{"id":10058,"date":"2022-02-13T06:37:56","date_gmt":"2022-02-13T12:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-1-corinthians-4\/"},"modified":"2022-02-13T13:41:30","modified_gmt":"2022-02-13T19:41:30","slug":"devotional-on-1-corinthians-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-1-corinthians-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on 1 Corinthians"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_16043\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16043\" style=\"width: 960px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/PHOTO_20140705_104439.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-16043\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/PHOTO_20140705_104439-1024x640.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/PHOTO_20140705_104439-1024x640.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/PHOTO_20140705_104439-300x188.jpg 300w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/PHOTO_20140705_104439-768x480.jpg 768w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/PHOTO_20140705_104439.jpg 1363w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-16043\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Long Beach, WA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Preacher Rankings<\/p>\n<p>1Corinthians 4: I don\u2019t even rank myself.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the church members in Corinth have concluded that Paul needs to be put in his place. He\u2019s a long way distant and they like Apollos better anyway. Paul tells them that he\u2019s not interested in their \u201cpreacher rankings\u201d and is happy to drop out of the race, adding that he\u2019s quite sure Apollos feels the same way about it. Frankly, they don\u2019t have the proper credentials to judge anybody. If anyone is going to do some judging it\u2019s the one who knows the heart, Christ. Beyond all that, Paul isn\u2019t just saying these things because their attitude has gotten under his skin. As a loving father wants to help his children grow up. He wants them to move on in their spiritual walk. Their current attitude is childish and unproductive. In spite of the fact that they have everything needed to mature in their faith they\u2019re stuck at a nursery-level spiritual life. When he comes in person Paul, their spiritual father, intends to help them move on up. His arrival won\u2019t bring another round of debates. Rather, it\u2019ll be marked by his spiritual power and authority in Christ. I know there\u2019s more going on here than this, but I find in this passage a caution against personality driven religion. No doubt, there are some church leaders who encourage a cult-like following, but most aren\u2019t trying to build an earthly kingdom. Like Paul and Apollos, they want to make Christ-like, Christ-following disciples. I find it interesting that before there was radio and television and book writing preachers church folks were already tempted to focus more on the preacher than on Jesus. Paul says, \u201cDon\u2019t do it!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Take Away: The preacher can\u2019t save you \u2013 keep your focus on the One who can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Preacher Rankings 1Corinthians 4: I don\u2019t even rank myself. Some of the church members in Corinth have concluded that Paul needs to be put in his place. He\u2019s a long way distant and they like Apollos better anyway. Paul tells them that he\u2019s not interested in their \u201cpreacher rankings\u201d and is happy to drop out [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1469,1428],"tags":[1307,642,1308,1309],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10058"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10058"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16081,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10058\/revisions\/16081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}