Tag: 1 Corinthians

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What If I Don’t Have an Ox?

Links for today’s readings:

Read: Deuteronomy 25 Listen: (2:38) Read: Romans 5 Listen: (3:53)

Links for this weekend’s readings:

Read: Deuteronomy 26 Listen: (3:13) Read: Romans 6 Listen: (3:28)
Read: Deuteronomy 27-28.19 Listen: (13:27) Read: Romans 7 Listen: (4:09)

Scripture Focus: Deuteronomy 25.4

4 Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.

1 Corinthians 9.9-11

9 For it is written in the Law of Moses: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.”  Is it about oxen that God is concerned? 10 Surely he says this for us, doesn’t he? Yes, this was written for us, because whoever plows and threshes should be able to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest. 11 If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you?

Reflection: What If I Don’t Have an Ox?

By John Tillman

Instruction manuals often describe features your model lacks. If there’s no in-door ice dispenser in your refrigerator or no sunroof in your vehicle, you just skip those sections. They don’t apply.

If the Bible was an instruction manual, we’d all need oxen to follow it or we’d be skipping a lot of passages. Are these passages a waste of space? No. Because the Bible isn’t written to us, it is written for us.

The Bible has instructions, but isn’t a manual. It has laws, but isn’t a constitution or legislation. It has prophecies, but doesn’t tell your fortune. It has histories, but isn’t a record book. The Bible is written by and to people who lived in ancient cultures, economies, and political systems.

Commands about living in tribal or monarchical political systems don’t translate well to modern democratic republics. Regulations about debt management, property rights, and poverty don’t compute in our economic systems. Instructions about planting crops and managing animals don’t apply to city-dwellers or modern agriculture. If scripture is “to them” how is it “for us?”

Paul didn’t have an ox. He was a city-dwelling scholar and a world-traveling preacher of the gospel, but he told the church at Corinth, also urban city-dwellers, that this passage about oxen was “for us.” Paul made an amazing claim. He said that when Moses wrote this down, God was concerned about wisdom for his people, not grain for oxen. From this simple agricultural instruction, Paul taught on God’s authority that those who share in the work should share in the profits.

Paul applied this passage specifically to those, like himself, who were teaching the gospel. They were not grinding grain but sharing the bread of life. But that is surely not all that God intended either. We should apply this wisdom today to the workers in our fields, factories, offices, coffee shops, and markets.

Paul says the Bible “is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” (2 Timothy 3.16) There is wisdom to apply to our political and economic systems and choices. There is wisdom to apply to our labor markets and business practices. There is wisdom to apply to our personal finances and use of power and resources.

Tune your heart to the Holy Spirit and listen to scripture in this way. There is wisdom to be revealed in every corner of scripture, even in passages about oxen we don’t own.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons

God is a righteous judge; God sits in judgment every day. — Psalm 7.12

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summer
by Phyllis Tickle

Read more: Kingly Qualifications

Americans rated important traits in a president. They don’t compare well with God’s priorities.

Kingly Qualifications
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The Stillness of Holidays — Peace of Advent

Links for today’s readings:

Read: Ezra 4 Listen: (4:27)
Read: Revelation 3 Listen: (3:53)

Scripture Focus: 1 Corinthians 14:33

33 For God is not a God of disorder but of peace…

Reflection: The Stillness of Holidays — Peace of Advent

By Erin Newton

The blanketing of snow on our rare winter days brings the most sought-after stillness and silence in the world. The commotion of daily busyness ceases. Men, women, and children are confined to their houses (hopefully) bundled together by the warmth of the fire. The animals too retreat into the warmth of their nests, holes, hives, or burrows. Stillness falls on the earth. Even the vibrancy of all the colors of creation is hushed with the covering of white. Plans stall. Calendars pause. It is, at least for me, the most peaceful day of the year—and extremely rare.

After we have tasted the peace of Christ that makes us whole, after we have seen conflict resolve and justice reign, the peace that falls on our lives and souls is the stillness from life’s unquietness. We have so many words to describe it: contentment, calmness, stillness, quietness, serenity. There is beauty in the lack of hustle just like there is beauty in a world covered in snow.

The Christmas hymns we sing portray the birth of our Savior in this quiet, peaceful atmosphere. “All is calm, all is bright.” “The world in solemn stillness lay, to hear the angels sing.” It is the presence of God among humanity that brings this divine calmness, at least as we imagine that fateful night.

With ceaseless wars and continual injustices, the calmness of peace does not describe our world today. Chaos continues and the waves come crashing down around us.

We’ve explored the ways in which we can wait expectantly for the peace of Christ during Advent. What about stillness? What about calm?

