Flee! And Other Ways to Resist Sexual Immorality.

Posted on September 21, 2018 by dkoop

Why should we avoid sexual immorality?  In 1 Corinthians 6: 15-19 Paul gives us two truths to help us resist sexual immorality and then two action steps.  He expands on this idea of how our physical selves (bodies) are connected to our spiritual selves.  He points out two truths about our bodies the Corinthians had forgotten.  These are the same two truths that many of us have forgotten today, remember:

  1. Sex is not only a physical union but also a spiritual union.

Paul writes,15  Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!
 (vs. 15) Notice the sentence begins with the phrase, “do you not know?” He asks that again in vs. 16 and in vs. 19. Paul is saying, “You know this, I’ve taught you this, but you’re not living by this, so let me remind you about it.”  This is how we are many times. We know better, but we choose not to live by what we know.   How many of us didn’t know immorality is wrong?  Of course we do.  God’s Spirit reminds us when we are about to sin. But many people ignore that still, small voice. They don’t live by what they know.  This is one reason God inspired Paul to write this letter. It’s not just for the Corinthians. It’s to remind us to live by what we know.

We may know but need to be reminded of is that our bodies are parts of Christ’s body.  They’re intimately connected with Christ, so we’re obligated to serve Him and do as He pleases.  Think of it like this. My hands are part of my body. They do what I tell them to do. I give the orders for my hands. They’re connected to me.  How would it be if my hands rebelled and started slapping my face?  It’s the same way when we use our bodies in ways we know Christ our Head would not want us to.

Paul is warning us about compartmentalizing our lives.  We think we can be involved in immorality with our bodies and somehow have it not affect our relationship with God.  We think we can isolate this one area of our lives, our sexuality, from our relationship with Christ.  We pray, we go to church, we read the Bible, we do all those things, but in this one area of our lives, we think we can do what we want; it won’t infringe on our relationship with God.

But that’s impossible because our bodies are part of Jesus’ body. Ours is the flesh He uses to do His will in this world. He’s our head.

This leads to a second truth people forget when it comes to sex.

  1. The physical union of sex creates a lasting spiritual and emotional bond.

Look at verses 16–17. “Do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, ‘The two shall become one flesh.’ ” This is part of the joy of marriage this physical union but it’s more than physical. Sex is an act that unites two people in a one-flesh relationship. The idea here is a strong spiritual bond is created.  The Greek word “joins” in vs. 16 was used to refer to glue. It reminds us that when two people come together that way they’re glued together. I can’t help but think of Crazy Glue. If you apply that glue properly, the bond that’s created is actually stronger and harder to break than the thing itself. If you try to break that bond you can’t do so without doing great damage to whatever it is you’re gluing together like your fingers.

Paul is saying the sexual union is like that. It unites us, not just in body, but in soul as well.  Sex, whether we realize it or not, acts like glue in a relationship. C.S. Lewis once said:  “Each time a man and a woman enter into a sexual relationship, a spiritual bond is established between them that must be eternally enjoyed or eternally endured.”

We talk about safe sex, but we can’t put a condom on our heart.  Sex is far more than just a physical act. It’s an act that involves the whole person body and soul. There is no such thing as casual sex.  Don’t ever buy that lie. Something mysterious and deep takes place in this union. This is why the Word of God absolutely insists that sex be practiced within the covenant of marriage.  Sex is a life-uniting act and to do it justice sex has to be experienced in the context of a lifelong union, and that always means marriage.  Within that context sex is a beautiful expression of intimacy and vulnerability that should be celebrated.

So even though sex with no commitment can be enjoyed on a certain level, the end result of immorality is a sense of hollowness, frustration, and aloneness. In this way it is not beneficial.

But Paul says that for those who are believers it even has a greater impact. Look at vs. 17, “But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with him.”  Just as two people joined in sex are one flesh, so those who come into a relationship with the Lord are joined with Him. Our spirit has been glued with the Lord’s Spirit.  So, when you engage in immorality, you’re actually dragging the Lord along with you. After all, as a Christian You’re united with Him. You’re one spirit with Him. You can’t separate your spirit from your body, and so you are involving the Lord Himself in this act.

