Monday Morning Coffee with Mark

Daily Bible Reading, Week 17

April 25, 2022 Mark Roberts Season 2 Episode 17
Monday Morning Coffee with Mark
Daily Bible Reading, Week 17
Show Notes Transcript

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Welcome to the Westside church’s special Monday Morning Coffee podcast with Mark Roberts. Mark is a disciple, a husband, father and grand dad, as well as a certified coffee geek, fan of CS Lewis’ writings and he loves his big red Jeep. He’s also the preacher for Westside church.

Speaker 1:

Hello, and welcome to the Westside churches special Monday Morning Coffee podcast on this podcast, our preacher Mark Roberts will help you get your week started right. With look back at yesterday's sermon so that we can think through it further and better work the applications into our daily lives. Mark will then look forward into this week's Bible reading so that we can know what to expect and watch for. And, he may have some extra bonus thoughts from time to time. So grab a cup of coffee as we start the week together on Monday Morning Coffee with Mark.

Speaker 2:

Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to the Monday morning coffee podcast for April the 25th. I'm mark, and you need a tight grip on your cup of coffee this morning. I a ton of great stuff, some extra bonus stuff for you today. Then we're diving into daily Bible reading. It's all happening right now. Let's get started. So what about some sermon notes from yesterday? Uh, can't do that. I did not preach at west side. You yesterday was out of the pulpit as Denna and I enjoy a little R and R we'll be back this Sunday, may the first wanted to talk about that more on Friday when we get there, but instead of doing sermon notes, since I can't give you sermon notes, what if I give you, what if I give you some podcast notes? I know that you are enjoying this podcast and that means you probably would enjoy some other really good podcast. So I'm just gonna give you a couple of these that you might wanna look into and see if they can help you as you serve the Lord. Here's a couple of these. These are all podcasts by good brethren. Most of these guys I know personally. And of course, what that means is you can just listen to these without any discernment of any kind, because I'm giving them the good housekeeping seal of Nope. Nope, Nope. Don't ever listen to anything, including this podcast, without discernment, we test all things by the scriptures. We always wanna have the Breean attitude act 17, v erse 11, but I do deem these m en to be reliable. And I think they're worth a recommendation. So let's get started with that. How a bout h ow Hammond's podcast, citizen of heaven. He does a really good job there. Adam s hanks is new to podcasting. I don't know him, but I have enjoyed listening to his pre impediments podcast. He'll do a word study there on some terms that are often Bandi about, or maybe we find h im in our Bible, but we don't ever really sit down and think about what exactly does that term mean? He has a number of episodes under his belt already think you would do well to listen to that. B rian S y i s someone I did a podcast with. I was interviewed with him on Jared Bowman's man up podcast would highly recommend that, but I don't know, Brian personally, at least not very well, but his set your mind above is an excellent podcast that is really helping people out. Then Jeff O reer has a great podcast called working with the word. You would enjoy that as well. Jared Bowman's podcast, man, up primarily coming from a male perspective, but not always doing just man related issues. I was on his podcast a couple of weeks ago, talking about the book of revelation and some of the material that I've done about apocalyptic literature. I think you would like Jared's podcast very much. Then finally, Ben Lee, my good friend up in Louisville at the west main church of Christ. He has a podcast entitled I can do with Ben Lee or are Ben Lee. And that podcast is not just about spiritual things, but about exercise and other matters that are on Ben's mind as he leads people to have a more productive and more meaningful life. So there you go. There's some podcasts that you might wanna check into along with this podcast, the Monday morning coffee podcast, those can help you and podcast has to just work in so many ways. They are great when we're commuting, when we're driving down the road or maybe we're doing dishes or vacuuming. If you put your headset on lots of great ways to use podcasts, to redeem the time a little bit better. And I hope that you'll think about and look into some of those that said the primary per purpose of the Monday morning coffee podcast is to do some sermon notes. And like I said, I can't do that. And then to do some daily Bible reading stuff, and that's where we're headed next. Grab a Bible. Let's talk about Monday's reading first Corinthians chapter 15 versus 1, 2 11. Are you ready for a complete change for Corinthians 15 one? Now I would remind you brothers of the gospel. I preach to you with the word now, or moreover, depending on what translation you're holding Paul Schiffs gears to the matter of the resurrection of the dead. It does not seem that the Corinthians wrote Paul about this. Somehow Paul found out about it. There's a problem here. This really illustrates the theme of Corinthians fix it. Paul, it wants to fix some misunderstandings and flat out wrong. Thinking about the resurrection of the dad. The idea here is that somebody is denying the general resurrection from the dad. They're not denying Jesus's resurrection from the dead, but that there will be a resurrection of everyone else you, me and all the Corinthians. And I have to wonder maybe did some Judaism get in the church because the sades didn't believe in the resurrection of the dead acts chapter 23 and verse