our lives. They also provide a way to remember significant dates, events, or people to keep their memory alive and help us carry their lessons into the future. We keep reminding ourselves of why we continue our rituals, reviewing their lessons and their importance to our lives.

Jesus knew that repeated rituals served these purposes in our lives, so He left some observances for His disciples to pass on to His people in the church. One of the rituals is the observance of the Lord’s Supper. The practice has several names used in different Christian traditions, including Communion and the Eucharist. All these terms refer to the same practice, although there are theological discussions among various churches as to what the meaning of the ceremony is. Paul emphasizes the meaning of the Lord’s Supper here in 1 Corinthians 11, and his instructions give us important teaching about the practice.

Paul’s instruction for the Lord’s Supper came directly from Jesus Himself, as he emphasizes in verse 23. The historical setting of the observance is rehearsed, a reminder that Jesus ordained this practice the night of His betrayal, just before He went to the cross. From the Gospels we are told that this took place during a Passover seder, so the elements of Communion were taken from those of the Passover. Scholars and historians have worked to piece together exactly when in the seder Jesus would have shared the bread and the cup, but all agree the elements would have had a deep significance to the disciples.

One theological point we can know from the timing of the Lord’s Supper is that the elements were not intended to be the literal body and blood of Christ, since He was standing there with the disciples and distributing them. They were symbols, and the disciples likely didn’t fully understand their meaning until after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus stressed that they were to be memorials of His broken body and shed blood, reminders of what He did for His people in His sacrifice on the cross. When we eat and drink these elements today, we need to take time to recall the work of our Lord on our behalf.

Jesus gave us this ritual as a permanent practice to keep the memory of His work alive in His people. Paul stressed the importance of this observance to the Corinthians so they would not trivialize it as just a routine but would remember the lesson it taught. We continue to repeat the Lord’s Supper on a regular basis in the church today to focus our minds and hearts on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Whatever your church calls it, and however they practice it, each time we come to the Lord’s table we share together as the body of Christ in remembering how His human body was broken for our salvation.

The Lord’s Supper should never become an empty repetition for Christians today. It serves as a powerful reminder of the price paid for our salvation. It also links us with believers from all generations and all locations into one body paid for by the broken body and shed blood of Christ. The next time you observe it, let it’s lessons sink deep into your heart and your mind as you partake.

Several times in the past few years Christians have faced issues that threatened to divide the church. Whether they were theological questions, political disputes, or questions of church and state relations, committed Christians found themselves on opposite sides of a question and struggled to deal with what that meant for the body of Christ. Sadly, many churches found dealing with controversial issues to result in divisions that could not be reconciled. There are still churches throughout the country and the world that remain wounded from these battles.

This is nothing new in the history of Christianity. Even back in the first years of its existence, churches found themselves arguing and splitting over various issues. These were churches that were founded by apostles or associates of the apostles, which you might think would give them an advantage in knowing and understanding the truths of the faith. The early Christians were still human, just like us today, and faced the same temptations we do today. The desire to be proven right, to be seen as the keepers of the faith, and to win an argument with opponents was just as strong among them as it is among churches today.

This is why Paul, in dealing with the fractious Corinthian church, needed to remind them to consider each other as they worked through disputed issues. He had just dealt with several divisive controversies at Corinth, and will deal with more, but in chapter 8 he points out a significant truth that many in the church had forgotten. Paul discusses the fact that within the church Christians were at different levels of spiritual maturity and had come to the faith from a variety of backgrounds. Some came from Judaism, some from paganism and idolatry, and some from one or another school of philosophy. Each brought a different perspective to the issues that faced the church and its members.

Paul stresses the liberty believers have through Jesus Christ. While we still must be obedient to His commands, many actions and thoughts that were previously considered breaches of the Law and violations of conscience no longer held that power over Christians. In the particular case here, Paul speaks of eating meat offered to idols. While that was a dietary restriction under the Law, and for pagans could have been seen as offering honor to the idol, for a Christian the god was nothing so meat offered to it had no stigma. Christians were free to eat this meat without offense.

Still, some in the church had not reached a level of maturity that let them see the issue this way. They were still concerned that consuming that meat meant honoring or at least recognizing the false deity. If they ate, the believed they were sinning, and even if that wasn’t absolutely true any action taken in violation of one’s own conscience was considered a sin. When other Christians took this meat and openly ate it, knowing where it came from, they could encourage their fellow believers to violate their consciences. Paul tells those who understood the reality of the situation that they were correct to think their eating was not a violation of God’s standards. However, he encouraged them to refrain from doing so if they were with someone whom they knew had a problem with that practice. It was not to bind their consciences by others’ restrictions, but to enable them to show concern and love for those still struggling with an issue.