We should continue to look within our souls, to be reminded of the wholeness granted to us by his peace and ask Christ to create calmness in our hearts. (As someone diagnosed with chronic anxiety, I know this is harder than it sounds.)

The blankets of snow in winter have the effect of absorbing sounds. Snow fills potholes and evens the horizon. It envelopes the world and with it the loud, hectic movement that defines our typical weeks. That is like this divine peace we wait for expectantly.

The peace of Advent grants us the hope of bringing stillness to our lives, or at least within our souls. Peace comes through the surety of who Christ is and the inability of anything to dethrone him.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Cry of the Church

O Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world, have mercy upon me.
O Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world, have mercy upon me.
O Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world, grant me your peace.

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Read more about The Lowly and the Lofty — Peace of Advent

Will you put your shoulder to the work or abstain? Will you put your faith into action?

The Lowly and the Lofty — Peace of Advent

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The Broken Power of Death

Scripture Focus: Hosea 13.14
14 “I will deliver this people from the power of the grave; 
I will redeem them from death. 
Where, O death, are your plagues? 
Where, O grave, is your destruction? 

Psalm 146.3-5
3 Do not put your trust in princes, 
in human beings, who cannot save. 
4 When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; 
on that very day their plans come to nothing. 
5 Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, 
whose hope is in the Lord their God. 

Isaiah 25.8
8 he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. The LORD has spoken. 

1 Corinthians 15.54-56
54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” 

     55 “Where, O death, is your victory?
         Where, O death, is your sting?” 

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.


Reflection: The Broken Power of Death
By John Tillman

Hosea and Isaiah’s ministries overlapped and their writing echoes each other. Paul paraphrases their promises of resurrection into one of his brightest, most hopeful refrains. This chorus of hope comes most directly from one of the darkest chapters of Hosea.

Rather than rely upon God, Israel and Judah had turned to political alliances and the gods those allies worshiped. But these “princes” would soon commit atrocities. These sound eerily familiar to ones committed by today’s powerful countries who bomb maternity wards and civilian evacuation corridors.

Death is not only dispensed at the whim of greedy empires but is carried on the wings of disease and aging. What hope can we have against death? This question is common to the people of Israel and Judah in Isaiah and Hosea’s day, to downtrodden outcasts under Rome’s rule, and to those targeted by empires and dictators today.

The poor and the powerless are overrun by death. They have no defenses and little strength to resist or slow its advance. They are helpless.

Wealth and power do much to extend life. The wealthy can easily flee conflict and the powerful are welcomed to new countries rather than crammed into inhumane camps. Experimental and expensive life-saving and life-extending medical treatments are common among the powerful. Absent these extreme examples, even simple, quality of life differences add years to the lives of the wealthy. However, in the end, the rich, the powerful, and the poor all die. The teacher of Ecclesiastes would call these efforts meaningless or absurd. (Ecclesiastes 3:19)

To the unbelieving world, for whom mortal life is all there is, death is ultimate. It is the worst thing that can happen to a person and there is no remedy.

Death is not the worst thing that can happen to us and it does not have the final word in our lives but that does not mean we should not grieve it. Lazarus was only four days in the grave, yet Jesus wept. (John 11.35) We weep and mourn death, but not without hope. (1 Thessalonians 4.13)

While we flee or delay death, scripture describes death’s defeat. God promises the grave will not be our final destination. We will only pass through and when we leave, we will be led by Christ himself. For those in Christ, death is a toothless predator, a limbless wrestler, who cannot hold us down for long.

Death which swallows all, will be swallowed up.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
You are the Lord, most high over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods. — Psalm 97.9

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.


​Today’s Readings
Hosea 13 (Listen 2:26)
Matthew 16 (Listen 3:43)

This Weekend’s Readings
Hosea 14 (Listen 1:39), Matthew 17 (Listen 3:46)
Joel 1 (Listen 2:59), Matthew 18 (Listen 4:25)

Listen to Too Much to Hold on the Pause to Read podcast
In Christ, we’re made to be like him
Too much for Death to hold

Read more about Stealing Death’s Sting
Untie our grave clothes and strip us of the trappings of this world.
Let us walk into the light and follow your loving voice.

Stealing Death’s Sting

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Love Great or Terrible

Scripture Focus: 1 Corinthians 13.1-3
1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing

“Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it. Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws.” — Tim Keller

Reflection: Love Great or Terrible
By John Tillman

People get poetic talking about love. In “love songs,” love is either great or terrible.

All you need is love.
What’s love got to do with it?
Love makes the world go ‘round.
Love me tender.
You’re gonna love me.
Sometimes love don’t feel like it should.
At last, my love has come along.
Can anybody find me somebody to love?
I just want to use your love tonight.
I don’t know where to put my love.
I want to know what love is.
Love hurts.
Love bites.
Love stinks.