six, and talks about that. Matthew to 22, Jesus talks to the sades about that. Maybe, maybe this comes from some Greek elements. What the Greeks believed about the afterlife is kind of fuzzy and difficult to nail down. Lots of different ideas about that, but particularly you go to the underworld. Well, do you ever come out of the underworld? Is there ever a resurrection back to some kind of life? Well, that doesn't seem to be much of what was believed by Greeks in general, maybe that has crept into the Corinthian church. You may be wondering why Paul is talking here at the outset about the resurrection of Jesus, but in tomorrow's reading in particular, you'll see where Paul is going with this, but he just establishes here in these first 11 verses. That's our reading for Monday, the facts of the gospel and the particulars of the gospel that he preached. I'll give you a couple of notes about that. I don't think this is very complicated or very difficult kinds of type of reading by which verse two you are being saved in the Bible. Salvation is viewed from three different angles. There's salvation from past sin, mark 16, 16 uses that way it's completed in the past. Then sometimes salvation is viewed as a future event in heaven, Romans eight talks about it in those kinds of terms. And then sometimes salvation is a present process. It's something that we are under are going right now. And that's where Paul is here by which you are being saved. And I would also point out verse four, that all of the gospels discuss the burial of Jesus. And sometimes I wonder, I wish I knew more about that. Why is that more important? It just seems like that is used as a key way of establishing the, that Jesus was really dead. He didn't just SW he didn't just faint. He died and was buried, was in the tomb for three days. And then Paul begins to cite some objective evidence of the resurrection versus five, six, and seven. That's not a complete list of every resurrection appearance. He concludes that by talking about his own appearance. And this gets really heavily gospel here where Paul starts talking about grace verse nine in 10, no one is worthy of God's. Grace is going to be a huge idea when we get over in the book of Romans. But again, this is very straightforward sets forward. The big ideas of the gospel versus one to 11. That's our reading Monday, Paul will really take up the argument and deal with the problem in cor tomorrow. I'll see you on Tuesday. It's Tuesday, Tuesday, we're reading first Corine 15 versus 12 to 26. And this is the heart of Paul's argument about the resurrection. It is very, very carefully nuanced here where Paul makes an appeal to reason and logic. Sometimes people argue against that kind of thing. First Corine's 15 is exhibit a to show that Christians can use their minds and should use their minds because the argument like this, if a is true, then B must be true. And if B is true, then C must be true. And then C is true. While of course that means D is true. So if you deny a well, then you've denied B, C and D he's. Encourag the Corinthians to think all the way through their argument. Sometimes I'll say something about, we need to know where the train is going before we get on it. And what's happened in Corin is some people are denying the general resurrection of the dead. That's kind of a, in my illustration here, but that would mean, then this isn't true and this isn't true and this ISN true. And then that's not true. Are you prepared for that Corinthians? Are you prepared for example, that that would mean if there's no resurrection of the dead Christ hasn't even been raised versus 12 and 13, no resurrection for the dead is no resurrection of the dead. That would mean Jesus. Can't be resurrected from the dead either then. And I would emphasize here that question, that I've added to our questions. Question one, a what's Paul's emotional mood. What's his temperature here. And I think this is a mood of shock. Paul is stunned that anybody could say this, that anybody could teach this. What is going on. Paul is very, very concerned about it. And he just works down through the conclusions, the logical consequences of the argument. There's no resurrection. He just works down through that. And so that would include that gospel preaching is based on a delusion. Christians have believed a lie. The apostles are all lie. The faith of Christians produces nothing and has no results. So we are still in sin, which would mean that all who have died are now in everlasting punishment because they are still in their sins. And that just means Christians are fools on top of all of that, then Christ hasn't even been raised. So Paul is really encouraging them to think through everything that this would mean. And then he says, verse 20, in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. That's a very emphatic stopping point, but this is now true. And so if you accept that Christ has risen, you must take the sequel. Christ guarantees the resurrection of all the dead. And Paul then discusses a little bit. It here in verse 21, my man comes death and my man also comes the resurrection of the dead. That really sounds like Romans five. I love reading this stuff and seeing Paul's theology and thinking here, kind of some of the beginning ideas, which Paul then will have the opportunity to flesh out and make more of when he writes the book of Romans. So as Adam is the representative of all people, we've all sand Christ then becomes our representative. He's been raised. We will all be raised. This particular set of material re really challenges us to be a people who can think who can reason that is. Wow. That is a skill that is going away in our society in a hurry. Christians need to be able to do that. Think through this text, first Corinthians 15, 12 to 26, our reading for Tuesday, see it tomorrow. It's hump day