There are few things that will destroy the testimony of a church faster than ongoing dissension among its members. As the pastor preaches the love of Jesus and the forgiveness of sins, members of the church are living out the opposite values. A lack of love can be evident to people who visit the church, even if they don’t know about the issues causing the friction. It can be hard for unbelievers to accept that the Lord forgives them when they see that Christians don’t forgive each other. I have been part of several churches that indulged in fighting among the membership that no longer exist; they closed as people left the ugly situation to find love and acceptance elsewhere.

The Corinthian church engaged in dissension in a variety of ways. They had been privileged to have Paul help found the church, Apollos minister among them, and connections with some who had been influenced by Peter. Few churches had such a strong apostolic witness. Yet the members divided along lines of which of these great leaders they followed, or if they tried to place themselves above the fray by claiming they followed Christ alone. The moral climate of the church was in decline, to the point that some in the church were worse than unbelievers in their moral practices. Their theology led to arguments and even outright heresy as they sought to place what they wanted to believe ahead of the Scriptures.

The Christians at Corinth could not get along because each group thought that they had the truth on their side. Whether they were truly following the leaders they claimed to be following (a questionable assumption) or not, the factions within the church placed their human wisdom and knowledge ahead of a spiritual understanding. They stood in judgment of what they were taught from the Word rather than placing themselves in submission to the Word of God as it was preached and taught to them.

Paul points out a crucial factor that the Corinthians largely appeared to be missing among themselves. In chapter 2, he writes of his own reliance on the Holy Spirit in his ministry. He did not rely on his own intellect, his speaking ability, or his rhetorical skills. Instead, Paul sought to rely on the power of the Spirit to lead him in his ministry. That power was far greater than any human strength, and it was only through the work of the Spirit that the ministry of Paul and, later, the Corinthians church could possibly prosper.

That is why Paul wanted the Corinthians to stop their fighting and dissension. As long as they continued to do this, they were dependent on their own power to grow the kingdom of Christ. This would lead to failure, since a church without the Holy Spirit is a church without any spiritual power. Paul encouraged the church to follow his example and trust in the Spirit to lead them and to empower them for their ministry. His concern for the Corinthians was that they would move away from the Lord as they grew in their reliance on themselves.

The example of the Corinthians church stands for us today as one the modern church should not follow. The teaching Paul gave in response to their situation, however, is still very relevant to the church today. If we continue to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit we will find the power to love and support our brothers and sisters in Christ and resist the urge to fight with one another. This will enable us as a body to minister the love of Christ and to demonstrate the power of His forgiveness in our own lives.

I think it is safe to say that the majority of those who have faith in Jesus Christ are looking forward to His return. We see so much evil in the world, along with natural disasters that are the result of living in a fallen world, and we want to see all that come to an end. Even as we do what we can by God’s grace to bring peace, harmony, and contentment to our world, we know that human beings do not have the power in themselves to make this happen for any length of time. We need supernatural power to bring sin to an end and usher in an era of righteousness.

At the same time, we can become so distracted by the needs of the world and our own desires in this life that we lose sight of Jesus. We look at the world and think of what we can do to make our lives more comfortable and successful, or maybe help other people overcome the problems that plague them their lives. This world becomes such a focus that we lose sight of what lies beyond this life in eternity. As this happens, we can start to think that earthly life is all that  matters and begin to drift away from the Lord and His Word.

The Thessalonian church had begun to fall into this pattern. Paul describes many in the church as “asleep,” unaware of the spiritual realities around them. The fact that Jesus had not yet returned after about 30 years had caused the members of the church to wonder when and even if He was coming back. Their growing questions about the return of the Lord led them to become lax in their obedience to the Word and in watching the way they lived in light of His return. Paul’s warning to the church was to carefully watch the way they lived.

This was necessary since there was no way for the Thessalonians to know the timing of Jesus’ return. Paul points out that when Jesus does return, He will come suddenly and unexpectedly. The world will be going about its business with no worries about Jesus, with people living their lives as they please without regard for the Lord. Both Christians and unbelievers will be caught by surprise by the exact time of Jesus’ return, with no chance to make any changes in their lives when it happens.