As Christians we are united with Jesus so when we sin He feels the pain of that sin. As Paul says, our bodies, “are temples of the Holy Spirit, Who is in you, Whom you have received from God.  We are not our own; we were bought at a price…so we must honor God with our bodies.” Jesus lives IN us He paid the penalty for our sins so these bodies are not our own. This is not our real estate. Jesus lives here now.

I like what John MacArthur says about this verse: “Could you imagine committing sexual immorality in your church sanctuary?”  No way. But that’s no worse than what happens every time a believer is involved in sexual immorality because our bodies are the sanctuary of God. God dwells in here. In a very real sense when we disobey God’s loving laws regarding sex we kick Jesus off the throne of our lives. We commit idolatry.  With all this in mind what should we do when faced with today’s distorted view of sex?  Here are two action steps to avoid sexual immorality.

  1. FLEE!

In verse 18 Paul literally says, “Flee immorality. Flee and keep on fleeing.” He doesn’t just say stop immorality. He uses much stronger words flee from it, run from it. I like what Wayne Wright says: “The best weapon against immorality is geography.” In other words, get as far away as possible. Our sexual urges are so great and so powerful that we can’t afford to hang in there and duke it out with temptation because if we do, we’re going to lose. Sooner or later you’re going to lose that battle if you don’t flee from it, if you don’t run as far away as you can.

Essentially, we must get out of the situation, whatever it is, that might lead us into immorality. This includes being very careful with the kind of things that we allow ourselves to be exposed to. I’m speaking of the kinds of books we read, the kinds of movies we watch, and the kinds of websites we visit. Many times we justify reading or watching trash because it has a good story or interesting characters. But it impacts us it changes our views.  So steer clear of it.

  1. The second action step to avoid sexual immorality is to decide daily to HONOR GOD in our body.

Now why should we honor God in our bodies?  Our bodies have been purchased by God with the precious blood of his Son. Our bodies aren’t our own.  Think of it, would you take your new I-Phone 6 and use it as a ping pong paddle? Sure it’s big enough but you’d never do that because it cost too much.  Plus, if you’re in the same plan I am until I pay it off the phone company owns it. Would you take a rental car and spray paint silly patterns on the hood? No. In the same way, we have been bought at tremendous cost.

Our body is under new management. Lets’ see our bodies and treat our bodies a way that honors the One who owns it.

Darrell

 

Sources:  Mark Mitchell’s message on this text on Preaching Today has been very helpful to me along with Mark Adams and John Mac Arthur Commentary.

 

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Sexual Immorality? – 2 Questions to 2 Rationalizations

Posted on September 20, 2018 by dkoop

“It’s my life I am free to do what I want!”  That’s the first common rationalization.

In verse 12 Paul gives his response to this kind of thinking. He says, “Yes–I have the right to do anything,” but not everything is beneficial.“  I have the right to do anything” but I will not be mastered by anything.”

Paul says, “Yes you are free to use your God-given rights any way you want to but there are two questions you really need to answer before exercising your freedom.”

  1. “If I do what I want sexually, is it beneficial?”

Before exercise our rights, we should decide whether or not it is helpful, not just for us but for others.

For instance did you know that statistics say that people who live together before they marry are twice as likely to divorce as are those who wait until marriage? And there are higher levels of abuse? So is using your “sexual freedom” to live together is beneficial?  Research says no. We say too much about STD’s so I won’t mention them, but its obvious the ways they are not beneficial. But what about unwanted pregnancies are they beneficial?

And what about the people who are on the other end of these kinds of sinful acts? I wonder if the Corinthians thought about the lives of those young ladies from the temple of Aphrodite those “sacred” prostitutes that came down into the streets of Corinth every night. Did they think of those young girls when they exercised their Christian freedom?  How many men today think of the young women on the computer screen as they watch pornography?  Is it helpful to exploit that girl who is someone’s daughter?  Don’t these kinds of actions promote the sex slave trade?

We live in a very self-centered society. In our minds we are the center of the universe. Think about it we have I-phones, I-pads and I-pods, American I-dol, I-tunes, and Facebook with it’s “I like” options.  All this reflects our cultures tendency to care about ourselves often to the expense of others. And this is seen most clearly in society’s sexual mores. When researchers at the University of Texas at Austin asked 2,000 people why they have sex, there were plenty of answers 237, to be precise.  Here are some of them. They finished the sentence, “I have sex because”:

“[I wanted] to boost my social status.”

