Latest / Reformed Thinking / Doing All to the Glory of God: Christian Liberty, Love, and the Supreme End of Life (1 Corinthians 10:31)

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Doing All to the Glory of God: Christian Liberty, Love, and the Supreme End of Life (1 Corinthians 10:31) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reform Thinking. You know, I was walking through
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  a home Decor store the other day.
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  Oh yeah, yeah. And I saw something that just
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  perfectly illustrates the whole problem we are tackling today.
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  I think I can guess what kind of story you mean.
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  Right, one of those places with the farmhouse aesthetic.
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  Anyway, usually when we talk about a biblical command, there
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  is this, this expectation of precision in how we categorize
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  it. It functions like a legal code.
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  Sure you want clear boundaries, Yes.
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  You see a rule against stealing and the application is totally
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  binary. You seal or you do not steal.
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  It is clean. It is measurable.
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  Right. It is comforting because we like
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  things to be visible and easily categorized in our daily
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  routines. We we really like our boxes.
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  We do. We love having a checklist.
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  But then you step into the world, the First Corinthians
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  chapter 10 verse 31, and suddenly that need
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  categorization is just completely shattered.
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  It just blows the whole system up.
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  It does. We're looking at a theological
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  standard that is honestly terrifying.
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  Yet it is so easy to treat this specific verse as a simple
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  decorative motto. Which brings us back to the Home
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  Decor store. Spot on.
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  This is what I saw. It was painted on this beautiful
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  distressed wooden sign surrounded by, you know, painted
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  floral wreaths. It was designed to hang in a
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  farmhouse kitchen. When I guess the verse.
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  You already know it, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do
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  do all to the glory of God. Wow.
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  Yeah, painted right next to the coffee maker.
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  Right. We read that, we buy the sign,
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  we smile, and we just assume it is a nice, inspiring suggestion.
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  We think it just means to be a general force for good in the
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  world. That aesthetic treatment strips
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  the text of all its teeth. Honestly, it really does.
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  When you reduce it to a kitchen decoration, you strip away the
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  absolute supremacy it demands over human life.
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  Yeah, and today we are doing a deep dive into two specific
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  sources that absolutely refuse to let us get away with that
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  aesthetic treatment. Good.
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  We need that correction. We have a book called Doing All
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  to the Glory of God and another text titled The Majesty of the
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  Mundane. Those are heavy titles.
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  They are. Our mission today is to take
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  this one single verse and figure out why these authors believe it
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  is actually the most all consuming mandate in the
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  Christian Scriptures. That is a massive claim.
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  It is, they argue, that this single biblical sentence alters
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  how you eat your breakfast, how you swallow your water, how you
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  scroll on your smartphone, and how you handle the most
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  frustrating parts of your daily job.
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  It leaves absolutely no room for neutral ground.
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  None. So as we get into this, we have
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  a massive amount of ground to cover.
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  We really do. The scope of this deep dive will
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  require us to look backward into ancient history and then forward
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  into eternity. Where we even start?
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  Well, we are going to examine the ancient Greco Roman meat
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  markets of the 1st century. We have to understand the
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  immediate, visceral crisis the Apostle Paul was addressing.
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  Right, because it was not just a theory debate for them.
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  No, it was a daily crisis at the dinner table.
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  We will also breakdown the linguistic details of the
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  original Greek text. Looking at the specific verbs
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  and nouns chosen by the Holy Spirit.
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  Yes. Then we will look at the
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  theological errors this verse actively corrects, both in the
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  ancient church and in modern movements.
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  And then bring it down to earth for the listener.
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  Absolutely. Finally, we will look at the
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  daily applications for the modern believer.
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  We will take this ancient command and apply it to
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  everything from digital screens to midnight diaper changes.
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  The goal here is to understand how the glory of God governs the
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  entirety of human existence without any exception.
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  I am ready. Let's dig in.
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  OK, to understand the staggering weight of this verse, yeah, we
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  must first unlearn historical error about how human life is
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  categorized. That is a crucial first step.
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  And to do that, we have to look back at church history.
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  For hundreds of years, there's been a massive misunderstanding
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  regarding what actions please God and what actions are just,
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  you know, necessary physical functions.
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  You are talking about the sacred and secular divide.
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  I am We have to talk about the historical Roman Catholic
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  bifurcation of life. For centuries leading up to the
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  Protestant Reformation, there was a strict, unyielding
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  division between the sacred and the secular.
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  It was a literal caste system for spirituality.
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  It really was. Spiritual devotion was thought
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  to be restricted to very specific people in very specific
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  buildings. If you wanted to truly honor
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  God, you had to exit normal society.
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  You had to become a professional religious worker.
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  Right, you became a priest standing at a stone altar,
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  handling the elements of the Mass.
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  Or you became a monk, locked away in a monastery, copying
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  Latin texts and taking vows of extreme poverty.
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  That was viewed as the sacred tear of life.
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  You were the spiritual elite. Yes, the elite.
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  But if you were just a farmer plowing a muddy field, or a
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  blacksmith striking an anvil, or a mother cooking a meal for her
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  children, your daily labor was viewed as a lower tier,
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  unspiritual existence. You were just doing the secular
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  chores of a fallen world. Meanwhile, the professional
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  clergy did the holy work on your behalf.
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  That division completely poisoned the Christian mindset.
