Snapshots and Synapses

I think it’s time to acknowledge the state of our campaign and admit defeat. We should admit our ineffectiveness and concede this age in church history for America as one in which the Kingdom has given ground to the Adversary. In short, we concede that our fear of being labeled has rendered the church silent and ineffective, virtually impotent in this present age. And a lack of confidence in the veracity and applicability of the Bible to our present culture has muted our voice and has minimized our influence. Our attempts to become culturally relevant have resulted in an unexpected timidity;  confrontation and controversy are avoided as something inherently wrong rather than used to gently and appropriately demonstrate genuine love and thereby effect a positive change. This timidity has been fueled in part from the much publicized accounts of hypocrisy and judgmental attitudes. We sadly accept that in many cases these claims have a basis in reality. Far too often, we have jud...

Continued from http://mitchellmalloy.blogspot.com/2012/07/scriptural-perspective-on-spiritual.html In 1 Corinthians, Paul wrote 3 consecutive chapters about spiritual gifts, emphasizing up front the importance for Christians to understand this subject. Now some people may read chapters 12 through 14 and think chapter 13 has nothing to do with spiritual gifts, and in some ways it seems like Paul goes down a rabbit trail before getting back to the original subject. But I understand Paul’s writing to be very planned and purposeful. I believe that by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul very intentionally placed “love” at the center of his teaching on Spiritual gifts. He doesn’t start off with “Before explaining this very important topic of ‘spiritual gifts’, I need to tell you something even more important.” And Paul didn’t place the subject of “love” at the end of the teaching, so he could build up to the one-big-most-important-thing. Paul placed “love” in the very center of this ...