Latest / Scripture Central / Scripture Central Come Follow Me Insights (Aug 28 - Sep 3)1 Corinthians 8–13

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Scripture Central Come Follow Me Insights (Aug 28 - Sep 3)1 Corinthians 8–13 · Scripture Central

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  Hello everyone. Thanks for listening to Come
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  Follow Me Insights with Taylor and Tyler presented by Scripture
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  Central. We use a lot of visuals in our
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  videos, so if you want to see the visuals, we invite you to
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  find us on YouTube. Thanks for listening and enjoy.
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  I'm Taylor and I'm Tyler. This is Scripture Central's
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  Come, follow Me insight Today, First Corinthians chapters 8
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  through 13. Have you ever had the experience
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  of looking around a ward or a stake or your family or a
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  neighborhood or a work setting and wondering what your real
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  place is in that setting? Or feeling like maybe you don't
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  fit in? Or feeling inferior to
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  everybody, or perhaps even feeling superior to everybody.
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  Or all kinds of of mixtures of emotions that come when we make
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  comparisons with other people. This set of scriptures that
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  we're going to cover today, these chapters right here in the
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  middle part of First Corinthians, are going to help
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  us address this issue of finding our place within a group within
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  a whole or collective, and how to actually benefit that group
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  rather than be intimidated by or any other negative aspect that
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  comes when we start making comparisons.
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  So this is a powerful lesson for helping us find our identity and
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  to more fully love our neighbor as our self.
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  And earlier, as we were getting prepared, you had a verse you
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  wanted to share. That kind of exemplifies how
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  Paul is trying to drive home this message of unity in a very
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  diverse congregation or community.
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  Yeah, and perhaps that verse would best be portrayed with a
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  little diagram as you have this this individual in a crowd.
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  And verse 33 of chapter 10 says, even as I please all men in all
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  things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many,
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  that they may be saved. It's a question of
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  directionality for the arrows. Are the arrows for my life
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  turned inward? Am I looking at the group to say
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  what can I get from them? How can they benefit me?
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  How can I be better because of what they're going to do for me,
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  or say to me or prop me up? Or, as Paul's putting it, he's
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  trying to live his life with the arrows pointed outward.
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  So he's saying, I want to live so that I can be a benefit to
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  them. How can I help them?
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  Now stop and think about what just happens with that little
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  analogy and cast your mind back to the premortal council in
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  heaven, where Lucifer comes forward with a suggestion to
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  basically overthrow God's plan and present his own.
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  Which was a lie from the beginning, but you'll notice the
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  direction of his arrows were all turned inward.
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  He was looking at us with this perspective.
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  What can I get from them and take from them for my benefit
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  versus the Lord Jesus Christ or Jehovah in that case in the
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  premortal council looking out at us, saying how can I help them?
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  Which now brings to mind that beautiful statement.
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  When Heavenly Father says, whom shall I send?
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  Jehovah's answer was Father, here am I send me I will be thy
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  son and the glory be thine forever.
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  And with that little statement, he's offering to be the Savior
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  and Redeemer for all of us. Well, did Elder Maxwell say,
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  never has one offered to do so much for so many in so few
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  words, as the Savior did on that occasion.
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  And I love here that Paul is trying to reflect that divine
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  attribute. And so of all the things we're
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  going to take away from this lesson, we hope that it will
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  invite and encourage and motivate each of us to strive
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  also to become more like the Savior in all of our
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  relationships, whether it be in a big group or a small group or
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  even a marriage relationship. What can I do to bless and lift
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  back to his words that not seeking for my known profit, but
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  the prophet of many, or in this case the prophet of others, that
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  they may be saved? That scripture is a reflection
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  of the Lord Jesus Christ. That Paul is striving to be like
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  him and I want to be like him as well.
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  So these chapters follow similar theme that we see throughout
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  First Corinthians. Paul is writing this letter to a
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  group of Saints who are dealing with disunity.
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  Again, have you ever experienced disunity in your life in any
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  way? It is a pretty common experience
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  for fallen humans to find themselves in some moment of
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  disunity, and it gives us an opportunity to practice to be
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  more unified. And Paul uses a series of very
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  interesting examples or case studies that help people think
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  about how to be more unified. Now some of us might read this
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  and find ourselves a bit confused.
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  Sometimes. Paul uses rhetoric.
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  Or logic or examples that don't make immediate sense.
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  And we want to be clear that it's important.
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  As we read the scriptures, we look for gospel principles that
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  apply to our lives, but also be careful to not take ancient
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  context that may be not fully understood or different and
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  force it into our own lives. We want to make sure gospel
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  principles are applied. But not simply wholesale.
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  Grab an ancient context. It might be very different than
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  what you're living. And just try to make it work.
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  That's a really good point, Taylor.
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  There's a huge difference between principles that are
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  true. Those would be truths that are
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  true and applicable across time, space, and life situations.
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  So those are the principles. But then there are practices.
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  There are a lot of things that were done anciently that we
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  would never do today, and there are things we're doing today
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  that they would have never done back then.
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  So that's an important distinction, the difference
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  between these principles and the practices that you're going to
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  find embedded with principles in our scripture page.
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  Now that you've clarified the difference between principle and
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  practice, I'm gonna share some stories from when I was growing
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  up. So we had seven siblings in my
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  family and we had disunity at times, probably far more than my
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  parents would like to count. For example, my my parents had
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  purchased a set of colorful plastic cups and for whatever
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  reason, all of us siblings fought over the blue cup, like
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  fights would break out at every meal about who got the blue cup.
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  You imagine my parents who want a peaceful, unified family.
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  They finally essentially passed a law and said here's the
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  practice. Nobody gets the blue cup.
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  Now I wonder if my parents, if they're watching.
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  Am I now in trouble because I'm holding a blue cup now?
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  What's the principle here that I'm talking about?
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  Or even the idea when my parents said nobody's getting the blue
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  cup, was that a law that is intended for all people at all
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  times and all places? Are my parents hoping that for
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  the rest of my life I never touch a blue cup?
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  Or were they taking a very specific context and trying to
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  address it and try to bring unity?
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  Here's another example. My siblings and I would always
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  fight about who got to sit in the front seat.
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  Again, my parents in exasperation, like we're just
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  trying to drive to church. We don't need a fight breaking
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  out about where people are sitting.
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  So they essentially said no one's sitting in the front seat.
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  Now let's think about this. If we made that as a law for all
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  people at all times and all places.
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  I don't know how I as an adult or anybody could ever drive a
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  car from the back seat. How does this apply to what
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  we're reading here? Sometimes when we read the
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  scriptures, for example, even these instructions Paul is
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  giving to a very specific group, we sometimes think, Oh well, if
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  Paul said it, and that's the practice, we now have to apply
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  that practice at all times to all people in all places.
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  And I wonder if Paul was here today.
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  Would he say, Yep. When I wrote this letter 2000
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  years ago to the warden Corinth, to help them deal with their
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  specific issues with disunity, I really expected everybody to
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  apply every single practice for the rest of eternity that they
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  saw in that situation. I wonder if he instead might say
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  the principle here is to be unified in the body of Christ,
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  and however your group might be disunified, there might be
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  different cases for how to deal with that.
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  So as we read. Let's be merciful to ourselves
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  and to the ancient people that our circumstances might be
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  different, the principles the same.
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  We can be unified, but the practices for how we get there
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  might be different. And perhaps that might help us
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  feel more love and engagement with the scriptures instead of a
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  little bit overwhelmed that some of the practices may not fit our
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  modern day cultural context. So today's lesson covers 1st
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  Corinthians 8 through 13. We're going to do things a
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  little bit differently. We're going to start in chapter
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  12 and 13 because there's some powerful, beautiful imagery
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  about unity. And then we'll go back to the
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  earlier chapters and talk about some of the context, the
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  cultural context of how Paul was trying to deal with this unity
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  among the Corinthian Saints in their ward.
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  So let's pick it up in in chapter 12, verse one.
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  This is this is a beautiful chapter one of three in all of
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  the scriptures. Doctor in Covenants 46 and
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  Moroni 10 and here in First Corinthians 12, where it goes
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  into great detail about the gifts of the Spirit or the gifts
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  of the Holy Ghost that are given to to the children of God.
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  And remember, the context here is at any point any prophet
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  could talk about the gifts of the Spirit.
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  Paul is speaking specifically about the gifts to help.
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  The Saints understand In Corinth each of you is going to have a
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  various set of gifts. All of that is intended to
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  benefit the whole. And sometimes we forget that
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  that the gifts of the Spirit, among many reasons we have them.
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  One of them is to create unity in the diversity of the gifts,
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  and back to the example at the beginning of turned outward.
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  The gifts are given to me to bless you, not just to benefit
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  the person who received the gift.
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  They're there to help us become more like Christ, to turn
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  outward, and he opens chapter 12 by saying Now concerning
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  spiritual gifts. Brethren, I would not have you
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  ignorant. Ye know that you were Gentiles,
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  carried away into these dumb idols, even as you were led.
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  And the word dumb here means mute, Like these things can't
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  talk, they don't have any ability to express.
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  Or be creative or in any way represent what God is like.
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  Wherefore I give you to understand that no man speaking
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  by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus a cursed, and that no man
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  can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost you can't.
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  You can't generate that testimony on your own, and you
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  can't, with the Holy Ghost, say negative things against the
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  Lord. This is a powerful example of
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  unity. That of all the gifts,
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  ultimately they all come through Jesus, through the Holy Ghost,
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  and all of it is to declare that Jesus is Lord.
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  It's really quite subtly powerful, verse four says.
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  Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit.