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  It created a 2 tiered system of morality and devotion that the
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  Bible simply does not support. Not at all.
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  The Protestant Reformation attack that false dichotomy with
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  the blazing light of Scripture. The Reformers looked at the
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  biblical text and realized that God claims ownership over the
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  entirety of the created order. Not just the architecture of a
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  cathedral. Right.
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  William Tyndale, the brilliant English martyr who translated
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  the Bible so that the plowboy in the field could read it, made a
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  massive assertion regarding this problem.
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  I love Tyndale, what did he say? Tyndale argued that if the
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  desire of the human heart is to please God, then the physical
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  act of pouring water, the act of washing dirty dishes, the act of
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  cobbling shoes, and the act of preaching the word of God but
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  from a pulpit are all fundamentally the same in the
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  eyes of heaven. Wow, that completely levels the
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  playing field. It does.
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  The biblical worldview refuses to chop life into fragmented
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  pieces. The pulpit is not the only place
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  where God receives worship. The dining room table is equally
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  an altar. Yes.
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  The blacksmith's anvil is an altar.
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  The mechanic's garage is an altar.
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  This completely destroys the idea that you have to escape
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  your normal everyday life to achieve holiness.
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  I want to propose an analogy to you listening right now, just to
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  see how heavily this two tiered system might still be operating
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  in your own mind. This is a great exercise.
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  Think about how you mentally organize your calendar.
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  Do you subconsciously divide your week into a Sunday
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  religious zone and a Monday through Friday secular zone?
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  I think most people do, honestly.
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  On Sunday morning, you wake up, you put on nice clothes, you sit
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  in a Pew, you sing hymns, you listen to a sermon, and you feel
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  that you are squarely in the sacred zone.
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  You are doing the things that honor God.
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  But then Monday morning rolls around.
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  The alarm goes off. You commute in heavy traffic.
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  You sit in a Gray cubicle. You answer mundane emails and
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  you feel like you have crossed the border into the secular
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  zone. It feels like God is left behind
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  in the church building. Yeah, you assume God is somewhat
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  indifferent to the spreadsheets you are typing or the groceries
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  you are buying at the supermarket.
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  That division, that mental compartmentalization, is the
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  error Tyndale was fighting against.
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  And it is a stubborn error to kill.
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  It is, and I want to push this further because our sources tie
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  this back to the fundamental condition of the human heart.
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  They'll look at John Calvin's diagnosis of human nature.
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  Oh, this is vital. Calvin famously said that the
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  human heart is a perpetual idol factory.
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  How does that diagnosis of our internal wiring relate to this
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  secular division we just discussed?
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  The connection is devastating when you really look at it.
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  Since the fall of humanity in the Garden of Eden, the natural
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  inclination of every single human being is to siphon glory
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  from the Creator and redirect it toward the creature.
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  So we are essentially glory thieves.
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  Are born as spiritual thieves, we naturally hoard the majesty
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  of God for our own self exaltation.
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  This points to the doctrine of total depravity.
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  Which means every part of us is affected.
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  Right. It means that every faculty of
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  the human soul, our mind, our will, our emotions, our desires,
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  is fundamentally bent inward. We are curved in on ourselves,
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  facing away from God and toward our own reflection.
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  We desperately want to be our own absolute reference point.
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  So when we create this secular zone in our minds, we are not
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  just making a scheduling distinction, we're actually
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  creating a reservation where our flesh can rule without divine
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  interference. Well, we are carving out an
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  autonomous state, yes. We say God, you can have Sunday
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  morning, but Monday through Friday belongs to me.
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  My career belongs to me, my bank account belongs to me, my
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  hobbies belong to me. That is the idol factory at
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  work. We set up an idol of human
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  autonomy. And we see this constantly in
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  our modern culture. The secular liturgy of the
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  modern tells you find yourself, live your truth, maximize your
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  personal comfort. You are enough.
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  I see those slogans everywhere. That messaging is a direct,
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  unfiltered symptom of the idol factory.
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  It places man at the absolute center of the universe and
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  treats the Almighty as a cosmic Butler.
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  A Butler whose only job is to facilitate our self fulfillment.
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  That is spot on. That is a staggering
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  realization. It means there is absolutely no
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  neutral ground in your day. Every square inch of your
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  existence is claimed by. Christ.
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  You are either actively aiming your actions at the glory of
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  God, or you are actively committing treven by aiming them
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  at your own self aggrandizement. There is no middle category.
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  No biological function, no financial transaction, no quiet
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  moment sitting alone in your living room flies under the
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  radar of God's sovereign claim. He cries mine over all of it.
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  It is an absolute claim. Now, this command to bring
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  everyday actions under divine authority did not happen in a
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  vacuum. It was the answer to a very
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  specific practical crisis in the ancient world.
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  The context is so helpful here. So let's look at the history.
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  Let's paint a picture of Corinth in the year 55 AD Corinth was a
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  cosmopolitan Roman colony. A.
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  Very strategic location. Yeah, it was a massive maritime
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  center situated right on an isthmus with two major seaports.
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  Lychem and Sankray Well flowed through the city like water.
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  And with that wealth came staggering moral bankruptcy.
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  Oh, absolutely. Looming high over the city was a
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  massive rock outcropping called the Acro Corinth, and sitting
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  right on top of it was the Temple of Aphrodite.