tomorrow, we'll read verses 27 to 49. Welcome to Wednesday. Wednesday's reading is first 19 15, 27 to 49. And what everyone is gonna notice about this reading is verse 29. What do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raise it all, why are people baptized on their behalf? This is a notoriously difficult passage. And I don't know of any explanation that takes care and solves every difficulty or every question that we might have about verse 29. It obviously cannot mean that we can be baptized on behalf of someone who has already passed away. I understand that this passage is used to prop up that practice among certain churches, certain denominational groups, but there's no way to make it say that because of what we know beyond and outside of this passage, particularly in the book of acts about baptism and about how one becomes a disciple and how that's an act of per will repentance and confession, all the kind of things, belief that a dead person cannot do. And the other things that are said throughout the new Testament about personal responsibility and that we all stand before the Lord to answer for ourselves individually, Romans chapter two, San Corinthians, five. So many passages talk about that. We don't ever take an obscure difficult passage first IANS, 1529, and then take all of these other verses the sea of other passages and their plane teaching, and try to reconfigure them to fit some doctrine that we wanna wedge into the Bible. And that we hope first Corine's 15, 29 will open the door a little bit to, that's not proper biblical interpretation. We wouldn't do that with any book. And we are not gonna do that with the Bible. So first gonna these 1529 is not saying that I can be baptized so that somebody in my family who never obey the gospel now can go to heaven. That's just outside of scripture and outside of what scripture teaches that said, what is first IANS, 1529 saying? And the answer to that is I'm entirely uncertain. Probably the best explanation that I can Mount for that is that Paul is simply saying, why are you being baptized? If you'll just die and disappear. If there's no resurrection for the dad, I think he's continuing, maybe some of that argumentation, then what good is baptism. But the wording there is notoriously difficult. And I, again, don't know of any explanation for first IANS, 1529, that deals with every difficulty in that text. From there, Paul begins to deal with some people who seem to be the ones advancing this no resurrection argument. And he begins to, to get a little Sterner about this. As we think about that one, a question what's Paul's mood. I think Paul is starting to get a little stronger here. Verse 33, don't be deceived, wake up verse 34 from your drunken St. When people start teaching this business about their no resurrection, how long until somebody is starting to teach that how we live in this life doesn't make any difference than all you want, because you're just gonna die. And there will, there will be no resurrection. So what we do in this life doesn't matter. Anyway, Paul begins to press that. It seems like in 32, 33 and 34, maybe even in verse 29, then he begins to deal with those objections to his teaching. That there will be a resurrection and objection. Number one starts in verse 35. Someone's gonna say, how are the dead raised? And then the other objection is, well, what kind of body would you have? And Paul works through both of those and verse 36. You foolish person. Yeah. You get in some of Paul's mood. Here are the emotional temperature of this particular text. We need to read it the way Paul writes it. I think verse 36 might be in all capital letters. Do you know what I mean? Paul is shouting here and he begins to talk about how everyone will have a body just as in this world, everyone has a body suited for its environment in heaven. We will have in the afterlife, we will have a body suited for that environment. And he discusses that as he pushes down through look at versus 42 43 and 44, the body being sewn in dishonor is a, is a shout out to the idea that when we die, our body begins to decompose. That's something we don't really want to talk about. That's something in that we're not real, really interested in, but of course, in new Testament, times as quickly as a person died, that pretty, pretty quick wanted to get that person in the tomb because what's gonna happen to that. Body is not pleasant. And, and that's even true today with our embalming techniques and so forth. I don't know anybody who has their hobby, just going out and digging up graves and taking a look in the there that's gross. We don't want to do that. The body is sewn in disorder, but God will give it the right body when it's raised a spiritual body verse 44. And so once again, Adam is cited here. As from Adam, he became a living being he's the first of the human race. So then the last Adam verse 45, we receive life giving spirit. That's not talking about how everybody's gonna go to heaven. That's not Paul's point at all, but he's talking about how in Jesus Christ, there will be this resurrection. So read that today, work through that and continue to look at our reading. First Corinthians 15, 27 to 49. Maybe the thing to say about this, Paul's shouting and disappointed at the Corinthians because they have given away the truth of this doctrine. But you and I, we believe this. We ought to be encouraged by this. I wonder sometimes I, how much people have bought into the idea of some kind of ethereal existence, where we're like ghosts kind of floating around when Paul clearly talks about we're going to have a body and we don't understand everything about that body. And that is exactly his point here, but we will have a body. We're not gonna be disembodied souls in the afterlife ought be encouraged by that as well. So we'll finish this chapter first, Corine 