“My partner was famous.”

“[I wanted] to get a raise or promotion.”

“Someone dared me.”

“I wanted to punish myself.”

“I lost a bet.”

“to keep warm.”

“Because my hormones were out of control.”

“[Sex] seemed like good exercise.”

“I wanted to give someone a sexually transmitted disease.”

Too many people don’t care about others they don’t consider the pain their sin brings. Sex is just another way they put themselves first.

But the fact is, sexual immorality is NEVER beneficial. In fact, it always hurts everyone involved. More about that later.

  1. The second question Paul says we must answer before using our freedom to sin is this: “Is this behavior enslaving?”

He says, “I have the right to do all things but I will not be mastered by anything.”  So the thing to ask yourself is this. “As I exercise my freedom in Christ, will I become enslaved to that very thing that I’m doing? Will it end up ruling my life? Will it become an addiction?”  This is especially important when we talk about things that pertain to the body like sex, because the body can develop dependencies on things.  And when it does, we become a slave to whatever that thing is. In an attempt to satisfy that desire people continue to chase the counterfeit and that only makes them long for the real thing. I think it’s ironic that in the name of Christian freedom we can actually become slaves of the very things we claim we can do because of our freedom!

Wendy Shalit is a feminist writer who has put out a number of provocative books calling for women to recover their sexual modesty as a protest against a world that has objectified them in the name of sexual freedom. Her writings have caused an uproar among people who labeled them as “behind the times” labeled them as sexually regressive and oppressive to other “free-er” women. But surprisingly her writings have caused a parallel stir among many women who have become disenchanted with the sexual revolution and the whole new set of oppressions that came along with it. For example, Shalit points out that in the name of freedom the sexual revolution puts down women who want to act and dress more modestly. She writes, “Today’s culture says, ‘You’d better be having many hook-ups or else!  Shyness will not be tolerated!  Ours is supposed to be a time of great freedom. Yet we have ended up letting others dictate our choices.” Shalit goes on, “A woman may be conveying to the world by her bashfulness, ‘I have my own compass, thank you. I have my own sense of what is good and what is right, and it’s not always what everyone else says.’”

Here’s something else. The sexual revolution has not only dictated to women who they have to be, but it has actually restrained them further by putting them at the mercy of men.  Have you ever wondered what happened to that old “behind the times” concept of chivalry where women were treated as queens? Have you ever wondered why these days young men don’t come to the door when they pick up their dates or why men don’t open the door for women any more “old fashioned” things like that? It’s because today’s culture says they don’t have to. So Shalit is right women are less free and more enslaved today than they were in the good ole days before the feminist movement “freed” them.

The second rationalization we see both in Corinth and in our culture. People say, “I can do what I want sexually because it’s natural”

Look at 13–14 where Paul says “Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them.  Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.”  Now, Paul hasn’t changed subjects here from sex to eating. This is just another excuse that people then and now use to justify their immorality. The idea is that sex is just like eating. In the same way that we have a natural and God-given need to satisfy our stomach with food we have this natural and God-given need to satisfy our body’s sexual hunger.  When we get hungry and head for the refrigerator, so our culture says, why should it be any different with sex? Why object to something that’s perfectly natural and God-given? The following quote from M. Scott Peck reveals the flaw in those arguments: “Calling it natural does not mean it is essential or beneficial or unchangeable behavior. It is also natural to defecate in our pants and never brush our teeth. Yet we teach ourselves to do the unnatural until the unnatural itself becomes second nature. Indeed, all self-discipline might be defined as teaching ourselves to do the unnatural.”

Here’s something else I want us to note. With this rationalization that there should be no rules when it comes to sex because after all it’s just a natural function with this way of thinking we come face-to-face with a very important truth: The world, regardless of all the emphasis it places on it, has a very low view of sex. The world sees sex as another bodily function like eating.