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  That temple cast a dark shadow over everything.
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  The historical records tell us that this temple boasted 1000
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  prostitutes who would flood down into the city streets every
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  single evening to ply their trade.
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  The culture was entirely saturated with polytheism,
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  aggressive sexual immorality, and intense intellectual pride.
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  Into that suffocating, oppressive Pagan atmosphere, you
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  have a small, predominantly Gentile church trying to figure
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  out how to live faithfully. And they ran into a major
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  roadblock. What was the specific conflict
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  Paul is addressing in First Corinthians chapters 8 through
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  10? It revolves around something
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  called the Masellam. This was the public meat market
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  located in the commercial center of Corinth.
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  OK, so just a normal butcher shop.
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  Far from it. In this society, almost all the
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  meat sold in the marketplace had previously been offered as a
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  blood sacrifice to Pagan idols in the temples.
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  It was religiously tainted, yes. A worshipper would bring an
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  animal, the Pagan priest would slaughter it, burn a portion on
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  the altar to a demon, keep a portion for himself, and then
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  sell the massive remaining carcass to the city butchers.
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  And the butchers would just turn a profit on it.
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  Right. They would wheel that meat down
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  the hill to the Masellum and sell it to the public.
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  This created an unavoidable daily nightmare for the
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  Christians. Because they needed to eat.
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  Yes. If you purchased meat to feed
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  your family, or if you attended a civic banquet, or if you just
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  accepted a dinner invitation from a Pagan neighbor, you were
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  coming into direct physical contact with the remnants of
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  demonic idolatry. You could not just go to the
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  local grocery store and buy ethically sourced neutral food.
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  The entire food supply chain of the city was hopelessly
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  intertwined with false worship. This issue also highlights a
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  massive covenantal shift in biblical history that we need to
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  understand. We have to look at the
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  dispensational shift that occurred between the Old
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  Testament and New Testament. Right to grasp why this meat
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  market was such a massive point of contention.
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  Under the Mosaic Law, national Israel was bound by the strict
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  dietary laws found in Leviticus Chapter 11.
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  God gave Israel highly specific regulations about what animals
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  they could and could not eat. Pork, shellfish and certain
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  birds were completely forbidden. The purpose of those laws was to
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  keep Israel physically, ceremonially and socially
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  separate from the wicked Canaanite nations surrounding
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  them. It was a physical wall.
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  And Israelite could not sit down and share a meal with a Pagan
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  because the food itself would render the Israelite
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  ceremonially unclean. But in the New Covenant,
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  something radical happened. Jesus Christ declared all foods
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  clean, which we see explicitly recorded in Mark Chapter 7 verse
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  19. And then we see it again with
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  Peter, right? Later in Acts chapter 10, God
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  gave the apostle Peter a vision of a sheet coming down from
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  heaven filled with unclean animals, and a voice told him to
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  kill and eat. That vision signified that the
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  Gentiles were now being brought into the church.
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  The ceremonial dietary laws were completely abolished.
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  The Church is a heavenly body made-up of both Jews and
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  Gentiles, not a geopolitical nation bound by the dietary
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  codes of Leviticus. Because of this, the believers
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  in Corinth possessed total theological liberty regarding
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  what they ate. They were free to eat anything.
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  But this is where I have to push back, or at least ask the
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  obvious question for you listening.
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  If they had total liberty and Jesus had already declared all
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  foods clean, why was there a crisis in the church?
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  That is the big question. Why is anyone fighting about a
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  stake in Corinth? Why did Paul need to write 3
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  entire chapters addressing this issue if the dietary laws were
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  already gone? The crisis occurred because
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  theological correctness was being weaponized.
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  Weaponized. How the Corinthian church was
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  fractured into two distinct groups on this issue.
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  You had the strong believers and the weak believers.
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  OK, let's break those down. The strong believers had a
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  perfectly accurate theological understanding of the situation.
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  They knew that an idol was just a piece of carved wood or
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  lifeless stone. They knew Zeus wasn't real.
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  Right. They knew that demons did not
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  actually own the meat. They understood their new
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  covenant liberty completely, but they were using that theological
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  accuracy as a club to batter the consciences of the weak
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  believers. And who are the weak believers?
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  The weak believers were the people who had recently been
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  saved out of this horrific Corinthian paganism.
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  For them, the smell of that meat roasting brought back a flood of
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  traumatic memories. Memories of temple prostitution,
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  demonic worship, and their old spiritually dead lives.
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  Yes, their consciences were wounded by the very sight of it.
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  So when a strong believer brazenly sat down and ate idle
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  meat right in front of a weak believer shouting about their
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  glorious liberty in Christ, they were devastating the faith of
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  their brother. The strong were completely
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  lacking in pastoral love. They preferred their right to
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  eat a cheap, delicious cut of meat over the spiritual survival
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  of the person sitting next to them in the gathering.
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  So to see how Paul resolves this meat market conflict, we have to
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  trace the logical flow leading up to the climax in verse 31.
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  He builds this case very carefully.
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  The argument does not start in chapter 10, it builds steadily
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  from chapter 8. So Paul spends 3 chapters
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  basically dismantling their arrogance, which makes verse 31
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  hit so much harder. He isn't just giving them a new
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  rule, he's giving them an ultimatum based on a long,
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  sustained argument. Let's trace that.