15 in tomorrow's reading, I'll see you on Thursday for Thursday's reading. We'll complete first Corine 15. That's gonna be the reading of versus 50 to 58. And once again, Paul deals with maybe an objection or maybe a question what's going to happen to those who haven't died when Jesus returns and the answer to that is that flush in blood, your natural body verse 50 is not suited for heaven. So we will all be changed. Verse 51, the Lord will take care of this. Maybe this is a good place to say. Now all of our questions about the afterlife about heaven, will I know this? And what about this? Sometimes people ask, will I be sad? Because I, there are loved ones that aren't there with me. Paul's answer in first Corinthians, the 15 chapter is basically God will take care of it. God knows what kind of body you're going to need. So you don't need to worry about that. And God knows what to do with the people who are still alive. When the Lord returns, God will take care of that. And I think from that, I'm gonna just extract the general principle, whatever you're worried about. Don't worry about it. God knows our worries, our anxieties, the things in our hearts, and God will take care of it. You don't need to be concerned that when you are in heaven, all of a sudden it'll be, oh no, this is not as good. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Heaven's gonna be amazing because God's prepared it for us. We will be with the Lord and God will take care of everything that we are concerned about so that it is an incredible and amazing, fabulous beyond anything that we can imagine existence with the Lord for all eternity. Paul does do some quoting here, verse 54 and 55 out of Isaiah, 25 8. Now Jose 13, four talks about death being the punishment for sin when sin uses the law or is given by given power by the law, since nobody can keep the law, it looks like sin has won, but no verse 37, the victory's been won by Jesus Christ. He's the one who saves us. And the result of that then verse 58 is we can get to work in the kingdom of God. Let's lay these worries and wrong ideas about the resurrection to rest. And let's get busy in the kingdom of God's a thrilling conclusion to first Corinthians. The 15th chapter reminds me in some ways of some of the material that we'll see in Romans and especially Romans chapter eight, but the result of all of this is brethren. Get busy, get moved off of the truth about the resurrection first cor 1558. That's Thursday's reading tomorrow. Yes. We're almost done with first Corinthians. Can you believe it? See tomorrow we'll read first Corinthians 16, the front part of that on Friday. So how can an incredible book like Corinthians end? Well, how about answering another question? First Corine 16 verse one, concerning the collection for the saints they've written about that. They have questions about that. Or Paul just wants to give some instruction about that. And I want to, I wanna say some things about giving here in first Corinthians, the 16 chapter. I'm really glad to have the podcast and the opportunity to develop some of these ideas with you. You, the term for collection here is a formal word for the formal collecting up of funds. It's used that way outside of the Bible in literature of the new Testament era, it's used as a religious kind of collection, a formal kind of collecting. And that helps us a lot because sometimes people have tried to make out of first Corine 16 one and two, that people, everybody just kind of puts a little money in amazing jar at home, whatever, whatever, whatever. And it's not really a big deal. No, no, that's not it at all. This is a special sacred collection of money and this does help us see verse one, that there's to be a uniformity of practice among new Testament churches we're are getting the blueprint here for what the church does when it comes to collecting funds. And wow, here's even more verse two gives strong evidence for the regular practice of regularly assembling on the first day of the week. That helps us. For example, when we start talking about the Lords supper, the churches were meeting every first day of the week, and that would help us understand some things about when we should partake of the Lord supper. Now, sometimes people ask, Hey, isn't this just a benevolence collection. And it is so that in this context, this is a collection for the saints in Jerusalem, verse three, but these are not the only verses about a treasury in the new Testament, Philippians chapter four first empty chapter five. Talk about those kinds of things. And there are some other places where Paul will talk about being helped in Romans 15, he talks to the church in Rome about being helped on his way. That's talking about funding, his missionary efforts. All we would use first Corinthians 16 for is to show how a church gathers money. There's a need for funds in the kingdom of God to fund the three things that the church does, the preaching of the gospel evangelism, edifying saints, building up new Testament, Christians. So they'll serve the Lord in a better kind of way and benevolence for new Testament Christians. Those are the three things that we see churches in the new Testament using money for. Okay. We want to do those three things here at west side. How do we get that money? What do we do? Do we have a baked sale? Maybe we have a garage sale, big parking lot sale settlement stuff. Maybe we could sell tickets. What about that? No, no. And absolutely not the new Testament church as I directed the church in gala Galatia. So you do also the new Testament church gets its funds from a free will offering from a collection done on the first day of the week. And does this mean that every Christian is to put aside a little money at home? Absolutely not. As I said, the term is for a formal collection. And if everybody put aside at home a little