Lead:

The Enemy doesn’t hand us obvious poison…it’s subtle and hidden. Here’s an exhortation and a cute little quip.

Intro:

I don’t think I’m always right, but I do always think I’m right. ~ Stuart Hackett

Besides being clever, this is profound. It’s not egotistical, and I think this should be something every one of us adopts a higher degree of conscientiousness on. And that’ll be what we get to in our All Our Minds segment today.

One note today — most of you know we follow the reading plan from The Bible Project. And you know that some of their daily readings are reeeeally long, and in the next couple weeks, they’re many are reeeeally short. So since their plan is already only 51 weeks, one of my projects over Christmas break will be to rejigger it a bit to smooth it out. In terms of where we’re at on the calendar, however, in the next couple weeks we will probably gain some ground and be a little ahead. Somewhere around the end of the year I’ll publish that, too.

Finally, as we get to our Bible segment today, remember how we started 1 Corinthians noting that Corinth was kind of a Sin City of the Roman empire. Today you’re going to hear why.

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Bible:

Passage: 1 Corinthians 5-7
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 73
Words: ~1548

All Our Minds:

Today I want to encourage you in one aspect of connectorship — how we connect with others. Specifically, I want to look at one dimension of leadership and followership: We’re all leaders of someone, formally or informally, and we’re all followers, formally or informally. And I want to draw your attention to you as a conduit, a curator of knowledge and skills.

Curation is a popular word for marketers, but I want you to own it. Like the curator of a museum decides on what is exhibited and how it’s exhibited, curation of knowledge and skills is being a steward, a filter, a conduit.

And the most essential element of curating knowledge and skills is… trust.

As a leader, someone trusts you. Like when you recommend a movie to someone. Except when it comes to knowledge and skills about Jesus, the Christian worldview, the Christian life, the question is, “Are you passing on good food, or tainted food?”

Same with followership. Are you paying attention to what’s in the food you’re eating? Do you trust the chef?

Here’s the thing. To continue the food analogy, imagine someone hands you a glass of liquid that looks like water. But it smells awful. Turns out…it’s acid.

Now when it comes to truth, do you think The Enemy hands you glasses of poison? No. There’s a reason He parades as an angel of light and is called the chief of Liars. He hands you tasty stuff that has poison inside, hoping you don’t notice. It doesn’t kill you all at once.

That’s what it’s like with who you trust to curate information for you. You always have responsibility to grow in your own discernment. And as a curate of those you lead? They trust you.

There’s a reason why the Bible says leaders, teachers, pastors, will be held to higher account — not everyone can or will or even has the ability to be discerning. But YOU, so far as God has gifted you, need to consider sources and be a trusted source.

The bottom line

The big takeaway: choose and be a trusted source. Choose those who curate spiritual knowledge and skills that you trust, and be trustworthy with those you trust. And BTW, this includes me…I don’t think I’m always right, but I do always think I’m right, and Scripture is the measuring stick which God has given us against which you should measure me or anyone else.

Wisdom:

Passage: Psalm 116
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 19
Words: ~312

Love you!

-R

ForTheHope is a daily audio Bible + apologetics podcast and blog. We’ve got a passion for just keepin’ it real, having conversations like normal people, and living out the love of Jesus better every single day.

Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.

Sources and resources:

Thank you for supporting this ministry should you choose to use the Amazon affiliate links below.

Not used today, but stuff I like:

J. P. Moreland, “God and the Argument from Mind,” in Christian Apologetics: An Anthology of Primary Sources, ed. Khaldoun A. Sweis and Chad V. Meister (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 403. (link)

J. P. Moreland, Scientism and Secularism: Learning to Respond to a Dangerous Ideology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), Kindle location 656-657. (link)

The Story of Reality, Greg Koukl — Love this book. A killer intro to the Christian worldview that is philosophically and theologically sound while being accessible to all readers.

How to Read the Bible Book by Book, Fee & Stuart — Just bought this myself (and haven’t read it), but Fee’s book on how to read the Bible for all it’s worth is a mega-best-selling classic.

#928: 1 Corinthians 5-7 | Choose and be a... | Psalm 116