There’s nothing special about it, nothing unique, nothing worth protecting.  But, as we’ll see shortly, the Biblical view of sex is that sex touches us and affects us at a much deeper level than eating.  It’s something that involves not just our physical body but our soul and our spirit as well.  Bible-believing Christians actually have a MUCH higher view of sex than our culture. And that’s what Paul gets at in his response. He says, “Yes, food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food. I don’t disagree with that.” But then he says, “God will destroy them both.”  In other words, although it’s true what you say about the stomach and food, all that’s just temporary.  But sex involves something altogether different because it has a spiritual aspect. Sex impacts us on a soul level so it’s not at all like eating. Plus, our bodies were made to further God’s eternal purposes not to satisfy some mere sexual appetite.

And this principle is what Paul deals with in the rest of the passage. He expands on this idea of how our physical selves (bodies) are connected to our spiritual selves.  Paul gives us two truths to help us resist sexual immorality and then two action steps.  We will look at them in the next post.

Darrell

Sources:  Mark Mitchell’s message on this text on Preaching Today has been very helpful to me along with Mark Adams and John Mac Arthur Commentary.

 

 

 

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Sexual Immorality? – 1 Corinthians 6

Posted on September 19, 2018 by dkoop

I don’t know about you but the older I get the more I find myself feeling “behind the times” when it comes to social media and technology.   Social media trends that will take over for 2018 are the “rise of augmented reality” and “chatbots.” I’m already behind! In fact, I have not gotten into Snapchat, Tumblr, Shazam, Periscope, or Pinterest.  Truthfully I have my hands full keeping up with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linked-in.  With technology I increasingly feel out of step with modern culture.

I thought about this as I studied this week’s versed because it deals with another area where today’s culture makes any bible believer look like we’re behind the times and I’m referring to our society’s practices when it comes to sex.  I now embrace the clear teachings in God’s Word in this area even though the world around us considers that view to be very “old school.” That doesn’t embarrass me or phase me in the least.  I personally would choose to side with the unchanging truth that is the Bible not the ever-changing “morals” of our culture.

As a survivor of sexual predator when I was younger I know the pain, despair, guilt and shame when we don’t follow our Creator’s teachings.   It’s like C. S. Lewis put it, “They are playing in a mud puddle when there is an ocean to enjoy.” So the simple fact is people like myself who believe the Bible may be thought of as behind the times but in reality we are ahead of the game.

Many of the Christians in the church of Corinth were not ahead of the game because they were going with the flow of the sexually-charged culture around them instead of obeying God’s Word and Paul writes to correct that in the next part of his letter.   Churches like the one in Corinth met in homes scattered across the city and so Paul’s letter would be read in that setting one home at a time. Many of these Christians would have been unable to read which means the only way for them to experience the letter was if someone read it out loud.  As we look at 1st Corinthians 6:12-20, imagine 15-20 adults sitting in the first century version of a living room listening as these words are read.

12 “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.

13 You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.”  The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

14 By His power God raised the Lord from the dead, and He will raise us also.

15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ Himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!

16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”

17 “But whoever is united with the Lord is one with Him in spirit.

18 Flee from sexual immorality.  All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.

19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, Who is in you, Whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

20 you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your bodies.

Did anyone feel the need to fidget a bit? Anyone feel a bit uncomfortable?   I’m sure the first Christians to hear those words read aloud did. Maybe moms said to the leaders of these house churches, “We really should have had an alternative option for young children when dealing with this.  This is not something they should hear.” In any case, I’m sure Paul didn’t like to talk about the uncomfortable subject of sexual immorality but he had to because Christians were choosing to be “with the times” instead of behind them.

Of course, this part of Paul’s letter is very relevant to our situation as Christians for we live in a culture with a very distorted view of sexuality.  Here are some statistics to help us see this.

More than half of all adult single Americans have had a one-night-stand at least once in their lives – a slightly higher percentage than those who have had unprotected sex with someone whose health history and background they did not know. Regarding the number of sexual partners in a lifetime, Americans are slightly above the global average.
Most Americans have no moral objection to sex between unmarried partners. 

Even our greeting card industry reflects our society’s damaged view of sexuality. There is a new type of card found in what is called a Secret Lover Collection. The publishers of this type of card say their goal is “to provide a greeting card collection with empathy and understanding, without judgment, to lovers involved in a secret relationship.” The founder of the company is a woman and she says she launched it to help the unfaithful “express their emotions,” but of course what she really wants is to cash in on this huge market. And if you’re wondering how you market greeting cards for the unfaithful the answer is very subtly. These cards are displayed under special labels like “Love Expressions,” and “intimacy.” Card messages include statements like, “I used to look forward to the weekends, but since we met they seem like an eternity.” I’m guessing this is for an illicit work romance. And for holidays, these cards read: “As we each celebrate with our families, I’ll be thinking of you.”

