Dig Deeper:
THERE'S ONLY ONE WAY: Currently 'diversity' seems to be the theme of the day, and certainly it's a good thing to seek to inject new opinions, ideas and thoughts into how we do things in society. But one place that has absolutely no room for diversity is the doctrines of grace that the Bible teaches. Yet Satan, who is described in v14 not as a scary devilish monster, but rather as one camouflaged as an attractive beacon of light, is constantly working to derail people by changing the meaning of the gospel. Sometimes he does this with outright attacks on what the Bible teaches, but most of the time he does this very subtly and over a long enough period of time that a person doesn't even realize they've let go of the true gospel.
You need to constantly be testing what people say about Jesus and salvation by comparing it with God's Word yourself, which means you need to be reading God's Word yourself often.
SUMMER RERUNS: This isn't the first time we've seen Paul list the reasons he has apostolic authority over the Corinthian church, but one of the reasons he needs to remind us of this so often is that his credentials are so different from what we might expect. There is nothing attractive about the things Paul boasts about in himself: he's an unskilled speaker (the Greek word he uses in v6 is literally idiot), he hasn't made a penny as a preacher, rather he's had to do menial labor to pay for his room and board, and everywhere he goes ends in some sort of disaster: beatings, imprisonments or shipwrecks. The 'super apostles (v5)' that were coming into churches Paul had planted after Paul left offered a much better looking product to these brand new Christians, but most of the time they diverted attention from the true gospel and focused on themselves instead.
Just like the Corinthians, we are attracted to successful, polished, slick people who seem to have it all put together. Many churches have experienced massive growth not because of the gospel message they preach, but because of their awesome programs and high energy, well produced services housed in state of the art auditoriums. It is critically important that you are part of a church that preaches the pure gospel, and that you continually keep it accountable to what you read in scripture.
Follow the AAA Prayer Pattern:
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our God and Father of the Lord Jesus (v31)
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Know the Bible well and use it as the standard by which you judge all things.
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
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