In Christianity, God does not give spiritual gifts to some and leave the rest. He gives spiritual gifts to everyone through His Holy Spirit, for His glory and for the benefit of others. Spiritual gifts are meant for stewardship by serving God and serving others.
Roman Catholic Church’s official position is that Jesus’ mother Mary remained a virgin for her entire life (perpetual virginity). The bible never affirms that, and instead notes about her children who came after Jesus. So Catholic church gives an inordinate amount of importance (and even worship) to Mary. Sometimes the opposite reaction in protestant churches to completely dismiss Mary’s life and godly character can be an extreme or incorrect position to hold. In this passage, we learn who is Mary, and what lessons we can learn from her submission to God.
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 explains what it means to be a genuine Christian leader called by God to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ and to suffer for His name sake.
In our first part under this topic, we learnt that the Lord has instituted His church with certain organizational structure which includes ‘Church Discipline’, operated through pastors, elders and deacons to counsel, rebuke, correct and guide us towards righteousness. In this passage, we learn how church discipline shouldn’t be practiced, and also what kind of response should we display when the elders, pastors and deacons work to restore our joy in the Lord.
We live in a culture which promotes freedom from accountability, regulations, rules etc. But in Christianity, the church cannot be sustained without certain organisational structure. The Lord has instituted His church with certain structure, operated through pastors, elders and deacons to counsel, guide, correct, rebuke and restore the congregation or an individual towards righteousness. This function is often referred to as Church Discipline. It is one of those essential marks of a healthy church. In this passage, we learn the nature of Church Discipline and why Christians need it.
We start helping out each other and show acts of mercy during natural disasters, calamities and famine. This is a natural response of human beings because we are all made in the image of God; we still exhibit certain character traits that display kindness, sacrifice and generosity during difficult times. But the struggle to survive is not just against physical powers but also spiritual. There is sin in all of us that we need to fight against. So, what kind of character traits should a christian show forth in the church and in the world especially in times of spiritual adversity? Listen to the sermon to learn the marks of a healthy Christian.
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.