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  It's the same member of the Godhead who delivers these
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  gifts, but there is a wide variety of those gifts and there
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  are differences of administrations, but the same
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  Lord. Have you ever had a change of a
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  Bishop, Rick, or state president or presidency or a couple of
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  mission presidents or change in a Relief Society presidency and
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  things shift. There's a difference of
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  administration. Apparently the Lord is okay with
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  some some variation. He doesn't expect everybody to
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  to administer exactly the same, because each person has a unique
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  set of gifts, talents and abilities and perspectives that
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  they're going to bring into those callings or into that
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  setting. And I love how we rely on heaven
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  through the Savior's grace and the power of the Holy Ghost to
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  activate this ability for differences of administration
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  for six And there are diversities of operations, but
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  it is the same God which worketh All in all.
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  But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to
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  profit with all. Notice what percentage are
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  supposed to profit? It's not individual one here and
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  one there, it's every man is going to profit with all it
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  says. For to one is given by the
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  Spirit, the Word of Wisdom, to another the Word of Knowledge by
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  the same spirit. Now, there's been a lot of ink
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  spilled over the difference between Wisdom and knowledge,
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  and I'm not sure I'm wise enough to completely know the
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  difference between the two. Why he would put them in two
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  separate categories here. At the beginning, wisdom seems
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  to be the ability to apply truth, apply principles wisely
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  in various settings. Knowledge is the ability to just
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  know a lot of things. A lot of facts, figures, dates,
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  places, how the world works, how things work, how relationships
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  work. So what a beautiful thing.
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  If you can have people in your congregation who represent these
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  two initial gifts, then in verse 90 says to another faith by the
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  same spirit, to another the gifts of healing by the same
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  spirit. That's interesting.
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  He's seen the same spirit. Remember the letter to 1st
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  Corinthians? One of the major themes is
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  unity. And look at all the different
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  things he's talking about that ultimately are all unified in
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  the spirit of God. And then verse 10 to another.
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  The working of miracles. To another prophecy, to another
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  discerning of spirits. To another diverse kinds of
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  tongues. To another, the interpretation
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  of tongues. So you're seeing this, this wide
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  range of gifts, all given by the same spirit, which now launches
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  him into this object lesson that is quite frankly, one of the
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  most powerful organizational management or organizational
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  behavior principles that I could think of.
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  I'm not an expert in that realm, but wow, this is beautiful.
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  All these work is that one and the same spirit dividing to
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  every man severally as he will. For as the body is 1 and hath
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  many members, and all the members of that one body being
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  many are one body, so also is Christ.
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  Now, if you consider this and and there's no extra charge here
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  for the exceptional artwork that we provide here, of course it's
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  a gingerbread man. It's it's terrible, but it's.
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  Are you saying your gift is not art going to be sufficient?
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  No, I I was not blessed as as an artist, I'm going to try to
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  stick to my day job. It's pretty sketchy.
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  What I like about this, Tyler, This is a pretty good depiction
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  of who I am. Clearly it's me because I like
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  to be a happy person and the guy has no hair.
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  Okay, we're going to fix that. I'll just add some hair.
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  OK, here's the point. You have one body, and Paul's
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  describing many members to that body.
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  And now this brings him into this portion of his teaching
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  where he says, for by 1 Spirit are we all baptized into one
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  body, Body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond
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  or free, and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.
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  And then he says, for the body is not one member, but many.
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  If the foot shall see, because I am the I am not the hand, I am
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  not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?
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  And then he does the same comparison with the ear and the
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  eye. And he says, if the whole body
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  were an eye, where were the hearing?
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  If the whole body were hearing, where were the smelling?
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  But now has God set the members, every one of them, in the body
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  as it has pleased him? And if they were all one member,
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  where were the body? You know, this reminds me of an
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  incredible talk that was given by Elder Joseph B Wursland back
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  in April of 2008, called Concern for the One in.
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  In this he talks about unity from our perspective today a
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  little differently than than maybe Paul did 2000 years ago.
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  This is powerful, he says. We have an erroneous belief that
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  all members of the Church should look, talk and be alike.
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  The Lord did not people the earth with a vibrant orchestra
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  of personalities only to value the Piccolos of the world.
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  Every instrument is precious and adds to the complex beauty of
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  the Symphony. All of Heavenly Father's
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  children are different in some degree, yet each has his own
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  beautiful sound that adds depth and richness to the whole, which
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  to me ties in in a lot of ways to everything we're talking
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  about in these particular chapters.
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  This idea of if you have the conductor, he's going to give
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  certain instructions to the strings, and he's going to give
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  even more specific instructions to the violins that are going to
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  be very different than the instructions he gives to the
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  timpani and the percussion and the woodwinds in the brass
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  section. And sometimes you can have
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  people in one section feeling like they're not as valued or as
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  good as the people in the other section, or worse yet, trying to
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  apply the principles that were given to one section that may
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  not apply at all. So you can see with with all of
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  these analogies and all these principles swirling around, what
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  a loss it would be if the foot, in doing a comparison with the
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  rest of the body, feels less than or lower down than
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  everything else. And so it starts to try to act
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  like an eye or an ear or a nose or the mind.
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  The body is benefited if the foot magnifies its unique
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  capacities and gifts and place in the body rather than
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  struggling with comparison, caustic comparison that leads to
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  the body not functioning the way it should.
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  You you've all heard the famous phrase comparison is the thief
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  of joy. What an amazing thing it is when
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  all of the members of a congregation or members of a
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  body in Christ feel comfortable in their own skin.
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  And feel confident in the gifts that God has given them uniquely
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  to benefit the whole body with, and they lift where they stand.
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  To use President Ugdorf's analogy, it's powerful, this
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  idea of be the very best that I can be in the orchestra of the
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  Lord or the body of Christ or whatever other analogy you want,
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  and it will create that beautiful harmony in the
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  Symphony and that beautiful working of the body, rather than
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  constantly comparing, contrasting, fighting,
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  bickering, and warring against other members of the same body.
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  Now we've talked about comparisons that that lead to
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  somewhat of an inferiority complex where where you feel
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  less than or unworthy of or like you don't fit in.
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  There's the other comparison of pride looking downward rather
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  than pride looking upward, where you make those comparisons and
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  you might feel superior to others.
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  I love this next part, he says. Verse 21.
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  The I cannot say under the hand. I have no need of thee, nor
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  again, the head to the feet I have no need of you.
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  Name much more. Those members of the body which
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  seem to be more feeble are necessary.
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  And those members of the body which we think to be less
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  honorable upon these we be storm bestow more abundant honor, and
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  our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness.
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  Stop and think about this for a minute.
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  You're doing some activity. I I don't.
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  Whatever you enjoy doing Water skiing, snow skiing, rock
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  climbing, hiking, whatever. And let's assume that you have
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  an accident. You somehow fall and you break
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  an arm. Does the rest of your body now
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  gang up on that broken arm and say you dumb arm, What were you
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  thinking? How could you slow us down?
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  Why would you possibly be? So we can get broken?
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  Now we you're you're making it so we can't enjoy the rest of
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  this activity. I can't believe you would do
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  that. Is that what happens?
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  Or does the body, the other members of a body,
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  instinctively, without even thinking about it?
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  If something gets broken, what is the rest of your body
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  automatically? Do you pull that broken or that
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  injured part of your body in and and you curl around it?
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  You you try to protect it. And nurture it.
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  And nurture it. You, all of the other parts of
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  your body, are now focused on that part of your body that's
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  injured. That's hurt.
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  It needs your help. It needs your love and attention
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  and care, not discipline. At that point, it knows that it
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  got broken. It knows that it needs healing
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  and help. We can see it with a physical
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  body, but can we see it in the body of Christ, in our
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  congregations, in your Relief Society?
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  In your elders quorum, do you look at all of the healthy,
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  quote UN quote, not broken members of your quorum and think
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  those are the good ones and these are the ones we could do
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  without? Or, if you're feeling strong and
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  healthy, Paul's invitation would be to find those who might be
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  the more feeble members of that body and give more abundant
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  honor to them. To not think less honorably of
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  them, but to give more attention to them, knowing that with
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  proper care and attention, what happens to those weak or feeble
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  members of the body? And it doesn't even need to be a
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  broken arm or a broken leg. It could be a lack of muscle
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  structure. What do you do?
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  You focus on it, and you build up the strength in that part of
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  your body, and it becomes stronger and stronger over time.
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  So notice how he sums this up in verse 24, for our comely parts
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  have no need, but God has tempered the body together,
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  having given more abundant honor to that part which lacked.
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  It's like this invitation to show God's love and mercy.
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  And he continues in verse 25 and says that there should be no
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  schism in the body, but that the members should have the same
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  care for one another. So life is full of brokenness.
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  It's not because God creates brokenness.
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  He allows it so we can feel the power of healing that comes
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  through his love through us to others.
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  And I think in my own life just this morning I wrote a thank you
• 25:14
  note to an aunt and uncle who probably don't know John and
• 25:21
  Carol Halverson. I had a moment of brokenness in
• 25:23
  my life. And their powerful example of
• 25:27
  love and kindness, which they have not even specifically shown
• 25:30
  to me at the time of my hurting, reminded me in a moment of
• 25:35
  darkness that there is hope, and it helped to bring healing.
• 25:39
  And so again, what Paul is trying to say, and sometimes his
• 25:42
  logic can sound a little confusing, is when there is a
• 25:45
  lack, when there's a challenge, when there's brokenness that is
• 25:48
  an invitation for the whole. To bring more wholeness, to
• 25:54
  bring healing. And that all is to represent
• 25:57
  that in the Kingdom of God. God himself as whole, his
• 26:00
  Kingdom was a place of wholeness.
