All types of idol use and uses for meat were a prevalent part of the Gentile culture. The list of idols was long in the Greco-Roman culture of Paul’s day, but that is no different from the O.T. idol worshippers that surrounded the Israelites. Meat had always played a role in the sacrificial system of the Gentiles and Jews, but the Jews choice and use of that meat was specifically outlined or restricted by God. Gentiles had no restriction for their idol worship due to the inanimate nature of their idols. Their gods had no eyes, ears, and mouths or,…
Sunday Morning Calls to Worship
Call to Worship August 30 2020
Expository Thought on I Corinthians 7: 24-40 Marriage, between one man and one woman, is the God given usual state of life with certain providential or biblical exceptions. Those who know themselves and are not called to singleness should marry if providence allows. Physical passion between a man and woman is a blessing not a curse. Although the fall of Adam and Eve cursed it, this passion was created by God. He called it good among His creation, yet the sin nature has perverted the blessing. Therefore to fight against the curse, professing believers must marry in the Lord, if…
Call to Worship August 23 2020
Expository Thoughts on 1 Corinthians 7:18-23: When reading these passages often people will first consider the example of one’s station in life from an earthly perspective. While those issues have their place, Paul’s emphasis directs us toward our calling in Christ. See the importance of the Apostle’s teaching and its purpose in practical life. Yet, Paul knows what Solomon tells us to be true. The rich man and poor man, King and peasant, and the wise man and fool are all alike, they live and die. They work and play and have no certainty of what will come after them….
Call to Worship August 16 2020
(1 Corinthians 7:1-9) “The apostle tells the Corinthians that it was good, in that juncture of time, for Christians to keep themselves single. Yet he says that marriage, and the comforts of that state, are settled by Divine wisdom. Though none may break the law of God, yet that perfect rule leaves men at liberty to serve him in the way most suited to their powers and circumstances, of which others often are very unfit judges. All must determine for themselves, seeking counsel from God how they ought to act.” (Matthew Henry, Commentary: I Corinthians, [Abridged quote]) (1 Corinthians 7:10-16)…
Call To Worship August 9 2020
I Corinthians 6:19-20 Mathew Henry wrote, “Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit – What an astonishing saying is this! As truly as the living God dwelt in the Mosaic tabernacle, and in the temple of Solomon, so truly does the Holy Spirit dwell in the souls of genuine Christians; and as the temple and all its utensils were holy, separated from all common and profane uses, and dedicated alone to the service of God, so the bodies of genuine Christians are holy, and all their members should be employed in the service of God alone. And you…
Call to Worship August 2 2020
“Baptism sets forth the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and our participation therein. Its teaching is twofold. First, think of our representative union with Christ, so that when he died and was buried it was on our behalf, and we were thus buried with him. This will give you the teaching of baptism so far as it sets forth a creed. We declare in baptism that we believe in the death of Jesus, and desire to partake in all the merit of it. But there is a second equally important matter, and that is our realized union with Christ…
Call to Worship July 26 2020
“I Corinthians 5 Verses 6-8 (6) Your glorying is not good. Know you not that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? (7) Purge out therefore the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: (8) Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I am the more inclined to think, that the delivering of the person, before spoken of by the Apostle, to Satan, referred to…
Call to Worship July 19 2020
“These verses [Matthew 3:1-12] describe the ministry of John the Baptist, the forerunner of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a ministry that deserves close attention. Few preachers ever produced such effects. ‘There went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan.’ None ever received such praise from the great Head of the Church. Jesus calls him ‘a burning and a shining light.’ The great Bishop of souls Himself declares, that ‘among those who are born of women there has not arisen one greater than John the Baptist.’ Let us then study the leading…
Call to Worship July 5 2020
“Forgiven souls are FORGIVING. They do as they have been done by. They look over the offences of their brethren. They endeavor to ‘walk in love, as Christ loved them, and gave Himself for them.’ (Eph. 5:2.) They remember how God for Christ’s sake forgave them, and endeavor to do the same towards their fellow-creatures. Has He forgiven them pounds, and shall they not forgive a few pence? Doubtless in this, as in everything else, they come short—but this is their desire and their aim. A spiteful, quarrelsome Christian is a scandal to his profession. It is very hard to believe that…
Call to Worship March 15 2020
The order of service will be slightly different Sunday to include baptism. We are looking forward to this encouraging time as we baptize a young man this Lord’s Day. “Repentance means turning from as much as you know of your sin to give as much as you know of yourself to as much as you know of your God, and as our knowledge grows at these three points so our practice of repentance has to be enlarged.” J. I. Packer Keep in Step with the Spirit: Finding Fullness in Our Walk with God, (Baker Books, 2005), p.87.