Thursday, November 28, 2013

DAY 558 - How Could The Wild Beasts Eat You up? (請按此處收聼廣東話Cantonese podcast click here)


**NEW link for the  15th: 13th 100 days 24 hours prayer campaign (We are going to use this 13th list leads up to the 15th. 13th from March 15 to June 22, 2013. 14th from June 22 to August 31, 2013, 15th from Sept. 1, 2013 to Dec. 9. 2013)

Want to know why I have been writing and recording my blogs and podcast daily since August 10, 2009? Click these three links:

Confirmation from John Stott in 2009: 
http://bishopsilas.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html
My MicroMacro Discipleship, A missing DNA in Discipleship Development: http://bishopsilas.blogspot.com/2009/07/introduction-micromacro-discipleship.html
Subject Shifting Devotion Method(Inspired by John Stott in 1991: http://bishopsilas.blogspot.com/2009/08/count-down-5-subject-shifting-devotion.html

                               Today's Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:29-34
** If you would like to learn a simple and good way of Daily Devotion method please read my “Count Down 5” from my Devotion on Fire blog:
http://bishopsilas.blogspot.ca/2009/08/count-down-5-subject-shifting-devotion.html
To use this simple and good way of Daily Devotion method please click this link:
 .Subject Shifting Devotion.pdf

Please click this link to read 1 Corinthians 15:29-34

Bible Study

     Paul wants to express his severe struggles against all those oppositions surrounding him as similar to those gladiators fighting each others to death and to be eaten by wild animals in the arena, the same as the great Colosseum in Rome. In that kind of struggles, Paul is concern of how Christians can influence those non-believers to follow the risen Christ believing in the resurrection. 
Bishop N.T. Wright says ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._T._Wright ) :
     Paul's own sufferings, and the dangers he faces, are a further argument (verses 30-31), leading to the passage about the metaphorical 'wild beasts'.  This then brings him, suddenly, to a quotation from the Greek poet Menander: 'bad company kills off good habits'.  What Paul is saying - and quoting a pagan poet is a heavily ironic way of making the point - is that the Corinthian Christians, who ought by now to be able to show and tell the truth of the one living God to their pagan neighbours, are instead continuing to allow the pagan thought-forms of those neighbours to distort and even deny the central beliefs they should be gladly holding.  There is a danger, as present today as it was in Paul's day, of being deceived: it is possible to allow the influence of the surrounding culture and the ideas it promotes to seep into a Christian world-view until the truth has been turned into a lie.  

N.T. Wright. Paul for Everyone:1 Corinthians. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p.218.

     So, how well are you fighting this hugh spiritual warfare? Are you able to change some of your relatives and friends worldly value or are you being changed by them to be world-like and not Christ-like? 

Let's have a time to be still and give the Holy Spirit space to speak through the passage of scripture we have just read. Offer this time up to Jesus as you listen to him, while listening to "Gabriel's Oboe":  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmax47l2hLU

Spiritual Journal

    What I heard from Jesus today is: How could the wild beasts eat you up?

    What I got from Jesus today is a warning of how we could be eaten up by the worldly culture and values just like the wild beasts in the arena. It depends on who our company is. If we are not careful and be willing to be surrounded by bad company, then in times, our lifestyle of Christlikeness would be totally destroyed or we can never establish a lifestyle of Christlikeness.

     Just give you an example. Michelle and I were having lunch with a good friend yesterday. She was talking about her bad luck lately and then said, "Touch wood! Touch wood!" I smiled and said, "Which kind of wood are your referring to that can keep bad luck coming to you? Are you worshiping that wood so that it can give you good luck? Ha, ha, ha!" She said, "Oh! I have never thought of to say "touch wood" is not a Christian should say. You are right. I need to be carful more about this casual worldly saying. Thank you for reminding me!" She is a good Christian but in recent years are surrounded by all kinds of worldly culture and friends making her to think and act more worldly but not Christlike.

     So, this is how the wild beasts might eat you up until the truth and Jesus is away from you! Watch out!  

Dear Lord Jesus, 
Help us to be focus on you, have good company so that we won't be eaten up by the worldly wild beasts surrounding us each day. Protect us and guide us Lord! In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

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10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord) Matt Redman
You may choose to follow my other daily blog: 
Daily Devotion on Fire 2(2 years plan -One year New Testament, one year Old Testament): 
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Daily Devotion on Fire (3 years and 3 months plan, one chapter a day to finish reading the whole Bible): 
http://bishopsilas.blogspot.ca/
Break.Build (40 days daily devotion- For Renewal or First Step for new Christians): http://www.breakbuild.blogspot.ca/

Emmanuel330 (40 weeks First Step Bible Study): 
http://emmanuel330.blogspot.ca/

This blog:

Discipler 123 (Daily devotion using N.T. Wright's NT for Everyone as source)
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