Lead:

Looking past the weird stuff, there’s a great message here.

Intro:

Today’s passage is a good example of a head and heart check. We’re looking over the shoulder of Paul who has written a letter to a church. It’d be like finding and looking at a letter your grandma wrote to your grandpa…you’ve got one side of the conversation, and some parts of what is said is particular to them and their setting.

But let’s say grandma was a wise woman. We could also look at what she wrote and say, “How does that bit of wisdom apply to me?”

The head and heart check is because today’s passage is Paul writing to the Corinthians about eating meat that had been offered to idols. Apparently that was a significant source of meat in the marketplace in Corinth.

But if we trust God, and God’s special revelation is in Jesus and in Scripture, we know that while it wasn’t written to us, it is preserved for us.

So I’ll reiterate one of the values we have on this program — that we sit and listen even when we don’t always understand. And to be sure, some of the context of 1st century Roman empire and how Christians were living out the way of Jesus — or not — doesn’t make sense. We’re not going to do a big cultural background analysis to add context, and that’s okay because that’s probably not what you’d do personally and on your own.

But we can ask questions. When Paul addresses his audience, what is he really addressing? And what is the message that God is delivering to us as a result?

We’ll get to that in our All Our Minds segment today.

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Bible:

Passage: 1 Corinthians 8-10
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 73
Words: ~1548

All Our Minds:

All today’s comments are in the podcast. You’ll just have to listen. :)

Wisdom:

Passage: Psalm 117-118
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 31
Words: ~509

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.

#929: 1 Corinthians 8-10 | Liberty & conscience | Psalm 117-118