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  Paul's opening argument in Chapter 8 establishes a sharp
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  contrast between knowledge and love.
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  He points out that the strong believers are puffed up by their
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  correct theology. Knowledge, when isolated from
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  humility and charity, simply inflates the ego.
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  But love builds up the church. Paul grants them their
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  theological point. Yes, idols are fake and there is
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  only one true God. However, he immediately
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  undercuts their pride. He points out that not everyone
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  possesses the strong conscience. If you're a careless exercise of
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  liberty causes a weaker brother to stumble back into sin, you
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  are sinning against Christ Himself.
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  Theological correctness without pastoral love is destructive.
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  It is a deadly poison inside the Covenant community.
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  The progression continues directly into Chapter 9.
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  How does Paul use his own life as the ultimate illustration of
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  this principle? Paul uses his own Apostolic
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  rights to make the point. He outlines them clearly for the
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  church. He had the right to receive
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  financial support from the congregations he planted.
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  He had the right to marry a believing wife and bring her
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  along on his missionary travels. And he had the right to eat
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  whatever he pleased. These were legitimate biblical
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  liberties granted by God, but Paul voluntarily and
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  aggressively forfeited all of them for the sake of the gospel.
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  He refused financial support in Corinth so that no one could
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  accuse him of preaching just to get rich.
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  He subjected his own body to severe discipline.
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  He compared himself to a dedicated Greek athlete training
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  for a prize in the Ismian Games. He beat his body and made it his
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  slave. He did all of this so that he
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  might win more people to Christ. He is proving to the arrogant
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  Corinthians that the Christian life is not about discovering
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  how close to the line of sin you can walk.
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  Nor is it about aggressively demanding your personal rights.
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  It is about radical, joyful self denial.
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  Then we hit chapter 10, where Paul brings the hammer down with
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  a terrifying warning from the Old Testament.
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  He points the Corinthians back to the wilderness generation of
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  Israel. Those ancient Israelites
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  experienced the miraculous provision of God first hand.
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  They had spiritual meat and spiritual drink.
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  They passed through the Red Sea on dry ground.
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  They had immense spiritual privileges.
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  Yet despite all those incredible blessings, they fell into
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  idolatry, they lusted after evil things, and they died in the
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  desert. Their corpses were literally
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  scattered across the wilderness sand.
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  Paul uses this brutal history to shatter any false security the
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  Corinthians might have. He warns them that spiritual
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  privilege does not grant immunity from divine discipline.
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  He absolutely forbids them from participating in the actual idol
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  feasts in the temples. He states that you cannot drink
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  the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons simultaneously.
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  Then he pivots back to the more nuanced issue of buying meat in
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  the public market or eating at a neighbor's house.
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  The synthesis of this entire three chapter progression is
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  vital for understanding our main text.
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  True strength in the Christian life is not demanding your
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  rights. True strength is willingly
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  surrendering your legitimate rights for the spiritual good of
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  others. The strong Corinthian believers
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  thought maturity looked like fearlessly eating whatever they
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  wanted because they had the correct theology in their heads.
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  Paul says maturity actually looks like putting your fork
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  down, looking at the vulnerable believer sitting across the
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  table and choosing to limit your own freedom so that their faith
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  is protected. That is the massive, logical
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  runway that leads directly to the soaring crescendo of verse
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  31. The command to do all to the
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  glory of God is the ultimate solution to a church that was
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  tearing itself apart over personal liberties.
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  It resets their entire focus. And that logical runway brings
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  us right to the concluding rule Paul establishes in verse 31.
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  I was reading the source notes on the original Greek language
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  here and it is fascinating. The grammar reveals a lot.
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  Because this is not just a nice English translation.
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  The syntax of the original Greek text reveals A structural trap
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  that catches every single human action.
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  Let's break down the Greek block diagram.
• 20:02
  The verse starts with a parallel structure 8 on estate 8 pineta
• 20:07
  translated. That is, whether you eat,
• 20:09
  whether you drink. This targets the immediate meat
• 20:11
  market context perfectly. Right.
• 20:14
  Eating and drinking are the most basic, unavoidable biological
• 20:17
  necessities. Paul is taking the most
• 20:20
  frequent, seemingly mundane acts of human life and placing them
• 20:24
  under a microscope. He is telling them that even the
• 20:27
  act of consuming physical calories to stay alive must be
• 20:31
  treated as the liturgical event. But Paul does not stop at the
• 20:34
  dining table. After addressing the eating and
• 20:37
  drinking, he introduces a massive catch all clause.
• 20:40
  He writes ATI Poetti, which translates to or whatever you
• 20:44
  do. This is an aggressive,
• 20:45
  inescapable phrase. It sweeps up absolutely
• 20:48
  everything outside of eating and drinking.
• 20:50
  Work, hobbies, spending money, having conversations, sleeping,
• 20:53
  recreational activities. There are no loopholes in the
• 20:56
  phrase whatever you do. The Greek word panta, meaning
• 20:59
  all things, forces the reader to acknowledge that the scope of
• 21:02
  God's lordship is total. It leaves the believer with 0
• 21:05
  neutral ground. You cannot say well, my theology
• 21:08
  is sound and I sing lively on Sundays, so my business
• 21:11
  practices on Thursday afternoon are my own business.
• 21:13
  The Holy Spirit explicitly denies you that autonomy.