• 26:03
  To to add some more breadth and perhaps even depth to this
• 26:09
  concept. It's a it's a beautiful thing
• 26:12
  when you can read the scriptures as a whole themselves, to not
• 26:17
  put so we've been talking about people.
• 26:20
  But the same principle applies to scripture or to teachings of
• 26:24
  prophets. When you don't isolate, for
• 26:28
  instance, First Corinthians from the rest of the body of
• 26:31
  Scripture and say, okay, this one's more important than the
• 26:33
  others, but you bring them all together and you read them as
• 26:36
  one. Let me give you just a little
• 26:38
  teeny example of that. If next to verse 2425 you could
• 26:44
  write a beautiful cross reference, and there are many.
• 26:47
  This is just one example to to teach this principle.
• 26:50
  The cross reference would be Doctrine and Covenant, section
• 26:53
  82, verse 18 and 19. And now what you get is a
• 26:57
  triangulation of this concept. But in this case from the words
• 27:01
  of Jesus Christ given to Joseph Smith.
• 27:03
  So to lead into verse 18, let's just read the very first part of
• 27:06
  Doctrine Covenants 8217. He says you are to be equal or
• 27:11
  in other words you are to have equal claims on the properties.
• 27:15
  So it's this equality of the body, even though they're very
• 27:19
  different callings and different gifts and abilities.
• 27:21
  Why verse 18? All this for the benefit of the
• 27:25
  Church of the living God, that every man may improve upon his
• 27:30
  talent. That every man may gain other
• 27:34
  talents yet even and hundredfold to be cast where not into my own
• 27:40
  bank account, but into the Lord's storehouse to become the
• 27:45
  common property of the whole church.
• 27:48
  Every man seeking the interest of his neighbor and doing all
• 27:54
  things with an eye single to the glory of God.
• 27:58
  So back to Taylor's analogy at the beginning.
• 28:01
  Difference between principles and practices.
• 28:03
  Here we're talking about united order in early church history
• 28:07
  with Paul. We're talking about issues
• 28:08
  facing Corinthian Saints 2000 years ago, but the principle's
• 28:12
  the same. The principle hasn't changed,
• 28:14
  and you may not be living in the section 82 or the Corinthian
• 28:18
  environment and setting, but the principle hasn't changed.
• 28:22
  So now, with the help of the Holy Ghost, we can figure out
• 28:26
  how to apply those principles into practices that make sense
• 28:29
  today in in our world and in our life.
• 28:34
  And to make this more explicit, each one of us as we're reading
• 28:37
  the scripture, should be asking Where have I been?
• 28:41
  Disunified. Where have I been self focused?
• 28:44
  What could I be doing in my family or community or any other
• 28:49
  space where you're interacting with others to be more unified?
• 28:53
  Is there something I'm doing that's creating problems in a
• 28:57
  relationship or in a society or a community?
• 29:01
  And the likelihood is all of us can find a way to be just a bit
• 29:04
  better, a little bit better every day in bringing unity and
• 29:08
  thus. Expressing the wholeness of
• 29:10
  God's Kingdom, love it and he finishes this.
• 29:13
  This whole concept in verse 26 and 27 and whether one members
• 29:18
  suffer, all the members suffer with it, or one member be
• 29:22
  honored, all the members rejoice with it.
• 29:27
  It's that concept of the the core of Relief Society and what
• 29:33
  ministering in both the elders and the quorum and the Relief
• 29:36
  Society is supposed to do. It's to try to lift and build
• 29:40
  and relieve that suffering because the entire body has
• 29:42
  benefited from those efforts. And then he shifts here in verse
• 29:47
  28 to say, and God hath set some in the church first, apostles
• 29:53
  secondarily prophets. Remember, some might be confused
• 29:57
  by that, but they they may say, oh, so the apostles come first
• 30:01
  and then the prophets, the president of the church or the
• 30:04
  first presidency comes second. Remember that the definition of
• 30:08
  an apostle is a prophet, seer, and a revelator.
• 30:12
  It's it's all three of those and then prophets.
• 30:15
  This gift of prophesying and to be able to testify of Christ is
• 30:20
  not or it is a part of the calling of an apostle.
• 30:24
  But the the apostles are set first and the president of our
• 30:28
  church, even though we use the the title the prophet.
• 30:31
  That's our title for it. But he's really the presiding
• 30:35
  apostle. The chief apostle is the
• 30:38
  president of the church or the what we call the prophet.
• 30:42
  And then you'll notice the third thing that is given teachers.
• 30:46
  And then after that miracles, then gifts of healing helps.
• 30:49
  Government's diversities of tongues and we go down.
• 30:52
  Did you did you catch that? That.
• 30:55
  And we're going to talk more about this in the epistle to the
• 30:57
  Ephesians will go into much greater depth.
• 30:59
  But you see the 1st 3 apostles, then he gave profits and then he
• 31:06
  gave teachers. There are many of you watching
• 31:10
  who have callings to teach in the church or our parents or
• 31:15
  grandparents and you do a lot of teaching.
• 31:17
  This is a this is a divine calling.
• 31:21
  It's it's something given to us by God, this role to be teachers
• 31:26
  in all of these different settings that you find yourself.
• 31:29
  And it would be really sad if we look at our role as a teacher,
• 31:35
  say we're the hand, and then we look at the role of prophets and
• 31:40
  apostles or other more important maybe the heart or the mind of
• 31:44
  the body and say, well, I'm not as good as that.
• 31:47
  The reality is as prophets and apostles can't do all the
• 31:50
  teaching in your ward and your stake in your branch in all
• 31:54
  parts of the world. What an amazing thing when
• 31:57
  everybody in their individual roles and capacities turn
• 32:02
  heavenward to the to the Lord. Tune their ears to the Sears
• 32:07
  revelators, these apostles, and do the very best they can to
• 32:12
  lift where they stand in the body of Christ.
• 32:15
  In the church we are all benefited.
• 32:18
  Even if we live thousands of miles away from you.
• 32:20
  We are all benefited by those consecrated efforts that you
• 32:26
  each individually make as teachers or in these other
• 32:30
  capacities as doing miracles, gifts of healing, helping
• 32:34
  people, governments, diversities of tongues, All of these benefit
• 32:40
  all of us. And then he goes on and asks
• 32:43
  these rhetorical questions where the answer should be obvious, he
• 32:46
  says, are all apostles. The answer should be obviously
• 32:49
  no, Are all profits? Are all teachers?
• 32:52
  Are all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing?
• 32:55
  Do all speak. The tongues do all interpret but
• 32:59
  covet earnestly the best gifts, and yet shoe eye unto you a more
• 33:03
  excellent way, which is a perfect setup for the next
• 33:06
  chapter, where he lays out one of the most powerful gifts that
• 33:09
  all of us have access to. And it's the gift of love.
• 33:14
  And we'll talk more about what kind of love we're talking about
• 33:16
  and how it comes from God, and we're invited to share it with
• 33:19
  others. So this unity fundamentally the
• 33:23
  glue of that unity. Is bound up in this covenantal
• 33:27
  love that first is created and shared by God himself with all
• 33:33
  of us. Such a beautiful concept.
• 33:35
  So as we as we conclude this chapter, before we turn into
• 33:39
  this Chapter 13 on charity and and the love of Christ, just
• 33:45
  ponder for a moment using Elder Wirthlin's analogy of the
• 33:49
  orchestra of the Lord. Instead of getting frustrated.
• 33:53
  If you're an oboe but you would rather be a cello.
• 33:57
  Or if you're a piccolo and would rather be a timpani player,
• 34:02
  instead of looking at what other people can do and listening at
• 34:07
  the music they're producing, what if we spent more of our
• 34:11
  energy and effort turning heavenward to say thanks?
• 34:16
  I think the for giving me this capacity with this particular
• 34:20
  instrument, in this particular part of the orchestra, help me
• 34:23
  to make my music the very best it can possibly be in the
• 34:28
  orchestra. To add to the harmony and to
• 34:32
  those beautiful melodies that come together from the different
• 34:36
  parts. And trust in the Lord Jesus
• 34:39
  Christ as the conductor of that orchestra to know exactly how to
• 34:45
  respond when he asks for more or less or variations of what we're
• 34:50
  we're providing into that overall sound so that we can can
• 34:56
  help him in that work of building the very finest product
• 35:02
  in the end the building the Kingdom of God in the way that
• 35:06
  he wants it built. Now this shifts us into Chapter
• 35:11
  13, where we talk about the the lead in was I will show unto you
• 35:18
  a more excellent way. Did you catch that?
• 35:22
  Well, the more excellent way is chapter 13.
• 35:25
  And if you go back to John 14-6 in the upper room, Jesus tells
• 35:31
  his apostles, I am the way, the truth in the life.
• 35:36
  No man cometh under the Father, but by me I am the way.
• 35:39
  So Paul's going to show you a more excellent way.
• 35:43
  Everything in chapter 13. If you just put on lenses of
• 35:47
  symbolic lenses looking for Jesus Christ, this whole chapter
• 35:51
  is just a manifestation. Every word in here points you to
• 35:57
  the Savior. Every single word.
• 35:59
  In fact, let me just ask it this way.
• 36:02
  If a member of your Bishop came up and asked you to speak in in
• 36:07
  Sacre meeting next week and they said we want you to take 10
• 36:11
  minutes and talk about charity, the topic is charity.
• 36:16
  Many people would get that assignment and say, okay, I'm
• 36:23
  going to start thinking of all of the ways that we can
• 36:28
  demonstrate charity and that would be a fine perspective.
• 36:34
  And we're not, we're not knocking this down.
• 36:37
  I'm just saying there's a problem with this perspective
• 36:41
  because the invitation was to talk about charity, and what
• 36:44
  I've diagrammed on the board here is kind and charitable
• 36:48
  acts, but this isn't charity, because if you really want to be
• 36:54
  technical, charity is something much, much bigger than this now.