bit of money in the Mason jar, then what would happen when Paul arrived there would have to be a collection. And that is exactly what he says. I don't want to have happen. Verse two. So there'll be no collecting. The funds are to you be collected into the churches' treasury. So we see the necessity of giving here. We see here that the churches assembled on the first day of the week, we see uniformity of practice among new Testament churches. And we see most importantly of all how the church raises money. It raises money from Christians, not by trying to tap the community, not by trying to hit non-Christians up for money. No, the new Testament church funds its work by its local members contributing on the first day of the week to fund and pay for the activities of the new Testament church. So those verse, wow, that's just so much in the first three verses of our reading today, then in the rest of our reading, Paul is discussing his travel plans. Paul is very aware that he could just jump a boat and sail right across the GNC from ESUs over to Corinth and be with him. But that's not what he wants to do. He doesn't wanna have to come now because then you have to deal harshly with them. Verse five. He doesn't want to us come and see them right away, set Corinthians one verse 23 talks about that as well. We'll see some of that as we start second Corinthians next week. But especially what Paul wants to do is go up, get your map in the back of your Bible and take a look from SIS. He wants to go north and go over to Macedonia through Philippi and come down the peninsula down to Quran instead of going directly over. Cuz if he just goes directly over, as I said, he'd be involved probably in a harsh visit, but even more, he would not be able to spend a lot of time there. He would have to leave and go up north to Macedonia to visit those churches. So instead his plan is to leave ethicists verse eight, go and visit the churches in Macedonia and then come down and see them. And perhaps even winter with them, this stuff tells very nicely what we've been reading in acts chapter 19. And we will be reading in acts chapter 19 next week, as we resume the narrative that Luke writes for us. And then at the end of the week, we'll have Paul in the right place. And guess what? Yep, we'll start second Corinthians. But while Paul was in SIS, verse 10, he sent Timothy over to Quran chapter four, verse 17 talks about that. And we'll read that next week in act chapter 19. And he wants the brothern there to support and help Timothy that'll hold us for our reading today on Monday, we will complete first Corinthians. Can you believe it? We've read this whole epi spending this year with Paul, just been really, really amazing, very helpful to see how Paul will works with the Corinthian church and how careful he is with them. Even here in his closing remarks, Paul is being very careful and he does wanna let this letter get over to them and let it, let it kind of percolate a little bit before he arrives on the scene. This church is so important to Paul and he loves these brethrens so much and it's going on. There is false teaching and misunderstanding. And Paul has tried to fix all of that in that letter. How is this letter going to be received if we're reading this from Paul's standpoint, if we're reading this to spend the year with Paul, if we're looking over Paul's shoulder right now, there ought to be Anot in our stomach. Is the Corinthian church going to accept this letter? Are they accepting Paul's apostleship or will they say, forget you, we we're not doing any of this stuff. We, we don't follow your teaching. We don't think you're an apostle. We're not interested in any of this. We burn this and we are moving on without you, there ought to be a, not in our stomach because there is a not in Paul stomach. And we will be talking about that a lot. When we read second Corinthians That closes then our discussion of the daily bio reading for this week. I can't close the podcast today without saying a word about this special series that we begin on Sunday may the first it's called asking for a friend and I'm dealing with a kind of questions, the kind of challenges that people make to new Testament, Christianity, the kind of thing. Sometimes that people are kind of holding maybe deep within them. They're afraid to vocalize that. They're afraid to say that maybe they're concerned people jump on them. We're not gonna jump on you. We're going to deal with those questions. And Sunday may the first in the 10 40 worship hour will start with the question. Can't I be a spiritual person without going to church and all this Jesus business that's on tap Sunday, may the first at the 10 40 hour. Hope that you'll be interested in that hope. You'll invite someone to come and listen. Hope you'll be with us in person. And if you can't be in person, hope you'll stream it on Facebook or@justchristians.com. Thank you so much for listening. If you love the Monday morning coffee podcast, we sure would like for you to follow subscribe rate and give a review on whatever app you are listening on. Tell a friend about the show. Those kinds of things really help the podcast get more of an audience. So until Monday morning, may your coffee be delightful today? May your Friday be blessed. May the Lord be with you today? All day? I'll see you on Monday with a cup of coffee.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to the west side church of Christ podcast. Monday morning coffee with Mark far more information about Westside. You can connect with us through our website, just christians.com and our Facebook page. Our music is from upbeat dot.com that's upbeat with two PP's, UPP, B E a T, where creators can get free music. Please share our podcast with others and we to look forward to seeing you again with a cup of coffee, of course, on next Monday,