Before we go any further, if you have messed up in the past in this area and asked for God’s forgiveness you received it. Your sins are forgiven; they are removed as far as the East is from the West.  God buried them in the depths of the sea and remembers them no more. I mention this because a lot of Christians walk around in a perpetual state of guilt over their past especially when it comes to sexual sins. Soif that describes your situation then I want to affirm the fact that you’ve been forgiven; you’ve been washed. The slate is clean. There is NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Sexual sin is sin but it is not the unforgivable sin. And if you are sinning in this area right now God’s forgiveness waits for you.  As someone put it, “One thing we continually underestimate about God is His loving longing to forgive.” God wants to give us all a new start. All you and I have to do is ask.

That’s a great segue back to our text because sadly many times when people sin instead of repenting they rationalize and that’s what the people of Corinth did. They justified their sexual sins in two ways the same ways people justify sexual sin today and Paul confronts them both.   We’ll look at the common rationalizations and the responses of Paul in the next post.

Darrell

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United or Divided? – 1 Corinthians 1

Posted on September 14, 2018 by dkoop

Now, dear brothers and sisters, I appeal to you by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ to stop arguing among yourselves. Let there be real harmony so there won’t be divisions in the church. I plead with you to be of one mind, united in thought and purpose.NLT  

Time out! Like a frustrated coach watching his team bicker on the court, Paul called for a time-out. He saw the danger of divisions and arguments. The Corinthian believers’ lack of unity was obvious. They may have been playing in the same “uniform,” but they were doing as much as the opposition to bring about their own defeat. The problems weren’t so much differences of opinion as divided allegiances. They were arguing over which position on the team was most important in a way that made them ineffective as a unit. They were on the field, but out of the game.

Divisions between Christians work like brick walls and barbed-wire fences to undermine the effectiveness of the message that believers are to proclaim. Let’s focus on our coach, Jesus Christ, and the purpose he has for us. Let’s strive for harmony and keep arguments about allegiances off the team.

The word for “divisions” that Paul uses here literally means “plowed up.”  That’s what had happened to the “sweet, sweet Spirit” of the church at Corinth. It had been plowed up.

Things were so bad that Paul devoted four chapters of his letter to this one issue. In fact, Paul says, “I appeal to you” —using the same term we find in John 14 when Jesus describes the ministry of the Holy Spirit when he comes alongside of us as Comforter. Paul is saying, “I’m coming alongside of you right now. I’m coming alongside of you as a friend. I’m coming alongside as someone who cares about you and I’m appealing to you. You’ve got to understand that you’ve got a huge problem.”

And notice there are two aspects of this lack of unity he speaks of. He says that they need to be perfectly united in MIND and THOUGHT. Mind and thought. That phrase “perfectly united” comes from a word that was used to describe the mending of broken fishing net. It could also be used to describe a physician who sets a broken bone in order for it to heal. In short, it’s a healing term. It’s the idea of taking something that’s broken and healing it and restoring it.  It tells us that Paul knew there were some relationships in this church that were broken and that needed to be healed, their unity needed to be restored in mind and thought.  When Paul uses this phrase, I believe he was saying two things.  First, when he said “united in mind,” he was referring to the essentials of our faith, the non-negotiables of Christian doctrine, like salvation, issues of the identity of God, issues on sin, etc. And when he said, “united in THOUGHT,” I believe he was referring to the non-essentials, those areas where Scripture is not black and white—areas of opinion that are open to discussion. He was saying he wanted them to be able to agree to disagree; and sometimes to do it without being disagreeable—because thanks to their freedom in Christ, they didn’t have to share the same opinion.