• 37:00
  It it would encompass this. That's part of it.
• 37:03
  This is only one part back to that large body we saw.
• 37:08
  This would be saying like this is the foot.
• 37:10
  And if all your focus is on the foot, you miss the larger body
• 37:13
  of what charity is. So again, this idea of letting
• 37:17
  the scriptures be one whole orchestra and letting them all
• 37:23
  contribute beautiful melodies that create then incredible
• 37:29
  harmonies working together, the Book of Mormon has, in my
• 37:34
  opinion, one of its finest moments is that talk given by
• 37:39
  Mormon in the synagogue that Moroni chose to include in his
• 37:44
  own book right towards the end in Moroni Chapter 7 and his
• 37:49
  father, Mormon gives this discourse about charity that is
• 37:53
  just phenomenal. And if you go down to verse 47
• 37:59
  in Maroni 7 it says but charity is, so this is kind of a
• 38:03
  definitional statement. Charity is the pure love of
• 38:09
  Christ, and it endureth forever. And we know that charity faileth
• 38:15
  not it. That's the the theme of the
• 38:19
  Relief Society, right? So in my mind, the best diagram
• 38:24
  you could possibly make for what is charity is that charity is
• 38:31
  the pure love of Christ. Now this is my attempt to
• 38:37
  reflect the pure love of Christ that has come to my life.
• 38:41
  But the reality is, is I don't generate that all by myself.
• 38:46
  Independent, cut off from God's grace and God's power flowing
• 38:51
  through me, I receive from Him. I process and I strive to become
• 38:59
  like him, which causes me to turn outward his whole life from
• 39:04
  the very beginning, before the creation of the world is turned
• 39:07
  outward. And so I'm trying to reflect his
• 39:11
  goodness. Brothers and sisters, That is
• 39:14
  charity. So if we can keep that in mind
• 39:18
  now, we jump into First Corinthians 13.
• 39:21
  Yeah, these. This is a really powerful
• 39:23
  chapter. I'm really grateful you've
• 39:24
  talked about what the Book of Mormon says about this.
• 39:28
  So in the Old Testament, we used a word regularly.
• 39:32
  To talk about the love of God, the covenantal mutual
• 39:37
  obligation. In fact, we might call it this
• 39:40
  where God gives us love and he expects us to show it back to
• 39:44
  him in covenant with the relationship and to our
• 39:47
  neighbor. He says love God and love your
• 39:51
  neighbor as yourself. And so, he said, is this
• 39:56
  everlasting love that God shares and expects us also to
• 40:01
  demonstrate? And that's the Hebrew word.
• 40:04
  In Greek you have a word called agape.
• 40:07
  So when you see the word charity here in this text, the
• 40:10
  underlying Greek word is agape, which also evokes a sense of
• 40:15
  deep, abiding, covenantal love. So it's not just the love of
• 40:20
  like Valentine's Day or I love my pet.
• 40:25
  It is mutual, interrelated, relational, the covenantal unity
• 40:31
  of enduring, everlasting, never feeling loved.
• 40:34
  That's very powerful. So he said.
• 40:37
  And agape. Now let's tie this back into
• 40:40
  Mormon. We've mentioned this before, and
• 40:43
  I think it's so important because we have this book called
• 40:46
  the Book of Mormon. We've talked about how the name
• 40:50
  is the lesson, and Paul's expressing all of this.
• 40:53
  Mormon does, too. Mormon's name probably comes
• 40:57
  from the Egyptian word for love and everlasting.
• 41:03
  So if we translated Mormon's name from Egyptian, it would be
• 41:08
  love endures forever and whose love?
• 41:11
  We're talking about God's love. So think about the title of the
• 41:14
  Book of Mormon, The Book of God's Hassad or Agape, Or Love
• 41:22
  endures forever. And that's what brings this
• 41:25
  unity we've been talking about. So we hope as you are engaging
• 41:29
  these chapters, you remember first and foremost, God's love
• 41:33
  is always there for you. It's like the sun is always
• 41:36
  shining. It might be night time, but the
• 41:38
  sun is actually still shining. You might be indoors and the sun
• 41:42
  is shining but you have the curtains closed.
• 41:44
  Just know the sun is always there for you, never going away.
• 41:49
  And of all the things we talked about, there's so many
• 41:51
  interesting cultural contexts and and words.
• 41:54
  More than anything, we believe that God wants you to feel His
• 41:58
  deep, abiding, everlasting love for you, and as you feel that,
• 42:03
  you feel this need to want to share it back to Him and outward
• 42:08
  to others. That's what Paul's trying to get
• 42:10
  at. And frankly, do we have time to
• 42:13
  be disunified in any way? If we are fixated on this
• 42:19
  covenantal love and this relationship of sharing God's
• 42:22
  love with those around us, I think it'd be really hard to be
• 42:25
  disunified. It's powerful.
• 42:27
  So let's pick up verse one of chapter 13.
• 42:30
  In this context, though I speak with the tongue of man and of
• 42:35
  angels and have not charity, I am become a sounding brass or
• 42:41
  tinkling symbol. Notice it doesn't matter what I
• 42:45
  do here if I have not charity, if I don't receive.
• 42:52
  The agape, the the, he said. The pure love of Christ.
• 42:58
  I'm, I'm sounding brass. I'm a tinkling symbol, which, by
• 43:02
  the way, becomes annoying. Like when you have a bell just
• 43:04
  kind of constantly ringing. It just becomes annoying.
• 43:07
  And the point here is that real love, real covenantful love, is
• 43:12
  nourishing and nurturing. It's not grading, it's not like,
• 43:17
  what is that? It's welcoming and embracing and
• 43:22
  we have all felt that from God. And again.
• 43:24
  The invitation is, if we have felt to seeing the song of
• 43:28
  redeeming love. This is Alma.
• 43:30
  This is the song of redeeming love.
• 43:32
  Can we feel it again? And we encourage others to join
• 43:36
  and also experiencing that song of redeeming love.
• 43:39
  And he goes on to say, though I have the gift of prophecy, and
• 43:42
  understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all
• 43:46
  faith. Remember these spiritual gifts
• 43:49
  that he's mentioned in chapter 12?
• 43:51
  He's kind of going back through the list here so that I could
• 43:54
  remove mountains and have not charity.
• 43:57
  I am nothing. I could have all of those gifts
• 44:00
  of the Spirit from that previous chapter, but without the pure
• 44:04
  love of Christ in my life, that I can then reflect heavenward
• 44:09
  and outward. I am nothing.
• 44:11
  And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I
• 44:15
  give my body to be burned and have not, charity, it profiteth
• 44:19
  profiteth me nothing. He keeps coming back to this
• 44:23
  pure love of of Christ. Now look at verse four.
• 44:27
  Charity suffereth long and is kind.
• 44:32
  That's interesting because he put two things together here.
• 44:38
  Charity suffereth Long. And is kind.
• 44:42
  It's easy to suffer long and be rude.
• 44:47
  It's hard to suffer long and be kind.
• 44:52
  And it's a fascinating couplet put together that this suffering
• 44:57
  and kindness go together. And I've actually learned from
• 45:01
  personal experience with myself and others that I've actually
• 45:05
  been unkind to people when I'm hurting and suffering.
• 45:07
  I've had other people be unkind to me or to others.
• 45:11
  And if you ever see somebody acting negatively, you can set
• 45:14
  it down as an eternal law that there's something hurting or
• 45:19
  broke into their lives that is influencing them to act less
• 45:24
  than they probably would in other in other circumstances.
• 45:27
  So when people are suffering, maybe it's hard for them to be
• 45:31
  kind, although we're commanded to be kind because true charity
• 45:34
  allows it. But if other people are
• 45:35
  suffering, maybe it's an invitation for us to exercise
• 45:38
  charity and to be kind to them in their suffering and uplift
• 45:42
  them. So this next part of the the
• 45:48
  description says charity, envious, not charity, vonteth
• 45:52
  not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly,
• 45:56
  and I'm going to stop right here.
• 46:00
  Have you noticed how easy it is to shift into a mode of talking
• 46:05
  about something like Charity? As if it were some essence, some
• 46:14
  nebula, some BLOB out there, somewhere in the universe?
• 46:17
  Charity does all of these things.
• 46:19
  It's suffers long and is kind and envious.
• 46:22
  Not it's not puffed up. It's not easily provoked.
• 46:26
  Brothers and sisters, Charity is not an independent.
• 46:30
  Thing. Charity is a perfected attribute
• 46:35
  of God, a perfected characteristic and attribute of
• 46:39
  Christ. It's part of who they are.
• 46:43
  So watch what happens when you shift from away from just
• 46:47
  talking about charity as if it were a thing to it being an
• 46:53
  attribute of Christ. And the simple way to do that is
• 46:56
  simply replace the word charity. With the name Christ and see
• 47:03
  what happens. Christ suffereth long and is
• 47:09
  kind. Now many of you can start
• 47:13
  thinking of example after example of the Savior's life,
• 47:19
  where he was in the midst of a difficult situation and he was
• 47:23
  kind, and Matthew 14 he found about to be found out that John
• 47:27
  had been beheaded. When in a ship to a desert place
• 47:31
  apart comes to land, and 5000 men gather around, and he was
• 47:37
  kind to them, he healed them, and then he fed them in the
• 47:42
  midst of his own suffering. In Gethsemane, Malchus was part
• 47:47
  of the group that came to arrest him.
• 47:49
  Peter cut off Malchus's ear, and in Luke's Gospel we find out
• 47:52
  that Jesus healed Malchus when most of us would have been prone
• 47:57
  to rebuke Malchus. Or rail on him.