• 21:17
  Every action is funneled directly into the dominant
• 21:19
  clause of the sentence. Do all to the glory of God.
• 21:22
  Let's investigate that word glory in the secular Greek
• 21:26
  culture of the 1st century. The word used here was doxa.
• 21:30
  Yes, Doxa. If you read classical Greco
• 21:32
  Roman literature, the word doxa typically meant a mere opinion,
• 21:36
  a conjecture, or the fleeting reputation of a mortal man.
• 21:41
  To the Pagan mind, glory was incredibly fragile.
• 21:44
  A Roman politician might seek daksa by building a monument or
• 21:47
  funding gladiator games. But it depended entirely on the
• 21:50
  applause of the crowd. If people liked you, you had
• 21:53
  glory. If they turned on you, your
• 21:55
  glory vanished overnight. But the Holy Spirit does
• 21:58
  something incredible here. He takes that secular Greek word
• 22:01
  and fills it with the terrifying weight of the Old Testament
• 22:04
  Hebrew word kabod. And what does kabod mean?
• 22:06
  The word kabod changes the entire equation.
• 22:09
  In Hebrew, kabod refers to heaviness, substance, and
• 22:12
  terrifying majesty. It is the visible manifestation
• 22:16
  of all God's invisible attributes.
• 22:18
  Think about Mount Sinai, where the Israelites begged Moses to
• 22:22
  make the voice stop because the physical weight of God's
• 22:25
  presence was lethal to sinful men.
• 22:27
  That is kabod. Now we cannot add a single oz to
• 22:31
  the intrinsic glory of God. We cannot make Him more glorious
• 22:34
  than He already is. It's like shining a small
• 22:36
  flashlight at the sun. It does not add to the
• 22:38
  brightness of the sun. When Paul commands us to do all
• 22:42
  to the glory of God, he is not asking us to run a public
• 22:45
  relations campaign to boost God's fragile reputation.
• 22:48
  He is demanding that we reflect His heavy, unalterable worth.
• 22:53
  We are to be mirrors, angled precisely to catch the blazing
• 22:56
  light of God's character and reflected into a Dark World.
• 22:59
  When we act with holiness, justice and love, we are making
• 23:03
  the invisible character of God visible to the people around us.
• 23:06
  I was reading the source notes on the Greek here and made a
• 23:09
  massive deal out of this specific verb Paul chose for do.
• 23:12
  It's not just a passive autopilot kind of doing right.
• 23:15
  The author made it sound like an active engineering.
• 23:17
  Yes, the distinction in the Greek verbs is vital for how we
• 23:20
  live our daily lives. Can you unpack what the original
• 23:23
  language is actually saying there?
• 23:25
  In Greek syntax, the common verb prasso often implies A mindless
• 23:29
  passive routine. It is the kind of doing that
• 23:31
  happens on autopilot. Like tying your shoes.
• 23:34
  You tie your shoes, you commute to work, you perform habitual
• 23:37
  emotions without engaging your higher brain functions.
• 23:40
  But Paul deliberately bypasses Brasso and uses the present
• 23:44
  active imperative form of poyo, which is poyate.
• 23:48
  And what is the nuance of Poyate?
• 23:50
  This verb carries the distinct nuance of actively producing,
• 23:54
  creating, or engineering a specific outcome.
• 23:58
  Paul is not telling the Corinthians to just passively
• 24:01
  drift through their meals or their jobs.
• 24:04
  He is commanding a highly intentional lifestyle.
• 24:07
  You have to actively engineer your actions to produce the
• 24:10
  outcome of God's glory. It takes focus.
• 24:12
  I want to speak directly to you listening.
• 24:14
  You're not allowed to run your day on autopilot.
• 24:17
  You must deliberately engineer your actions to produce an
• 24:19
  outcome of worship. When you sit down at your desk,
• 24:22
  you cannot just passively type on a keyboard to get to 5:00.
• 24:25
  You have to consciously think, how do I execute this secific
• 24:29
  task in a way that reflects the recision, the integrity and the
• 24:33
  majesty of my Creator? When you interact with a
• 24:36
  difficult neighbor, you cannot just react with passive
• 24:39
  annoyance. You must actively produce a
• 24:41
  response that mirrors the patience and grace of God.
• 24:44
  This is an all consuming demand on your mental and physical
• 24:47
  energy. Because this standard is so
• 24:50
  absolute, it actively confronts and corrects errors within the
• 24:53
  Church, both ancient and modern. The sources point out six broad
• 24:57
  errors that this single verse decimates.
• 25:00
  It's funny because when you try to live this out, there are two
• 25:03
  massive ditches you can fall into on either side of the road.
• 25:06
  Let's talk about the first ditch.
• 25:07
  You either get super strict and fall into legalism which is
• 25:09
  reducing morality to man made taboos and external rule
• 25:13
  keeping. You can be externally strict,
• 25:15
  avoiding all the bad things, and yet still live entirely for your
• 25:18
  own reputation or spiritual pride.
• 25:21
  Rule keeping done for self glory is still rebellion.
• 25:23
  Or you swing the completely opposite way into antinomianism.
• 25:27
  This is a theological term for claiming freedom while detaching
• 25:30
  it from holiness. It is the idea that because
• 25:33
  grace abounds, we can live however we want without
• 25:36
  consequences, But freedom detached from love and holiness
• 25:39
  is highly destructive. Right.