Paul’s poem on love comes after discussing the gifts of the Spirit. The Corinthians used gifts in powerful, chaotic, and competitive ways that harmed the church. Paul determined to show them a better way—the way of love. (1 Corinthians 12.31)

Jesus named love (of God and neighbor) as the greatest commandment. Paul names love the greatest gift of the Spirit.

A saying around the church I attend is that we follow the words of Jesus and the way of Jesus. It’s one way of saying we speak truth in love. (Ephesians 4.15) The Corinthian church had the “gifts” of Jesus but they weren’t following the “way” of Jesus.

Truth, without love, does harm.
Love, without truth, does harm.

It doesn’t matter how true your words are if they wound people. Some have been wounded so badly by “truth-tellers,” they can’t distinguish the truth from the wound. If you use truth to put people in this condition, what use is your “truth?”

It doesn’t matter how much you love if you never speak truth. Some people mistake unconditional love for unconditional endorsement. Without the truth, people will continue in lies that destroy their bodies, minds, and souls. If you allow this to happen, what use is your “love?”

In the songs quoted above, the difference in love being great or terrible is usually the character of the lover. Let us love in a way that shows the character of Jesus. Don’t let the truth you speak be a resounding gong of nothingness that drives people from salvation, rather than calling them to it.

Love and truth, together, lift others. They don’t push them down.
Love and truth, together, enlighten others. They don’t blind them.
Love and truth, together, save others. They don’t terrorize them.
Love and truth, together, show the character of Jesus, the true lover of our souls.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
I will thank you, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and glorify your Name forevermore. — Psalm 86.12

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Deuteronomy 3 (Listen 4:33)
1 Corinthians 13 (Listen 2:23)

Read more about Another Love Chapter
If asked about the Bible’s “Love Chapter”, most think 1 Corinthians 13. But there is another love chapter. 1 John 4…

Another Love Chapter — Love of Advent

Read more about Freedom For, Not From
Let us think about our freedom in the way Paul did, not as a way to benefit ourselves but as a way to benefit others and spread the gospel.

Freedom For, Not From
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Freedom For, Not From

Scripture Focus: 1 Corinthians 9.19-23
19 Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

Reflection: Freedom For, Not From
By John Tillman

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.…” (Galatians 5.1)

Paul wrote some of the most stirring words about freedom in the scriptures but had a different idea about individual freedom than is common today.

Westerners especially are individualistic by default. Our cultural idea of freedom is personal: My freedom is mine. It is for me. It allows me to choose the best for myself. It allows me to do what I want to do. My freedom serves my pleasure, my needs, and my goals. Your freedom is important too, but only because all must be free so that I can be free. And if you use your freedom to do something I don’t like…well, I might work to restrict that freedom.

Individual freedom is good. Personal responsibility is good. However, this vision of individual freedom can fuel selfishness: I am free to care for myself and so are you. I am responsible to care for myself and so are you. Therefore you are not entitled to help from me and your need places no obligation upon me. This cultural idea, which says “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed.” is condemned in scripture. (James 2.16) 

Rather than seeing his freedom as setting him free from others, Paul utilized his freedom for others. Paul called himself a “slave” of others. Paul leveraged his freedom for others. He sacrificed his freedom for others. He brought freedom to others.

Paul leveraged his freedom. Paul used the freedoms of his Roman citizenship to travel freely and to avoid persecution. His freedom of movement and legal rights ensured that the gospel continued to spread.

Paul sacrificed his freedom. Before Festus, Paul could have been set free. (Acts 26.32) Yet, he made a  strategic legal appeal that would mean imprisonment and death for him, but life for the church.

Paul brought freedom. Paul used the freedom he had in Christ to bring freedom to others and make the most of every evangelical opportunity. He was a cultural chameleon, yet without losing the distinctiveness of following Jesus. Rather than demanding his own freedom or enforcing his culture, Paul removed every cultural stumbling block except the gospel.

Let us think about our freedom in the way Paul did, not as a way to benefit ourselves but as a way to benefit others and spread the gospel.


Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Hallelujah! Praise the Name of the Lord; give praise, you servants of the Lord,
You who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God.
Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good; sing praises to his Name, for it is lovely. — Psalm 136.1-3

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.


Today’s Readings
Numbers 35 (Listen 4:41)
1 Corinthians 9 (Listen 4:04)

This Weekend’s Readings
Numbers 36 (Listen 2:15), 1 Corinthians 10(Listen 4:04)
Deuteronomy 1 (Listen 6:27), 1 Corinthians 11 (Listen 4:20)

Read more about Complaint to Commission
Paul also shows us how to go beyond complaint to the cure our culture needs—the gospel.

Complaint to Commission—Readers’ Choice

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