• 48:01
  But the Savior suffered infinitely long in in the
• 48:07
  gethsemite context and was still able to be kind on the cross.
• 48:12
  One of the first things he says Father, forgive them Speaking of
• 48:16
  these Roman soldiers, for they know not what they do suffereth
• 48:21
  long and is kind. You get the idea over and over
• 48:24
  again. Now if you go through this whole
• 48:27
  list here. Of attributes of charity or
• 48:31
  attributes of Christ. By replacing His name for the
• 48:34
  word charity, it gives us something better to strive for.
• 48:39
  I think if our focus is fixed on Jesus Christ rather than on some
• 48:44
  random attribute of the Gospel a it's a little easier to focus my
• 48:48
  mind and stay focused in my scripture study when I when I'm
• 48:51
  looking for the Savior. And B, it's a lot more
• 48:56
  motivating for me to try to become more like him than to try
• 49:00
  to approximate some nebulous concept or principle.
• 49:06
  I'm trying to be like Jesus is the principal here and I just
• 49:11
  got on a silver platter attributes of Christ that I can
• 49:15
  now actually start working towards with his help to become
• 49:19
  more like him because he is charitable and he will help me.
• 49:24
  With my desire to become like him, if we become more
• 49:28
  proactive, seeking for His help to to embody these attributes
• 49:34
  that are listed here. So if you if you finish off this
• 49:37
  list, you could go through verse 4567 and consider how the Savior
• 49:46
  at different points in his life, both mortal and premortal and
• 49:51
  postmortal for that fact. Embodies all of these beautiful
• 49:56
  perfected attributes of pure love.
• 49:58
  He is God is love, He is agape. He is the embodiment of He said.
• 50:05
  And here you go, verse 8. Charity never faileth.
• 50:10
  But whether there be prophecies they shall fail.
• 50:13
  Whether there be tongues, they shall cease.
• 50:15
  Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
• 50:20
  But charity doesn't vanish away. The God's pure love doesn't
• 50:26
  decrease or diminish over time. It will just grow in us and
• 50:31
  through us as we strive to reflect it outward.
• 50:36
  So perhaps back to our analogy, if a if a counselor and your
• 50:40
  bishopric asks you to speak in in Sacre meeting next week on
• 50:44
  charity, perhaps that talk rather than focusing on me and
• 50:49
  what I can do to be nice. Perhaps that talk could begin
• 50:54
  with focusing on Christ and how perfectly He loves us, all of
• 51:00
  us, and how He invites us to take on His attributes.
• 51:04
  And then we're not no longer just talking about nice things
• 51:08
  that we're doing, We're actually talking about the Covenant path,
• 51:13
  companionship with Christ, helping us to not just feel more
• 51:18
  of His love, but to embody more of His love.
• 51:22
  So that people can feel more of his perfected, perfected love.
• 51:26
  Through our words and deeds and desires and prayers and whole
• 51:32
  approach to to life and to those relationships.
• 51:35
  We could summarize again just the purpose of God's work in all
• 51:40
  the scriptures we have. It's to express and invite us to
• 51:44
  participate and share in that God's love endures forever.
• 51:51
  That is the message of the Book of Mormon, the Bible, all the
• 51:54
  New Testament, Dr. Covenants, program, Price, modern day
• 51:57
  profits, and the Holy Spirit working in your life today.
• 52:00
  So we hope that you can feel God's love that sure, there is
• 52:04
  context that's interesting to learn about, but let's focus
• 52:08
  first and foremost of what matters most.
• 52:10
  Paul's context interesting. Let that not cover up that God
• 52:15
  is trying to just show us again and again His love will endure
• 52:19
  forever. Charity never faileth.
• 52:23
  That is so empowering, Taylor. It's that idea of people coming
• 52:27
  to church when they hear certain ideals taught or certain
• 52:32
  principles or commandments of the gospel, and they know what
• 52:35
  they've struggled with and they start to feel guilty and
• 52:39
  discouraged and demotivated. What an amazing thing when we
• 52:44
  cannot put the focus on. Caustic perfectionism of You're
• 52:49
  not good enough. You've got to try hard.
• 52:51
  You've got to be better. Instead of that, to put our
• 52:55
  focus completely rooted in and fixed on Christ and his
• 53:00
  goodness, and then trust him to work with us and all members of
• 53:06
  the Body of Christ in the congregation or in the family
• 53:09
  with us and be patient with the process.
• 53:12
  It takes time, healing growth. Development It takes time.
• 53:18
  Yesterday my my little 7 year old Merritt, they were playing
• 53:23
  and one of his siblings had reached out to grab him by the
• 53:28
  shirt and had missed the shirt and had scratched his neck.
• 53:31
  And he, he had a pretty big cut and he was bleeding, and he was
• 53:35
  pretty discouraged by that. And it turned into a beautiful
• 53:39
  teaching moment to say, Merritt, what would you look like?
• 53:45
  If all of those cuts that you would have received in seven
• 53:49
  years of life, every bruise scrape, every injury, what if
• 53:54
  they didn't heal? What would you look like?
• 53:57
  And he got it, his eyes got really big and he said, ooh, I
• 54:01
  would look like a monster basically.
• 54:04
  And I said, isn't that beautiful that God provides a means
• 54:07
  whereby the physical body can can heal and regenerate itself
• 54:13
  that. A month from now, you're not
• 54:16
  going to remember that cut that's bleeding right now, and
• 54:18
  it hurts really bad. Same principle applies even more
• 54:23
  so to the Spirit. So instead of having the focus
• 54:27
  beyond what we're not doing, I love this, this discourse on
• 54:31
  charity here and in the Book of Mormon to put the focus on God's
• 54:37
  goodness and on Christ's perfected love to say it's okay.
• 54:43
  My struggles, my wounds, my hurts, He can heal them just
• 54:48
  like he does with my body. He can do that with my spirit
• 54:52
  and I can learn from those things and move forward.
• 54:55
  Which brings us to the very last part of chapter 13, which says
• 55:00
  for now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.
• 55:05
  Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am
• 55:09
  known? And now abide us.
• 55:12
  Faith, hope, charity, these three.
• 55:15
  But the greatest of these is charity.
• 55:18
  So instead of going to church and pointing out all of the scar
• 55:21
  or all of the wounds and the cuts and the flaws and the
• 55:24
  brokenness, we go to the hospital for sinners called
• 55:30
  church. And we help bind up those
• 55:32
  wounds, trusting that they'll heal because the master
• 55:37
  physician is very good. That healing them, it's part of
• 55:41
  the attribute of his perfect love and his charity for us that
• 55:46
  that we can grow and develop over time.
• 55:49
  It's really been a joy to feel of God's love in these chapters.
• 55:53
  Now there was a few chapters that we didn't cover, so we're
• 55:55
  going to do something a little bit different.
• 55:57
  We'll do our normal closing, and then if you would like to stick
• 56:01
  around, we're going to provide just a few minutes of some
• 56:03
  cultural context of what was going on in Paul's day and in
• 56:07
  the grucco Roman culture that would have evoked his response
• 56:11
  to some of the disunity. So we hope that you have felt
• 56:15
  God's love as you've immersed in Paul's writings about God's
• 56:18
  love. So as we close the main part of
• 56:21
  of this lesson today with these two chapters that we've covered,
• 56:25
  just know that regardless of what part of the orchestra
• 56:30
  you're in or what part of the body of Christ you fulfill in
• 56:36
  your family and. Your relationships at work, in
• 56:41
  your ward or your stake. And notice that in different
• 56:43
  areas of your life you might fill different roles, different
• 56:47
  parts of the body or different parts of the orchestra.
• 56:49
  And that's amazing, It's wonderful.
• 56:51
  But whatever those are, if we turn heavenward, keep our focus
• 56:56
  fixed on the Savior, realize that he is the conductor.
• 57:00
  He it is the body of Christ that we're a part of.
• 57:03
  And then if we lift where we stand and do the very best we
• 57:06
  can to magnify those principles. Of the gospel and those gifts of
• 57:10
  the Spirit that he is given to us, then everybody's going to be
• 57:14
  benefited by it. And that's where we find true
• 57:18
  Zion, true unity, True oneness is not in comparison, but in
• 57:23
  consecration. Giving to God and to each other
• 57:27
  all that we have, all that we are, and all that we hope to be.
• 57:31
  That's our prayer for all of us. In the name of Jesus Christ.
• 57:34
  Amen. Know that you're loved, can
• 57:37
  spread light and goodness. Now for those of you who want to
• 57:44
  stick around for a little bit longer and get some more context
• 57:48
  on those first chapters, chapter 8 through 11 that we didn't
• 57:53
  cover yet, we kind of touched on them, let's let's jump in very
• 57:58
  quickly and give an overview here of of what's going on.
• 58:04
  Keep in mind. Paul writing this letter to the
• 58:06
  Corinthian Saints. They're living in this
• 58:10
  environment in Corinth with Acro current up on the hill.
• 58:15
  And Acro current has this huge complex of temples.
• 58:19
  And they're not latter day temples.
• 58:21
  These are Pagan temples rooted in idolatry and adultery.
• 58:26
  It's rampant in that culture and so.
• 58:30
  Massive amounts of energy and effort in that society are being
• 58:35
  spent to sacrifice animals to these idols at these temples and
• 58:41
  in these Pagan worship rites. And the reality is, is once
• 58:47
  you've sacrificed an animal to that God or goddess in the
• 58:51
  pantheon of of idols, that meat. To many of the Jews is
• 58:58
  considered completely unclean and impure and defiling.
• 59:04
  You might think in your own life, are there things that if
• 59:06
  somebody engaged in some activity and then wanted you to
• 59:08
  participate in that activity or some outcome of that activity
• 59:12
  they wanted you to have? You might say Nope.