• 25:41
  And another massive ditch is compartmentalization, which we
• 25:44
  touched on earlier. This is the selective devotion
• 25:47
  that treats religion as a Sunday morning activity while keeping
• 25:50
  the daily routines of the workweek entirely untouched by
• 25:53
  divine claims. And then you have loveless
• 25:56
  orthodoxy. This was the specific sin of the
• 26:00
  strong believers in Corinth. They had the right doctrine, but
• 26:03
  they weaponized it against charity.
• 26:06
  Orthodoxy severed from love is severely disordered
• 26:09
  Christianity. And underneath all of this is
• 26:11
  practical idolatry. You do not need to bow before a
• 26:15
  carved wooden statue to commit idolatry.
• 26:17
  Whenever your appetite, your desire for social acceptance, or
• 26:21
  your demand for personal comfort governs your conduct more than
• 26:23
  God's honor, your heart is functioning idolatrously.
• 26:26
  You are placing A lesser thing on the throne of.
• 26:28
  Your heart and all of those errors stem from the root issue,
• 26:31
  self-centered Christianity. This is the mindset that treats
• 26:34
  God as a means to personal fulfillment.
• 26:37
  People evaluate their choices by asking what pleases them, what
• 26:40
  protects them, or what advances their career.
• 26:43
  But do all to the glory of God means the self is never the
• 26:47
  proper end of any action. God is the end.
• 26:50
  Those six errors plague every single generation of the Church,
• 26:54
  but the author of our second source takes this a step further
• 26:57
  and applies this absolute standard to critique specific
• 27:02
  modern movements. This is where the application
• 27:04
  gets very direct. Right.
• 27:05
  And here's where we need to state something very clearly.
• 27:08
  The author of our second source applies this biblical standard
• 27:12
  to critique several prominent modern movements.
• 27:15
  To be clear to you listening, we're simply mapping out the
• 27:18
  author's argument here to understand their perspective,
• 27:20
  not taking a side on these cultural or political debates.
• 27:23
  We are impartially reporting the author's argument based on their
• 27:26
  interpretation of the text. The author argues that First
• 27:29
  Corinthians 10/31 functions as a devastating theological weapon
• 27:32
  against several modern trends. Let's list them. 1st the author
• 27:36
  argues this verse refutes the prosperity gospel.
• 27:39
  The prosperity gospel treats Jesus as a mechanism to achieve
• 27:43
  man's glory, promising wealth, health and earthly success.
• 27:47
  The author contends that this blasphemously reverses the
• 27:50
  biblical order. Man is a means to achieve God's
• 27:53
  glory. God is not a means to achieve
• 27:56
  man's wealth. The author also argues that this
• 27:59
  text demolishes Arminianism. In the author's view, God alone
• 28:03
  saves monergistically. Let's make sure that word is
• 28:05
  clear. Think of it this way.
• 28:07
  Synergism is throwing a drowning man a life preserver and asking
• 28:10
  him to grab it. Monergism is diving to the
• 28:13
  bottom of the ocean to rescue a dead corpse and breathing life
• 28:16
  back into it without any help from the corpse.
• 28:19
  That is a perfect analogy. The author argues that God
• 28:21
  raises dead sinners to life without human cooperation.
• 28:24
  Because God does all the saving. God alone gets all the
• 28:27
  comprehensive glory. If human free will were the
• 28:29
  decisive factor in salvation, man would share in the glory,
• 28:32
  which the author argues directly violates the command of the
• 28:35
  text. The author also argues that this
• 28:37
  verse rejects the seeker, sensitive and pragmatist
• 28:40
  movements. These are church models that
• 28:42
  design worship services based on demographic polling, consumer
• 28:46
  preferences, and marketing strategies.
• 28:48
  The author argues that when a church attempts to be relevant
• 28:51
  by mimicking the culture, it robs God of His glory.
• 28:55
  The Church is an assembly gathered to ascribe worth to the
• 28:58
  Sovereign Lord, not a business aiming for customer
• 29:01
  satisfaction. Finally, the author argues that
• 29:03
  this text confronts critical race theory and woke ideology.
• 29:07
  The author claims that these modern frameworks demand viewing
• 29:11
  human interaction through a lens of demographic division, ethnic
• 29:14
  grievance, and intersectionality.
• 29:16
  In contrast, the author argues that the biblical text demands
• 29:19
  viewing absolutely everything through the single, unifying,
• 29:22
  transcendent lens of God's glory.
• 29:24
  That is the author's the primary critique.
• 29:26
  Looking at the logic the author is employing here, I have to ask
• 29:29
  how does applying a 1st century text about idle meat to 21st
• 29:33
  century social theories actually work mechanically?
• 29:36
  How does the author bridge that massive historical gap?
• 29:38
  The author bridges the gap by focusing on the core premise of
• 29:41
  Paul's command, the absolute supremacy of God's character
• 29:45
  over human preference. So it is about the underlying
• 29:47
  principle. Exactly.
• 29:49
  The author's logic is that any framework, whether it is an
• 29:52
  ancient Pagan meat market or a modern social, that places human
• 29:56
  identity, personal liberty, or consumer preference above the
• 29:59
  magnification of God's character is fundamentally incompatible
• 30:03
  with the Christian mandate. If a social theory defines you
• 30:06
  primarily by your earthly demographics, the author argues,
• 30:10
  it violates the command to find your identity and purpose solely
• 30:14
  in reflecting God's glory. The standard is universal.