Thus, it is incumbent on Christians to live as if Christ could come at any time. If the Thessalonians struggled with waiting 30 years, we today may struggle with waiting over 2000 years. Seeing the lone history of the church in the world since Jesus’ time, it can be tempting to think that we don’t have to watch for His coming but can do as we desire and make up for it later. The coming of Christ will be like a “thief in the night,” unexpected and unobserved before it happens. We will not know the moment, and it could be any time.

Paul warns the Thessalonians to live in light of this truth. If we are living in obedience to the Lord and His Word, His appearance will not find us doing anything in violation of His will but find us ready for His kingdom. Knowing this, we need to live every day and every moment watching and waiting for Jesus. Whether He comes in out lifetime or we go to be with Him at the end of our lives, we should be ready to meet our Savior at any moment. It is hard to keep that in sight as we continue to wait in the midst of our chaotic world, but when that day comes we will be glad to have made ourselves ready for Him.

When the world looks like its falling apart, people start to look for a way out of the expected disaster. As I write this, there are major battles going on in Israel and the Ukraine, threats from other nations against their neighbors, and civil outbreaks that could become wars scattered around the world. The unrest has shaken the political situation in many countries, upset the economic markets, and made even those places away from the current fighting fearful of what could happen to them. We have been reminded that the world is not a safe place as the human propensity for sin and self takes control in so many leaders and groups, and what little peace we have had is torn apart.

If we look at the history of the world honestly, we see that war, unrest, disaster, and destruction is the norm rather than the outlier. The history of nations and regions is littered with all kinds of violence, deceit, oppression, and corruption. The world yearns for someone who can take control and bring all this to an end, ushering in a period of peace. Even those who have no belief in “higher powers” seek a human solution that will bring war to an end and get people to live in harmony with one another.

While Christians know the One who will ultimately bring peace to the world, we also see in Scripture that another figure will arise and bring peace and stability to the world. Paul writes about this coming ruler in 2 Thessalonians 2, calling him the “man of lawlessness.” This doesn’t mean he will simply allow the world to run its own course. Rather, he will reject the law of the Creator and impose his own will on people. He will be empowered by Satan to bring the world under his authority, not only in a political sense but with a world religion. This apostasy will reject Christ and accept Satan as the god of this world.

This cannot happen until “He who now restrains” ceases to act and the power of the lawless one is allowed to go forward. There are a number of opinions over the identity of the restrainer, but I think it is best to see this as the present work of the Holy Spirit on earth. People may resist His work and seek to pursue their own agendas, peace may be upset and devastation happen, but as long as the Spirit is actively working in the people of God, the church, the end is not quite ready to unfold. The power of Satan is great, and the authority of his lawless ruler will spread powerfully on the earth, but it cannot overcome the divine presence of the Spirit.

This should give us some comfort as we see the world’s struggles today. Reading Biblical prophecy has led many to believe Jesus is coming soon, and I certainly see that as a strong possibility. Yet the devil has not yet been allowed to work unrestrained on earth. The Holy Spirit is an infinite power, far stronger than any human ruler or even Satan, and He is the One who holds us and protects us for now. When Christ returns, He will work in a different way among people, although as God He is never fully removed from the earth. We know from other passages that there will be some who are redeemed even during the time of trial and tribulation that will follow Christ’s return, and that will only occur through the gracious work of the Spirit. The world may be failing, although we do not know the timing of the end, but nothing will happen outside of the plan of God and the power of the Spirit. We need to remain alert, watch, and pray as we see the signs that may indicate the return of our Lord and the arrival of the Antichrist, so that we are prepared to be caught up with Jesus and released from the sin and strain of our present world.

Freedom is a cry that comes from many places in our world. People want to be free, to escape what binds them to people, places, and things that keep them from fulfilling their deepest desires. Wherever restrictions arise, there will be those who seek to be free from them. Yet not everything that places boundaries around us is necessarily restrictive. A boundary can be an indication of how far we are meant to go, while protecting us from dangers that lie beyond. Since we don’t always see the danger, just the boundary, we may find ourselves seeking a “freedom” that will result in further limiting us or even in our own destruction.

The definition of “freedom” for human beings isn’t just the ability to do whatever we want. Even someone who hates rules in general will realize that we need some sort of structure for society if we are to survive as individuals and as a culture. If freedom is absolute, it means that those who have the power will be able to do anything they desire, which will come at the expense of those who are weaker. This may sound good to a very small number of self-absorbed people, but most people, no matter what their religious or philosophical outlook, see very quickly that this isn’t freedom at all, just a different sort of bondage.