It makes me think of a scene from the Spielberg film, Lincoln. Throughout the film Secretary of war Stanton and President Lincoln had their squabbles, their disagreements. But as they stood in that 19th century “situation room” waiting for the telegraph machines to report the outcome of a major battle—they stopped arguing and grabbed each other’s hand. They disagreed over many things, mostly unimportant, but they were united on the essential belief that the war must be won. The fact is churches don’t usually split over ESSENTIALS.  Sadly, they usually allow their unity to be plowed apart by disagreements over trivial, non-essential things.

When churches have “unity in the essentials, freedom in the non-essentials and love in all things”—when they are united in MIND and THOUGHT—they enjoy a wonderful unity that makes them a powerful tool in God’s kingdom.

We must remember:  Unity is VITAL. Without it we are impotent as a church. Unity is that important. It is a precious thing that must be protected.

The church at Corinth had its fair share of typical quarrels but its main problem was the fact that it had allowed itself to be torn into various factions little subsets or cliques or personality cults or fan clubs—each centered around a particular church leader. In essence they had stopped focusing on the message, the essentials—and had begun focusing on the messenger.

  1. One group rallied around Paul. They were saying: “I follow Paul; Paul rocks!”

And most likely the people who were saying that were the founding members of the church in Corinth, the charter members of the church in Corinth—people who saw Paul as their spiritual father. He was the FIRST pastor and they rallied around him.

  1. Another group came along and said: “I follow Apollos; Apollos is the man.”

We know from other Scripture, that Apollos was an incredibly gifted communicator who started teaching after Paul left town. Many became followers of Jesus under Apollos’ ministry.  Acts 18:24-26 says Apollos had thorough knowledge of the Scriptures—he spoke with great fervor—he spoke boldly and people were just drawn to him.  Evidently that led people to say things like: “We’d much rather listen to Apollos than Paul. Apollos just makes the Scriptures come alive. We are so moved by his warmth and his sensitivity and his charisma and his sense of humor when he teaches. Apollos, he’s the man.”

  1. Then there were those who followed Cephas or Peter.

These were probably the traditionalists in the church, those who had deep Jewish roots. They probably weren’t too comfortable with those Gentile believers who had been converted out of paganism and paid very little attention to their Jewish traditions and customs. Maybe they followed Peter because they knew he was one of the original twelve that Jesus handpicked. And Peter preached at Pentecost! He helped BIRTH the church so he was their man.

  1. The final group followed Jesus.

We may hear this and think, “Finally somebody’s finally got a little maturity and perspective here. That’s what it’s about, just follow Christ.”  But in reality in the church in Corinth, this was the most dangerous group of all because they actually claimed to be more spiritual than everybody else. They were the spiritual elitists who were saying they didn’t need to submit to human spiritual authority like Paul or Apollos or Peter; they could just listen to Jesus. And they were just as divisive as the other three cliques, probably even more because they weren’t really focusing on Jesus. They were focusing on a holier than thou self.

We still struggle like this today.  With so many churches, programs and styles of worship available today, believers can get caught up in the same game of “my preacher is better than yours!” “My church offers more than yours.” They follow personalities and even change churches based on who what program is popular.  To act this way is to divide Christ again. But Christ is not divided, and his true followers should not allow anything to divide the church.  Lets’ not let our appreciation for any teacher or writer, program or ministry lead us into thinking that one church is better. Believers’ allegiance must be to Christ and to the unity that he desires.

Paul goes on to explain that the Corinthians needed to do away with these factions—and unite around Jesus.  He asks, “Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?” In other words—they needed to get back to keeping Jesus and His cross the main message.  If our church ever stops focusing on the message of the cross, if we orient ourselves around anything else, we are in trouble and cease to be a church.

In 1914, not long after the sinking of the Titanic, Congress convened a hearing to discern what had happened in another nautical tragedy. In January of that year, in thick fog off the Virginia coast, the steamship Monroe was rammed by the merchant vessel Nantucket and sank. Forty-one sailors lost their lives in the frigid winter waters of the Atlantic. During cross-examination it was learned, as the New York Times reported, that the Monroe’s captain, navigated with a personal compass that deviated from the standard magnetic compass. He had never adjusted it so that it steered true. This tragedy illustrates the consequences of mis-orientation.  The reminder for us is this: we need to constantly make sure our church is oriented around Jesus Christ and His message of salvation through faith.  In other words, Jesus is every church’s magnetic north.

Let’s be united in Christ!

Darrell

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