• 30:18
  Any ideology that fragments humanity into competing
• 30:21
  grievance groups or elevates human satisfaction over divine
• 30:24
  worship is crushed by the weight of the phrase.
• 30:27
  Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
• 30:30
  Wait. Hold.
• 30:30
  On I need to stop and process this.
• 30:32
  It is a lot to take in. Because if that is the standard
• 30:34
  that every e-mail I send, every meal I eat, and every thought I
• 30:38
  have has to perfectly, actively engineer the blazing majesty of
• 30:42
  God, then I am completely condemned.
• 30:44
  No human being can survive that standard.
• 30:47
  If I am honest, my motives are constantly mixed.
• 30:51
  I seek my own comfort. I want the applause of my peers.
• 30:54
  I fail this standard before I even get out of bed in the
• 30:57
  morning. We all do.
• 30:58
  If First Corinthians 10/31 is just a law standing over us, it
• 31:02
  sentences every person listening right now to hell.
• 31:07
  We have to address the massive theological dilemma here.
• 31:09
  We absolutely do. Romans chapter 3 verse 23
• 31:13
  explicitly states that all have sinned and fall short of the
• 31:17
  glory of God. We are spiritually bankrupt when
• 31:20
  it comes to producing this glory on our own.
• 31:22
  We need a substitute. This is where the glorious light
• 31:25
  of the Gospel breaks through the absolute despair of the Law.
• 31:28
  We must introduce the concept of Christ's active obedience.
• 31:32
  This is such a crucial doctrine. Jesus Christ is the only man in
• 31:35
  the history of the world who perfectly Florida State
• 31:37
  fulfilled First Corinthians 10/31 In his incarnation, Christ
• 31:42
  lived a life of flawless devotion.
• 31:43
  When he woke up, his first thought was the glory of the
• 31:46
  Father. When he ate a meal, he did so
• 31:48
  with perfect gratitude. When he spoke, His words were
• 31:52
  perfectly calibrated to reflect divine truth.
• 31:55
  In John chapter 4 verse 34, Jesus explicitly states My food
• 31:59
  is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his
• 32:02
  work. Every step he took, every breath
• 32:05
  he drew was perfectly ordered to the glory of God.
• 32:08
  He did not have a single moment of self-centered rebellion.
• 32:11
  And the staggering beauty of the gospel is that his perfect
• 32:14
  record is imputed to the believer.
• 32:16
  Think of it like a credit score. You have a spiritual credit
• 32:19
  score of absolute 0. You are bankrupt.
• 32:22
  Completely bankrupt. But when you put your faith in
• 32:25
  Christ, God takes the flawless, perfect, glory giving record of
• 32:29
  Jesus and credits it to your bankrupt account.
• 32:32
  When God looks at you, He does not see your mixed motives or
• 32:36
  your selfish Tuesday mornings. He sees the perfect obedience of
• 32:39
  His Son, but it does not stop at His active obedience.
• 32:42
  We also have to look at His passive obedience.
• 32:44
  Right Christ passive obedience refers to his work on the cross.
• 32:48
  On the cross, Jesus willingly absorbed the infinite wrath of
• 32:51
  God that we rightly deserve for our selfish, self glorifying
• 32:54
  lives. We took the majesty of God and
• 32:57
  traded it for cheap idols, and the penalty for that cosmic
• 33:00
  treason is eternal death. Christ paid that penalty in
• 33:04
  full. The cross is the ultimate zenith
• 33:07
  of God's glory, the place where His perfect justice against sin
• 33:11
  and His incomprehensible mercy towards sinners meet perfectly.
• 33:14
  Because of Christ's active and passive obedience, the believer
• 33:18
  is fully justified. The crushing weight of the law
• 33:21
  is lifted off our shoulders. There is a brilliant scriptural
• 33:25
  cross reference that our sources bring up here which ties this
• 33:28
  all together so perfectly. Look at Colossians chapter 3,
• 33:31
  verse 17. It's direct parallel.
• 33:33
  It commands believers, and whatever you do in Word or deed,
• 33:37
  do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.
• 33:39
  Doing all the God's glory is completely synonymous with
• 33:42
  acting in the name of Jesus. This preves the divine nature of
• 33:45
  Christ. You cannot act in the name of a
• 33:47
  mere human and simultaneously fulfill a command to glorify the
• 33:50
  Almighty God. Jesus is the exact imprint of
• 33:53
  God's nature. So because the believer is
• 33:55
  covered by Christ's perfection, this law now changes its
• 33:59
  function. It is no longer a hammer that
• 34:01
  condemns us to hell. It becomes a joyful rule of
• 34:04
  life. How does that look practically
• 34:06
  today? This brings us to the
• 34:08
  confessional concept known as the third use of the law.
• 34:12
  In reformed theology, the law has three uses.
• 34:15
  The first use is civil. It is meant to restrain societal
• 34:18
  evil by threatening punishment. The second use is pedagogical.
• 34:22
  It acts as a mirror, showing us our sin and driving us to Christ
• 34:26
  for salvation and absolute despair.
• 34:28
  But the third use is for the justified believer.
