Any church community’s institutional stability and solid spiritual growth is always dependent on its mature and effective leadership committee. If there are no godly Christian men who are equipped to handle the Word of God and the saints, the church would collapse immediately. In this passage, Paul describes what it means to be a Godly Christian leader called by God to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ and to suffer for His name sake.
Religious leaders often seem very kind in public, but get aggressive and violent when someone opposes them. Sometimes Pastors even beat up their wives and do not respect them in private. There are other leaders in the church, who serve people because of money. Some leaders are good with people in public but poor in managing their own household, their children don’t listen to them and are extremely rebellious. As a father and husband, they’re very passive about family matters, and the list goes on and on. But the Apostle Paul has a response against all these bad character qualities of a leader in this passage.
A person’s wage is often calculated based on how valuable and resourceful the labor is. But when it comes to pastoral ministry, not much attention has been given to the pastor’s labor. This passage gives adequate reasons on why we should be supporting the laborers of the gospel who honor Christ and serve His sheep faithfully.
Making disciples is not a commission given to just Apostles only but to every Christian as well. It implies that every Christian’s greatest calling in life is to work for the extension of God’s kingdom by joining with other believers in this endeavor; discipleship is a community project. In this passage, we learn how to make disciples for Christ by first becoming a disciple of Christ.
Pastors in the Bible are mainly called to feed God’s sheep i.e His children. In other words, they’re called to be the stewards of God’s household. But how does our culture and our society define the office of a Pastor? Do they have balanced view of Pastors? In this passage, we learn how we can avoid from Idolizing a Pastor and also to prevent ourselves from undermining the calling of a Pastor.
We begin a new series on 1 Corinthians because of its variety of issues applicable to us. This book deals with Church unity, worship, Church discipline, sexual immorality, fellowship, tongues and prophecies, relational conflicts, resurrection and many others. In this sermon, the preacher starts with the book by defining what Christ’s church is all about.