I Corinthians 9 – 11

Sorry I didn’t publish this yesterday, but it’s still not light out so I’m convincing myself it’s still yesterday.

I Corinthians 9 – 11

Paul sure uses a lot of athletic analogies in our reading today. He talks about running to win and shadowboxing and disciplining his body like an athlete, “training it to do what it should.”

Did you notice that he likened the Israelites crossing the Red Sea to being baptized as followers of Moses? He also spoke of them eating spiritual food and drinking spiritual water from the spiritual rock, which was Christ. From this, he says, we should be warned not to crave evil things as they did.

Did you notice Paul’s admonition against grumbling? If you live in a spirit of thankfulness for all of God’s blessings, how can you grumble? And I love the statement: “And God is faithful.” Isn’t that the truth? “He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.”

In the eleventh chapter, Paul says, “…The head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God… And man was not made for woman, but woman was made for man.” He then goes on to talk about a woman wearing a covering on her head “to show she is under authority.” He also says “For although the first woman came from man, every other man was born from a woman, and everything comes from God.” Is this simply a discussion of cultural issues? In view of what Paul says about every other man being born from a woman, it seems to me women are equal with men.

How most of us celebrating the Lord’s Supper is laid out here, but apparently some people were abusing the meaning of it. What a shame!

Tomorrow, we’ll read I Corinthians 12 – 14.

Until next time (or later today if you want to look at it that way)…