• 34:31
  Once you were saved by grace, the law becomes a guide for
• 34:34
  grateful obedience. You do not obey First
• 34:36
  Corinthians 10/31 to earn your salvation.
• 34:39
  You obey it because you have been saved and you want to thank
• 34:42
  the God who rescued you from death.
• 34:44
  The law illuminates the path of holiness, it shows us how to
• 34:48
  please the Father we now love, and the application of this is
• 34:51
  incredibly practical. Extremely practical.
• 34:53
  Let's talk about digital stewardship.
• 34:54
  The sources bring up a staggering statistic.
• 34:56
  The average adult spends over 7 hours a day on digital screens.
• 35:01
  7 hours. That is a terrifying number, I
• 35:03
  mean. Look at my screen time last
• 35:05
  week. If God is evaluating my hours on
• 35:07
  social media to see if I am actively engineering His glory,
• 35:11
  I am serious trouble. Well, I want to challenge you
• 35:14
  listening right now. How many of those scrolling
• 35:16
  hours are actively engineered to honor God?
• 35:20
  If God demands dominion over the ancient meat you eat, he
• 35:23
  certainly demands dominion over the modern media you consume.
• 35:26
  We have taken the greatest communication tools in human
• 35:29
  history and often squandered them on the altar of self
• 35:32
  amusement. This text calls for radical
• 35:35
  repentance regarding our screen time.
• 35:37
  We have to evaluate every app, every show, and every digital
• 35:41
  interaction through the lens of God's honor.
• 35:43
  The sources provide fantastic specific examples of what this
• 35:46
  looks like in daily vocations. Think about a mother waking up
• 35:49
  at 3:00 in the morning to change a dirty diaper.
• 35:51
  The culture tells her that she is missing out, that she is
• 35:55
  trapped in a mundane secular chore that does not matter.
• 35:58
  But under the banner of this verse, that mother, doing her
• 36:02
  duty with a joyful heart unto the Lord, is engaging in
• 36:05
  acceptable worship. She is reflecting the care and
• 36:08
  Providence of God to that child. Think of the software engineer
• 36:12
  who refuses to cut corners and writes code with absolute
• 36:15
  integrity even when no one is watching.
• 36:18
  That engineer is reflecting the truthfulness and order of God.
• 36:21
  The mechanic who repairs an engine with excellence, knowing
• 36:25
  that God sees the unseen parts of that machine, is functioning
• 36:28
  as a priest in the temple of the living God.
• 36:31
  The drudgery of the workweek is completely altered into a
• 36:34
  liturgy of praise. Look at your own job.
• 36:37
  Look at your daily chores. When you are folding laundry.
• 36:40
  When you are balancing a spreadsheet.
• 36:42
  When you are mowing the lawn. Those moments are not drudgery,
• 36:45
  they are the primary venue for your spiritual life.
• 36:48
  You do not need to wait for a church service to worship.
• 36:51
  You have a platform for worship right now and whatever task is
• 36:54
  sitting in front of you. And we must tie this present
• 36:56
  obedience to the future eschatological horizon.
• 36:59
  The sources conclude with a vital theological point
• 37:02
  regarding the future hope. This relentless obedience in the
• 37:05
  mundane tasks of life is directly tied to the return of
• 37:09
  Christ. The others operate from a
• 37:11
  premillennial, pre tribulational perspective.
• 37:14
  They argue that believers are waiting for the imminent return
• 37:17
  of the bridegroom. We are not building a permanent
• 37:20
  earthly Kingdom. We are living as citizens of
• 37:23
  heaven while we wait for the King to return and establish his
• 37:26
  reign. And when Christ returns, every
• 37:29
  believer will stand before the bean, a seat of Christ.
• 37:32
  This is not a judgement for salvation that was settled
• 37:34
  forever at the cross. This is an evaluation of our
• 37:37
  earthly works. At that judge and seat, your
• 37:39
  mundane actions will be tested by fire.
• 37:42
  The hours you spent at your desk.
• 37:43
  The meals you ate. The words you spoke to your
• 37:46
  spouse. Will those actions be revealed
• 37:48
  as wood, hay and stubble? Things done for your own
• 37:50
  self-interest, which will burn up instantly.
• 37:52
  Or will the endure as gold, silver and precious stones
• 37:56
  forged in the furnace of a desire for God's glory?
• 37:59
  That eternal perspective changes how you handle a random Tuesday
• 38:02
  afternoon. It strips away the illusion that
• 38:04
  our private choices do not matter.
• 38:06
  Every hidden motive will be brought into the blazing light.
• 38:09
  When we understand that our fleeting earthly existence is
• 38:12
  being weighed on eternal scales, it crushes our apathy.
• 38:16
  We realize that we do not have centuries to squander.
• 38:19
  We are called to aggressively pursue excellence in the
• 38:22
  smallest details, knowing that our audience is not our earthly
• 38:25
  boss, our spouse, or our peers. Our audience is the creative
• 38:29
  creator of the universe, and He is worthy of every breath we
• 38:32
  take. Tomorrow morning when you wake
• 38:34
  up, before the rush of the day begins, I want you to ask
• 38:37
  yourself a question. When you sit down for your first
• 38:40
  meal or open your laptop for work, ask yourself, if someone
• 38:43
  could only watch my habits and my routines, whose glory would
• 38:46
  they assume I am living for? Thank you for joining this deep
• 38:50
  dive on reformed thinking.