To be free, we must know the reason for our existence. If we do now know why we are here or what we are meant to do with our lives, we have no way of knowing what we are free to do. Here in Galatians 4-5 Paul tells us what our purpose is: to be children of God. This purpose helps us understand what we are to do with our freedom. We are not to go off and follow other gods, including ourselves and the world around us. Rather, we are to follow the Holy Spirit, who will lead us into true freedom. This freedom still has boundaries of reality and safety around it, but as we learn to keep in step with the Spirit these restrictions will be seen for what they are, simple the limits we as human beings have on our lives so that we can live them in absolute fulfillment of our purpose.

Paul states that “it was for freedom that Christ set us free” (5:1), so we see that the divine plan was for people to experience freedom. That purpose has been thwarted by our tendency to define freedom on our own terms. We want to follow whatever ideals sound good to us, engage in whatever behaviors temporarily please us, and live to satisfy our own will and not the plan of the One who created us. In order to truly be free, we must stay on the path that matches the way we were created rather than creating new paths that are a bad match for who we really are.

To keep on the path that God has prepared for us, we must keep in step with the Spirit. As we walk with the Spirit, we will find we have the freedom to do what we are called by God to do, and to resist the temptation to veer off on the path our human nature wants us to follow. We can only be free when we are living the life that we were created to live, following the Lord who made us and knows us better than we know ourselves. We may think we have freedom when we determine our own path in life, disregarding the Lord’s commands and following our own desires. Instead of bringing freedom, however, these attempts to go outside the boundaries the Creator has set for us result in disaster and, ultimately, eternal destruction. We need to “keep in step with the Spirit” if we want to find the true freedom we were destined to have.

Legalism can be found in many churches, and is practiced by many Christians. The prevalence of legalistic religion in the church confounds many observers, who wonder not only where it comes from but why people are so attracted to it. Following long, strict lists of rules isn’t something most would claim to want to do to fulfill their desire to be “good.” The gospel at its core is opposed to the keeping of any law or set of rules; Jesus even tells us He has come to set us free. So why do so many revert to legalistic rule keeping to determine how well they are doing in their Christian life?

Paul’s rebuke to the Galatian church at the beginning of Galatians 1 makes this point emphatically. He asks how the Galatian Christians have so quickly abandoned Jesus for “another gospel” which has no good news at all. The teaching they are following is a distortion of the gospel which they  have heard. It is a gospel invented by human beings, which presses people to follow a certain set of rules if they want to be truly Christian. Whoever brought this into the Galatian church had set a harmful and spiritually fatal disease loose among the believers.

Paul emphasizes that the gospel he preached in Galatia, which they had believed, was not a human invention. It was not based on the authority even of Paul, but on Christ, from whom Paul received the message. It is a message that does not change, no matter who tries to persuade the church to go in another direction. Even if an angel should appear before them and proclaim a different gospel, they need to stand firm in what they had already received and reject the falsehood they are offered. Having received the truth, the Galatians need to stand firm in it.

Even though they knew they had been given the true gospel through Paul’s preaching, the Galatians still provided a receptive audience when the false teachers arrived. The teachers offered a “gospel” that was not free, but which gave a place for each person’s own efforts to reach salvation. The attraction of the law was not in its demands, which were impossible to fulfill, but in its insistence that a person could earn their own way to heaven. Paul reminds them that the Law never was meant to be the means of salvation, but a reminder of the demands of a holy God and the impossibility of fulfilling those demands on our own.

When the law of God is kept in its proper place, we can learn much from what it teaches us. The commandments of the Lord are an intimidating burden, but when we understand that we cannot carry that burden on our own but that Jesus bore it for us, we are freed from our guilt and sin. Yet people still want to find a way to deserve the love of God and a place in heaven. Paul stresses to his readers, whether in the first century or the 21^st century, that we must trust what Christ has done for us and not attempt to take His place.

The Law, both the Old Testament Law and the teachings on the New Testament, serve as pointers to Jesus and as the context that makes the message of the gospel real to us. Having been freed from the need to keep the Law, we should not put another law in its place. In Jesus we are set free, so now we need to have faith in Him and trust Him to strengthen us so that we can be faithful to the Lord and His Word.

The epistle of James was one of the first books of the New Testament written, if not the first. The author of this epistle was James, the younger brother of Jesus, who became the leader of the church in Jerusalem. James was respected even by many outside the church, respected for his holy living and faithfulness to the Law. If James was indeed the first book of the New Testament written, the only Scriptures he would have had and used was what we call the Old Testament now. He knew many of the prominent figures of the early church era, including Peter, Paul, and the remaining apostles of Christ, and he became a highly influential figure in the earliest days of the church.