• 59:14
  That crosses boundaries for me and Paul is dealing with this.
• 59:18
  There were some Saints in the ward who were consuming meat
• 59:23
  that had been given and sacrificed at the temple.
• 59:26
  Typically meat was only available as Tyler was talking
• 59:28
  about, through sacrifice. So some of the wealthy Saints
• 59:32
  were bringing meat to a supper. That would happen after the
• 59:36
  church meeting. So if you've ever had a potluck
• 59:38
  meal after church, it's apparently the Corinthians were
• 59:41
  doing this, and some of them were bringing meat that had been
• 59:44
  sacrificed to idols. And some of the other Saints in
• 59:47
  the war were like, this is actually defiling our community,
• 59:51
  our body that we've talked about.
• 59:54
  And so there's a debate. And Paul, Paul was pretty
• 59:56
  pragmatic. He realized that, well, first of
• 59:59
  all, these gods don't even exist.
• 1:00:00
  So really, is it a big deal that meat has been sacrificed to fake
• 1:00:03
  gods? The answer is no.
• 1:00:06
  But because some of my other Saints, my friends don't see
• 1:00:11
  that they really think these gods might have some kind of
• 1:00:13
  power. I will choose not to eat that
• 1:00:16
  meat or not eat it in front of them because I don't want to
• 1:00:19
  offend them. And so in any kind of community,
• 1:00:24
  he talks about this, this concept of freedom.
• 1:00:26
  In any community, if you're going to be in any kind of
• 1:00:28
  relationship, you always have to sacrifice some of your freedoms
• 1:00:33
  in order to gain others. And that is just what it means
• 1:00:37
  to be in a society. And Paul also deals with that.
• 1:00:40
  Yeah, so just a couple of verses.
• 1:00:41
  We'll we'll skip rocks across the surface of of these chapters
• 1:00:46
  here. Just touch on some of them very
• 1:00:48
  briefly. Verse 8.
• 1:00:50
  But meat commendeth us not to God for neither.
• 1:00:53
  If we eat, are we the better Neither if we not, are we the
• 1:00:57
  worse. He's saying, look, the meat
• 1:01:01
  itself, just because it was sacrificed to that dumb idol, it
• 1:01:04
  didn't somehow change the composition and make it
• 1:01:07
  sacramental or make it. Evil.
• 1:01:11
  It's just meat. It's not going to hurt you and
• 1:01:13
  it's not going to help you. It won't exalt you and it won't
• 1:01:15
  condemn you. However, take heed less by any
• 1:01:20
  means, this liberty of yours, this, this knowledge, and this
• 1:01:23
  freedom of yours become a stumbling block to them that are
• 1:01:27
  weak. Don't do anything in that
• 1:01:31
  relationship that Taylor's talking about that would cause
• 1:01:34
  somebody else in that body to now.
• 1:01:38
  Become weaker because of something you're doing because
• 1:01:41
  you say, look, it's not hurting anybody else.
• 1:01:43
  Well, in this case it might be and this is tricky.
• 1:01:46
  So then in contrast to that you'll notice in chapter nine he
• 1:01:50
  talks about how as an apostle they're free to to do all kinds
• 1:01:57
  of things and he gives some examples Here Verse 4 have we
• 1:02:00
  not power to eat and to drink? Verse 5.
• 1:02:03
  Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife as well as
• 1:02:06
  other apostles? And as the brother of the Lord
• 1:02:09
  and Cephus, so Christ's brothers, as well as Peter has a
• 1:02:14
  wife, right. Because he's actually talking
• 1:02:15
  about, yes, is it okay to be married and to go out and be a
• 1:02:19
  missionary and have a spouse and actually to have the spouse join
• 1:02:23
  you in the missionary efforts? Because you're going to
• 1:02:25
  remember, as Tyler was talking about, Corinth had a pretty kind
• 1:02:29
  of promiscuous society where some people were preaching
• 1:02:32
  celibacy. Nobody should ever engage in in
• 1:02:37
  sexual relations. Others were up there being very
• 1:02:39
  promiscuous at the at these ancient temples.
• 1:02:42
  And they were like, well, I'm going to hang out with harlots
• 1:02:44
  all I want. And there was confusion for
• 1:02:46
  among some of the ward members, is it, first of all, okay to get
• 1:02:50
  married? And if I am married, is it okay
• 1:02:53
  to have that spouse with me in a religious context?
• 1:02:56
  Because in the ancient world, there were different religious
• 1:02:59
  groups saying yes and no. And the Corinthian Saints were
• 1:03:03
  asking Paul in a prior letter that he's responding to what do
• 1:03:06
  we do about marriage. He's trying to say yes, marriage
• 1:03:10
  is ordained of God and yes, spouses can be together in
• 1:03:13
  religious context. Now again, this is a very fast
• 1:03:15
  verse that we read. There's a whole bunch of complex
• 1:03:19
  cultural context going on that has been massively changed up to
• 1:03:24
  the to that now is no longer like that.
• 1:03:27
  And we often miss this context. We read this well.
• 1:03:30
  Have we not power to be with a spouse as well as other
• 1:03:33
  possible? It's like, well, what does that
• 1:03:35
  verse even mean? That's kind of what's going on
• 1:03:37
  in the background is this question about marriage and what
• 1:03:40
  spouses can engage in, in terms of religious experiences
• 1:03:44
  together. Then, after discussing all of
• 1:03:47
  this freedom that comes from from fulfilling these callings
• 1:03:51
  and being on the covenant path with the Lord, look at verse 19.
• 1:03:56
  For though I be free from all. The men there is italicized.
• 1:04:02
  It's an addition by the King James translators.
• 1:04:04
  For though I be free from everyone, basically, yet have I
• 1:04:08
  made myself servant unto all that I might gain.
• 1:04:12
  The more that verse is a powerful reflection of the
• 1:04:18
  mission, the life, the ministry and the infinite atonement of
• 1:04:22
  Jesus Christ. He was free from all.
• 1:04:25
  He was free from all sin, from all people, from all government
• 1:04:29
  power he had. He was independently powerful
• 1:04:33
  and knowledgeable. And yet he who is the most free
• 1:04:39
  became the most servant, or or the lowliest servant of all,
• 1:04:45
  condescended below. Everyone became the servant of
• 1:04:49
  all of us. Why?
• 1:04:52
  That I might gain the more what did he gain?
• 1:04:55
  It's not the notoriety, it's not the the acclaim.
• 1:04:59
  It's the souls of the children of God that he's able to gain
• 1:05:06
  them and bring them and present them spotless to God one day.
• 1:05:12
  What a powerful analogy for us to strive to become more like
• 1:05:18
  the Savior, using that verse as an example here.
• 1:05:21
  Though you're free from all, yet we make ourselves servant unto
• 1:05:26
  all. That is the essence of
• 1:05:28
  parenthood. That is the essence of service
• 1:05:32
  in the Church and Kingdom of God on the earth.
• 1:05:35
  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints.
• 1:05:38
  No paid ministry as far as calling a Bishop and offering a
• 1:05:42
  wage. No Relief Society ministering
• 1:05:44
  sister who gets paid a stipend to go and do her ministering
• 1:05:47
  visits. It's this.
• 1:05:49
  I'm free. I don't have to do that, but I'm
• 1:05:52
  going to make myself a servant and go and relieve suffering and
• 1:05:57
  teach and exhort and bind up wounds and strengthen and
• 1:06:02
  comfort and mourn with those that are mourning and stand as a
• 1:06:06
  witness of God. We make ourselves servants and
• 1:06:12
  for those of you who are raising children.
• 1:06:15
  With special needs or those of you who have taken on callings
• 1:06:20
  that are very difficult and it's stretching you and it's painful
• 1:06:24
  and it's not fun. Being a servant isn't always
• 1:06:27
  just fun work. What an amazing principle to
• 1:06:31
  consider this Christ like attribute that you're reflecting
• 1:06:36
  day in, day out, week in, week out, year in, year out where you
• 1:06:41
  make yourself. You take other people's burdens
• 1:06:45
  upon your shoulders and you move forward. 10,000 years from now,
• 1:06:50
  I don't think any of you are going to look back and say, man,
• 1:06:54
  I wish my life would have been a lot easier.
• 1:06:57
  I wish it would have been filled with nothing but success, money,
• 1:07:01
  vacations and perfect love. Everywhere I, I looked open
• 1:07:06
  doors. Everywhere I turned.
• 1:07:08
  I think we'll look back and be grateful for these opportunities
• 1:07:12
  that heaven gave us to serve, to sacrifice, to to give up some of
• 1:07:19
  our own time, talent, money, energy, effort, desires for the
• 1:07:25
  benefit of these other people who could always be of benefit
• 1:07:30
  in return to us. Because that's not why you
• 1:07:33
  become a servant. To get something from people.
• 1:07:37
  You become a servant. To serve them, to give things to
• 1:07:41
  them. That's the Christ like element
• 1:07:44
  that is growing within us. And in Paul's day this is very
• 1:07:48
  startling doctrine. The ancient Greco, Roman world,
• 1:07:53
  Greek culture, Roman administration is very
• 1:07:55
  stratified and hierarchical. It already is driven to create
• 1:07:59
  division. And so you have these different
• 1:08:02
  people who've decided to come into the body of Christ, and
• 1:08:06
  they still bring their cultural baggage.
• 1:08:08
  And they're asking Paul, what do we do about this?
• 1:08:12
  And they have these other issues.
• 1:08:13
  We we talked about how they would often, these are the
• 1:08:17
  Christian Saints would often meet in a home and they would
• 1:08:19
  have the Lord's Supper sacrament.
