Read 1 Corinthians 10.23-33. What’s the primary implication of this text for you today?
1 Corinthians 10.31 is the heartbeat of this section. What’s the purpose of this statement to the Corinthian Church? What’s the primary implication of this statement for our Faith Family, and for you and your family?
Note an example of someone you know who fully lives out the truth of verse 31. How does their example encourage you? How does it challenge you?
The Corinthian Christians were mostly interested in “knowledge and rights.” Paul wants them to express their faith through “love and freedom.” What’s the difference between these two ideals?
In what aspects of your daily life do you sense a bend toward “knowledge and rights?” How are you growing in your daily expressions of “love and freedom?”
In your own words. define self-righteousness.
Read and reflect on the words of Richard Foster, “Self-righteous service comes through human effort. It expends immense amounts of energy calculating and scheming how to render the service…True service comes from a relationship with the divine Other deep inside. We serve out of whispered promptings, divine urgings.”
How are you growing to recognize your own temptation toward self-righteousness? How are you being freed from this burden?
There are times when we as Christians may be unsure what action or belief or relationship is best. Below are five questions and five corresponding Scriptural truths to help us know how best to live in freedom and love
1. Will this lead to freedom or slavery?
“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything. – 1 Corinthians 6.12
2. Will this make me a stumbling block or a stepping stone?
Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall. – 1 Corinthians 8.13
3. Will this build me up or tear me down?
“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive. – 1 Corinthians 10.23
4. Will this only please me or will it cause others to glorify Christ?
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. – 1 Corinthians 10.31
5. Will this help to win the lost to Christ or turn them away?
Even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved. – 1 Corinthians 10.33
How could these questions and Scriptural truths help guide the way you act privately and publicly?
In your own words, define the “glory of God.”
Read Psalm 19.1; 29.1-2 and Habakkuk 2.14. How do you see the “glory of God” in creation?
Read and reflect on John Piper’s description of the glory of God: “The public display of the infinite beauty and worth of God…I believe the glory of God is the going public of his infinite worth. I define the holiness of God as the infinite value of God, the infinite intrinsic worth of God. And when that goes public in creation, the heavens are telling the glory of God, and human beings are manifesting his glory, because we’re created in his image, and we’re trusting his promises so that we make him look gloriously trustworthy.”
How does this definition encourage you as you consider verse 1 Corinthians 10.31?
What was the relationship between the Israelites and the glory of God?
Read John 1.1-14. Jesus is His glory. Jesus is the public display of infinite beauty. How do you see the glory of God in Jesus?
Read John 17.20-22. What is Jesus actually praying for here?
Read and reflect on the words of C.S. Lewis. “It may be asked what practical use there is in the speculations which I have been indulging. I can think of at least one such use. It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.” – C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
Read 2 Corinthians 3.18. How are you sensing God at work in you transforming you into His image “with ever-increasing glory”?
Spend a few moments asking God to continue to reveal His glory to you, in you, and through you.