James deals with several issues that may have plagued the church in those early days. His target audience is the “twelve tribes that are dispersed abroad,” so his major focus is on Christians from a Jewish background. Understanding this helps us see the way in which James approached many of the subjects he treats in his epistle. His emphasis on living a life consistent with the teaching of the Old Testament and the Law. James does not leave out the role of faith in salvation, but he focuses on faith as not merely a head belief but a commitment that results in action. James wants Christians to put their faith into practice.

The verse that best summarizes James’ teaching is 1:22: “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not just hearers who deceive themselves.” James emphasizes this with his illustration of looking into a mirror, seeing what you really look like, but then walking away and forgetting it. As they listen to the Word, people may think of how they can do what the Lord commands, but as soon as they leave the church or close the Bible they forget those very precepts of God. Many churchgoers would say they uphold the standards of the Bible, but when their lives are examined they have many gaps in their obedience.

James continues throughout the rest of his letter to point out specific examples of failure to truly live according to the teaching of the Word. Much of the epistle describes people acting ion their own self-interest while ignoring both the commandments of God and the plight of their brothers and sisters. The choices they make on moral and social issues revolve around what they want to gain in life, while at the same time getting credit for being righteous in the eyes of others. They might know the Law, but they did not live according to its precepts. This demonstrated that their faith was not genuine, merely a show for others.

James is often viewed as a book of practical teaching, but its main theme is a deep theological truth. Genuine faith means that not only has your intellectual belief system changed, the way you live has changed to match those beliefs. If your life shows no evidence of change or of obedience to the Word of God, you should question if you actually believe in Jesus. What people see in your actions says more about your faith than any doctrinal statement you might be able to quote. The truths of God’s Word are meant to transform lives, so if we have made an authentic repentance and turned to Jesus our lives should look different. This may require some time, as we learn more about the Lord and find more areas of our lives to reform, but our progress in life will show our progress in faith.

The Babylonian conquest of Judah was a major turning point not only in the history of Israel but in the history of the world. The end of the nation of Judah, following the end of Israel by just over a century, seemed like the end of the nation devoted to the Lord. Babylon appeared to be unstoppable, led by one of the great generals of history, Nebuchadnezzar. Assyria was no longer a power, Egypt was pushed back into its territory, and the Middle East was cleared of any trace of the Israelites except for a few scattered people left in Judah and dispersed throughout the old Israeli lands.

To the nations around Israel, Judah’s defeat was proof that their God was weaker than the gods of their conquerors. They had some reason for this opinion, since the lands that had been possessed by Israel and Judah at the height of their powers now were controlled by others. The pagan nations surrounding the Holy Land assumed that the defeat of Judah was just the same as the defeat of other nations at the hand of more powerful foes. The belief that a successful nation was led by a powerful god who could defeat not only other peoples but their gods as well was commonly held in the ancient Near East,

These pagan peoples were missing a crucial piece of information, however. While they assumed the God of Judah was too weak to stop Babylon, they never thought that Judah’s God was Himself behind their defeat. The ongoing idol worship and sin of the nation had come to the point where He could no longer overlook their rebellion.

This judgment did not come out of the blue. The author of Chronicles notes that the Lord had warned them “persistently” by His messengers. Prophets, priests, and kings had attempted to turn the people back to the Lord, as we have seen throughout these two books. While there were occasional revivals, the trend of the history of Judah was that the people, especially their leaders, would ignore the voices calling for repentance. This continued until the Lord finally determined to bring judgment, with no remedy for the coming destruction.

Thus, the judgment of the Lord was the essential factor in the downfall of Judah. The Babylonians were only successful because God gave them victory. Had Judah turned back to the Lord, they would have survived the onslaught; instead, the Lord used Babylon for His purpose. An overwhelming defeat that seemed to the world to be a reflection of the power of Babylon and the weakness of Judah was, from God’s perspective, an exercise of His power to discipline His people.

The history of the world following this conquest changed the fate of many nations. Babylon disappeared from history, as had Assyria. Persia rises as a power, and their king, Cyrus, returns the Israelites to their land and allows them to rebuild the Temple. The Lord uses Cyrus, as He had used Nebuchadnezzar, to fulfill His purpose. The will of God is carried out throughout history, and continues to move forward today. This gives us confidence that He will do what is necessary to draw His people to Him, whether chastisement or restoration. As we see the condition of our world today, we also see what God can and will do to cause history to unfold until it reaches His final purpose.