• 1:08:22
  And then after they would engage in that ritual, which is a
• 1:08:25
  memory of what Jesus has done to save all of us, just like
• 1:08:29
  Jehovah saved the Israelites from bondage.
• 1:08:31
  They would then engage in, say, a potluck meal.
• 1:08:35
  And sometimes what happened is sometimes a potluck meal was
• 1:08:39
  before the sacrament meeting and some people would show up early
• 1:08:43
  and they would have an abundance of food and they start eating.
• 1:08:46
  And other members of the Corinthian ward would show up
• 1:08:48
  without. Perhaps they were poor members
• 1:08:50
  and didn't have food and they're watching the rich members or
• 1:08:53
  those with eating all this food and the poorer ones are like,
• 1:08:56
  well, I don't have anything to eat.
• 1:08:58
  Oh, and now we're all supposed to be unified while we have
• 1:09:00
  sacrament meeting. It caused quite a bit of issue
• 1:09:02
  and there was this problem of well, some of them are eating
• 1:09:06
  meat that was sacrificed at a temple.
• 1:09:07
  So you can imagine in this ward it was quite a complex problem.
• 1:09:11
  Also the issue they were dealing with is in ancient society, if
• 1:09:14
  you went to somebody's house to banquet or eat with them, if the
• 1:09:19
  person who invited you over was serving food that you thought
• 1:09:24
  you shouldn't be eating, it created issues.
• 1:09:26
  Again like how do you engage in a society if they don't always
• 1:09:29
  share your values? Let's make it even just a bit
• 1:09:33
  more challenging. In the ancient banqueting
• 1:09:36
  society that they were in, where people sat around the table
• 1:09:41
  indicated their status. Remember, at the Last Supper,
• 1:09:45
  the disciples of Jesus were kind of debating who got to sit
• 1:09:49
  closest to Jesus, like who had high status, who is low status.
• 1:09:53
  This is going on with the Corinthians.
• 1:09:55
  They come to this house church, they're having a meal in advance
• 1:09:58
  of the Last Supper reenactment of the sacrament.
• 1:10:02
  And some of them are put in low status positions at the table,
• 1:10:05
  others are taking high status position.
• 1:10:07
  And then there's this disunity that leads into sacrament,
• 1:10:11
  meaning, Can you imagine the problem?
• 1:10:12
  How do you get unified around the body of Christ, which is
• 1:10:16
  sacrament is all about when you have started with kind of a
• 1:10:19
  Pagan infused meal full of disunity that shows how people
• 1:10:24
  are in different levels of hierarchy.
• 1:10:26
  Just a real issue. Now, we don't necessarily do all
• 1:10:29
  the same things today, but that's part of the culture
• 1:10:31
  that's going on in Paul's time. So he he gives some of the the
• 1:10:37
  steps that we could take in how to create more unity following
• 1:10:44
  verse 19. So if you look in verse 20/21/22
• 1:10:48
  he gives us how he has has tried his hardest to build some unity
• 1:10:55
  and he says. Unto the Jews I became, as a Jew
• 1:11:00
  those who are without the law, I lived as without the law.
• 1:11:04
  Those under the law I lived as under the law to gain them.
• 1:11:09
  It's this idea of compassion, looking, perceiving what are
• 1:11:14
  they going through and working with them to speak their
• 1:11:20
  language, to not create these layers.
• 1:11:23
  Of of hierarchy that exists so prevalently in their society,
• 1:11:28
  quite frankly, as well as our own today.
• 1:11:31
  But to try to get down on people's level, to breathe their
• 1:11:34
  air, to walk their soil? That's the essence of
• 1:11:38
  ministering, isn't it? Well, Jesus did the same thing.
• 1:11:41
  Think about when he goes into the publican's house in Jericho.
• 1:11:45
  Many Jews felt like it was culturally wrong, or even
• 1:11:49
  morally wrong to eat with a tax collector.
• 1:11:52
  Jesus, who stood for all sorts of moral truth, also recognized
• 1:11:56
  that simply because somebody's a tax collector doesn't make them
• 1:12:00
  necessarily immoral, it doesn't make me immoral to join with
• 1:12:04
  them in a meal. Paul seems to be exemplifying
• 1:12:08
  the same attitude that Christ showed that we have to be clear
• 1:12:11
  about what really matters and not create artificial boundaries
• 1:12:15
  of separation with people. So.
• 1:12:18
  You'll notice as he finishes off Chapter 9, this concept of
• 1:12:22
  whenever you get into a comparison situation, it usually
• 1:12:27
  leads to pride that is competitive in nature.
• 1:12:30
  And competitive creates that layering or hierarchy of best
• 1:12:37
  down to worst well in their culture, their their athletic
• 1:12:43
  games. Always resulted in one victor.
• 1:12:48
  They didn't do gold, silver and bronze back in that day like we
• 1:12:51
  do in our Olympics today. Or you don't have first, second
• 1:12:53
  and third for them. You're you're one person is
• 1:12:57
  going to prevail in that athletic competition whatever it
• 1:13:00
  may be. And he talks to them about this
• 1:13:02
  verse 24. Know ye not that they would run
• 1:13:05
  in a race. Run all but one receive with the
• 1:13:07
  prize. So run that, you may obtain, the
• 1:13:12
  idea being. The world's way of doing things
• 1:13:15
  is you're right, Everybody's going to put forth their very
• 1:13:18
  best effort, and in the end, only one is going to get the
• 1:13:21
  prize. But in the Kingdom of God, with
• 1:13:25
  Christ at its head, we all come together and we all run together
• 1:13:33
  so that we all may obtain. In Christ, there's no more
• 1:13:37
  competition. It's all cooperation and
• 1:13:40
  consecration. What a beautiful shift from the
• 1:13:44
  world's way. The which, by the way, is the
• 1:13:47
  devil's way in its in its root, in its core, shifting it to the
• 1:13:55
  Lord's way of unity and true Zion like oneness.
• 1:14:00
  You've heard of the Olympic Games?
• 1:14:02
  The the Olympics were invented in Greece.
• 1:14:05
  Well, it turns out the Olympics was just one of various a sports
• 1:14:10
  contest that would occur on a regular basis.
• 1:14:13
  And it turns out the city of Corinth was a place where
• 1:14:17
  Olympic type games would happen every two years.
• 1:14:19
  So everybody in the city knows that we're it was called the
• 1:14:22
  Corinthian games or the Isthmian Games, but they all knew we're
• 1:14:26
  we're an Olympic city essentially every two years.
• 1:14:29
  So Paul probably actually had seen these essentially Olympic
• 1:14:34
  activities. Now technically the Olympics
• 1:14:36
  were held in a different city. I'm just using the word because
• 1:14:38
  it makes sense. So again, Paul is using cultural
• 1:14:41
  cues that would make sense to his people.
• 1:14:44
  They all likely would have seen the enormous effort that these
• 1:14:48
  contestants would have put in for months to prepare and to
• 1:14:51
  realize lots of people prepared only one winner.
• 1:14:55
  And Paul saying, you guys are coming into this church house,
• 1:15:00
  we're all running the race of getting back into God's
• 1:15:02
  presence. God does not only have space for
• 1:15:06
  one, and you shouldn't separate yourselves by hierarchy and by
• 1:15:10
  who's eating what. And you definitely should not
• 1:15:12
  create disunity before the sacrament begins.
• 1:15:15
  It makes it really hard to fill the Spirit if there's disunity
• 1:15:18
  and discord before the sacrament service.
• 1:15:22
  So this this object lesson of these athletes in Corinth.
• 1:15:26
  What a beautiful principle tied up in that object lesson as he
• 1:15:31
  finishes verse 25. Now they do it to obtain a
• 1:15:34
  corruptible crown. This, this leaf crown that would
• 1:15:40
  corrupt, it would decay. It's like you went to all that
• 1:15:43
  effort to get This is the best the world could offer you as
• 1:15:47
  your prize. Yeah, some of them were olive
• 1:15:49
  leaf crowns. Some of them were were celery
• 1:15:51
  leaf crowns. Have you ever wanted to spend
• 1:15:55
  nine months of your life just so you could win some celery?
• 1:15:58
  But that but it meant a lot to people anciently.
• 1:16:01
  So it's just funny how things just how we get driven for the
• 1:16:05
  wrong things at times. But what a beautiful object
• 1:16:07
  lesson we we can make fun of them and their celery Leafs, and
• 1:16:12
  they're all of Leafs, but they could probably make fun of us
• 1:16:17
  for a variety of things that we spend untold amounts of energy
• 1:16:20
  and effort and time and money on pursuing, and gain to what end?
• 1:16:27
  It's all incorruptible. Anything the world can give you
• 1:16:29
  is is corruptible. But notice.
• 1:16:33
  The crown that we receive from God is incorruptible, eternal
• 1:16:39
  life. It's not a competition.
• 1:16:42
  Nothing is taken away from you by helping another receive more
• 1:16:48
  glory and more blessings from heaven.
• 1:16:50
  In fact, in the Kingdom of God, in the Church of Jesus Christ,
• 1:16:54
  it's not about dividing out limited resources.
• 1:16:59
  It's all about multiplying the harvest.
• 1:17:02
  It's about. Adding to our resources, because
• 1:17:08
  the Savior has infinite capacity, we're not going to
• 1:17:11
  diminish what we or anybody else is going to get by increasing
• 1:17:16
  the fold and the body or the orchestra of the Lord.
• 1:17:21
  It's just going to get better and better and better.
• 1:17:24
  So just touching very lightly on a couple of principles in in
• 1:17:26
  chapter 10. You'll you'll notice this
• 1:17:29
  beautiful analogy that he gives to the children of Israel out in
• 1:17:32
  the wilderness. He says verse 2 all were
• 1:17:34
  baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.
• 1:17:38
  This idea that Moses taking the children of Israel out of 400
• 1:17:42
  years of Egyptian apostasy took them out to the sea.
• 1:17:46
  And Paul saying it's this analogy of we need to get them
• 1:17:49
  on the covenant path. What is step one, they have
• 1:17:52
  faith in Christ. Let's repent of our sins and
• 1:17:54
  let's begin with that first ordinance, baptism.
• 1:17:58
  In the sea. And then they go out into the
• 1:18:01
  wilderness and they drink from the rock which is Christ,
• 1:18:07
  another symbol to represent who Jesus Christ is.
• 1:18:12
  The rock and Book of Mormon teaching us to build upon the
• 1:18:16
  rock of our Redeemer. And you'll notice also the
• 1:18:21
  difference between the Greek word here being Petra rock.
• 1:18:26
  A Petra is this big foundation stone or a big Cliff.
• 1:18:31
  It's a it's a giant rock versus Petros that Jesus named Peter.
• 1:18:38
  Peter Petros is a small rock, a Little Rock.
• 1:18:42
  Beautiful comparisons between who Christ is as the chief
• 1:18:47
  cornerstone of the Church, and his chief apostle being a Little
• 1:18:51
  Rock who's striving to become more like.
• 1:18:54
  The the the Lord in in the process of his growth and
• 1:18:58
  development. If we look now at verse 13, this
• 1:19:01
  is an incredible principle for the people living in Corinth
• 1:19:05
  2000 years ago, but it's equally as powerful for us today.
• 1:19:09
  Look at this. There has no temptation taken
• 1:19:12
  you, but such as is common to man.
• 1:19:18
  Instead of thinking, wow, I'm tempted with this really unique
• 1:19:21
  combination of struggles, both physical.
• 1:19:24
  Moral, financial, spiritual, whatever combination they may
• 1:19:28
  be. Instead of saying, wow, I'm
• 1:19:30
  being picked on, he's saying Nope.
• 1:19:33
  Every temptation that's taken you is common to man, but God is
• 1:19:36
  faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted.
• 1:19:39
  Above that ye are able, but will with the temptation, also make a
• 1:19:43
  way to escape that ye may be able to bear it.
• 1:19:47
  In this analogy that Paul's using in these chapters about
• 1:19:51
  the body, some would wonder. Why does he allow Satan to tempt
• 1:19:55
  us in the 1st place? Why not just seal up the gates
• 1:19:59
  of hell and not allow the devils to come and have any kind of
• 1:20:03
  influence on us? Can you imagine what your
• 1:20:06
  physical body life would be like without any kind of storms or
• 1:20:12
  gravity or friction or pain or sickness or infirmity?
• 1:20:19
  Can you imagine what life would turn into for us?
• 1:20:23
  Without opposition. Without opposition in all
• 1:20:25
  things. So yes, the Lord allows the
• 1:20:30
  devil to tempt you. But if you'll connect with the
• 1:20:34
  Lord, those temptations can actually lead to your growth and
• 1:20:38
  your strengthening of your spiritual muscles and increased
• 1:20:42
  balance and increased capacities that you wouldn't find if there
• 1:20:47
  were no opposition. And then let's pick up a couple
• 1:20:49
  of more verses here that tie in directly with what Taylor was
• 1:20:52
  talking about earlier, this table fellowship and all of the
• 1:20:55
  the blessings and struggles that came with that in Corinth 2000
• 1:20:59
  years ago. He says verse 16, the cup of
• 1:21:02
  blessing which we bless, Is it not the communion of the blood
• 1:21:05
  of Christ? The bread which we break, Is it
• 1:21:07
  not the communement of the body of Christ?
• 1:21:10
  For we, being many, are one bread and one body, for we are
• 1:21:15
  all partakers of that one bread. And we've talked about it
• 1:21:19
  before, but the the Great seal of the United States of America.
• 1:21:23
  If you look on the back of of an American $1.00 bill, you see
• 1:21:27
  that seal and in the one side it shows the eagle E pluribus Unum.
• 1:21:32
  You have 13 stripes on the shield.
• 1:21:35
  You have 13 arrows in the one Talon. 13 olives and 13 leaves.
• 1:21:42
  In the other Talon, you have 13 stars above its head.
• 1:21:45
  You have 13 letters on the banner that says E PLURIBUS
• 1:21:49
  Unum. What a beautiful concept here
• 1:21:51
  for verse 17, We being many, you had 13 colonies, 13 states, and
• 1:21:59
  they're unique. South Carolina was very
• 1:22:02
  different than New York. They're unique.
• 1:22:04
  They're distinct. But the idea was let's come
• 1:22:07
  together. And become one E pluribus Unum
• 1:22:11
  from many one. That's exactly what's happening
• 1:22:15
  here in verse 17. And he's inviting the Corinthian
• 1:22:18
  Saints to basically experience E pluribus Unum.
• 1:22:21
  Become unified in your conflicts, unified in your
• 1:22:25
  peace, unified in your defense, unified in your wisdom and
• 1:22:28
  knowledge, and looking to the heavens for light and direction
• 1:22:31
  become one body in Christ. That's the essence of this
• 1:22:36
  whole. A set of chapters today.
• 1:22:39
  So Paul is amazing and he's dealing with very specific
• 1:22:43
  issues. Now remember I told the story
• 1:22:45
  about my parents trying to deal with very specific problems of
• 1:22:49
  disunity in among their kids and they kind of pass the law.
• 1:22:52
  Just leave the blue cup alone again.
• 1:22:54
  I hope I don't get cut out of the will, Mom and dad, because
• 1:22:57
  you see me holding a blue cup. It's okay.
• 1:23:00
  I'm going to, I'm going to take it from him after this episode.
• 1:23:03
  So I'll I'll, I'll realign that law.
• 1:23:06
  So we see in Chapter 11 yet another case where Paul's trying
• 1:23:09
  to create unity. And I confess this has been a
• 1:23:12
  chapter that has been confusing to people and has caused a lot
• 1:23:16
  of consternation. And Bible scholars have
• 1:23:18
  scratched their head about this for a long time and still nobody
• 1:23:21
  has 100% certainty of exactly what everything Paul meant.
• 1:23:27
  That being the case, we want to be careful that we don't impose
• 1:23:30
  practices that made sense in his time to our day.
• 1:23:35
  For example, let's look at verse 14 of Chapter 11.
• 1:23:39
  Doth not even nature itself teach you that if a man have
• 1:23:43
  long hair, it is a shame unto him.
• 1:23:46
  Now in Paul's day, in the Roman culture, short hair was the norm
• 1:23:51
  and so he's sharing the common culture.
• 1:23:54
  And if Paul and I'm just being silly here, if for Paul this was
• 1:23:58
  an eternal principle that long hair was a problem, would Paul
• 1:24:01
  be scandalized to see pictures of Jesus?
• 1:24:04
  The point is Paul is not scandalized by Jesus or by
• 1:24:08
  Jesus's hair. Paul was simply trying to help
• 1:24:11
  create unity in the ward at Corbin.
• 1:24:14
  He also addressed some issues about people speaking out of
• 1:24:17
  turn at church and he uses some, he uses some language that makes
• 1:24:23
  women feel that they're are not allowed to participate.
• 1:24:27
  And we have to be careful here because Paul was not trying to
• 1:24:30
  say we actually don't want women's voices.
• 1:24:32
  How often does Paul call out the women who support him like
• 1:24:35
  Phoebe. He even calls out a a woman
• 1:24:38
  junior who actually he says uses the word he's she's like an
• 1:24:42
  apostle in how she has been being a missionary.
• 1:24:46
  So Paul is actually very highminded about women.
• 1:24:50
  But in the ancient Greco Roman culture, men were seen to be
• 1:24:53
  head of the household, and how people within that household
• 1:24:56
  acted either brought glory to the home and the house and the
• 1:25:00
  family and the family name or shame.
• 1:25:02
  And there were expectations about in a public setting, how
• 1:25:06
  and when people talked. And so in that culture, if a
• 1:25:09
  woman spoke out of turn, it would bring shame to the family.
• 1:25:14
  We don't live in that kind of culture anymore, so women
• 1:25:17
  absolutely should be talking in church.
• 1:25:19
  All of us should when it's appropriate.
• 1:25:21
  I shouldn't be talking in the middle of sacrament, when people
• 1:25:23
  are trying to partake of the bread and water.
• 1:25:26
  And again, unity is about understanding cultural
• 1:25:30
  expectations and what brings peace and harmony and alignment
• 1:25:36
  with God and one another. And Paul was addressing very
• 1:25:39
  specific ways of doing it for his people.
• 1:25:42
  We should look at the principle where in our communities can we
• 1:25:45
  be unified. So we've had a lot to talk about
• 1:25:48
  here today. But more than anything, as we we
• 1:25:50
  conclude here, as we want you to know again how much God loves
• 1:25:54
  you, that these words have been preserved, to guide us and
• 1:25:57
  encourage us to feel His love. And to know that God is totally
• 1:26:01
  aware of who you are, where you're at in your life, and that
• 1:26:06
  His covenantal, Hassan and agape is always available for you.
• 1:26:11
  Thank you for all that you do to add to this collective body of
• 1:26:17
  of Saints and of children of God across the world.
• 1:26:20
  We're all benefited by that. May the Lord bless each of us to
• 1:26:24
  move forward, trusting more than ever before in God, putting our
• 1:26:29
  focus on the Savior, Jesus Christ, and trying to reflect
• 1:26:34
  more and more of His love and His goodness and His gifts to
• 1:26:39
  all of those around us. And we leave that with you.
• 1:26:42
  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.