MY BODY, MY BLOOD
Today’s Reading: 1 Corinthians 11
Click scripture link to read online or HERE to listen online (then click the symbol of the audio speaker above the scripture portion).
Golgotha was, according to the Gospels, a site immediately outside of Jerusalem’s walls where Jesus was crucified. Golgotha is the Greek transcription in the New Testament of an Aramaic term. The Bible translates the term to mean “place of the skull.” A modern-day bus terminal is located in the place many believe to be the site of “Golgotha.”
GOOGLE MAPS – To see where the photo was taken, click HERE.
Key Verse: 1 Corinthians 11:26
For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.
Partaking of the emblems of the body and blood of Christ is not an option which we may or may not exercise. It’s an order! Paul says, “Do this!” (11:24b). Remembering Christ’s death and resurrection is of vital importance (11:25).
Let’s look at the positive aspects of Paul’s teaching regarding “hair.” Women in the Corinthian Church were taking advantage of their new-found freedom in Christ and they were praying and prophesying in public gatherings. Good! But some appeared to be flaunting social convention by what would’ve been considered in the culture of that time and place as inappropriate and distracting. We are informed by cultural historians that at that time in Greece, only the prostitutes were seen in public with their hair uncovered. For Christian women to disregard this would have hurt their testimony. However, Paul was not making this an order as he did with remembering the Lord’s Supper. He assures those of us who live in other cultures and at other times that we are not bound to these social practices of Corinth (11:16). “Contentious” people will make a big issue of hair styles even today. “We have no such custom, nor do the churches of God.”
PRAYER FOR TODAY:
Lord Jesus, I thank You for Your death and resurrection which I remember daily in my personal devotions, and also, without fail, together with my local congregation. Help me, I pray, that I will discern (understand fully) the depth of Your love and provision for me in Your Cross. I ask for health, physical strength, and length of days which come to me as a result. In Your strong Name I pray. Amen!
100 PERSONAL WORDS:
As a boy I heard a certain minister called a “clothesline” preacher. His special interest seemed to be the way women dressed. I was not impressed. It seemed to be a superfluous, relatively unimportant issue. Nevertheless, this still seems to be an issue with some. The prohibitions of the religion of Islam are a case in point (the burka). That’s the ridiculous extreme. This story I’m about to share may be fictitious, but here goes…
A preacher titled his message, “Top Knot Come Down.” He wanted the women to take the bun in which their hair was gathered on top of their heads, which he saw as an evidence of worldly pride, and move the bun down to the back of their heads. His text was taken from Jesus’ words as recorded in Matthew 24:17, “Let him who is on the housetop not come down.” This story illustrates for me how unwise it is to take temporary cultural expressions and insist that they be followed always. I’ve asked my sons to find a photo of a very religious Jew in Jerusalem who rigidly follows a dress code which originated in a remote village sometime in the middle ages in a remote area of eastern Europe. I think about these things and want to make sure I don’t get caught in such a trap.
Yours for a fuller understanding of God’s Word in a constantly shifting culture,
David
Perpetuating traditional Jewish customs from Eastern Europe.
I praise God for thd shedding of Jesus precious blood and for my redemtion
Dear Lord thank you for giving David Maines strength and healing to carry on his task of what you called him to do Bless him and his entire family and we Praise You Lord Jesus for David for his faithfulness to You in Jesus name Amen
I remember when we used to wear a hat to church. So happy that custom evaporated!
What an amazing pic of the men with the fabulous hair style!! Wonder what bald men would do?
It will be rather a relief to spend eternity with our heavenly Father where fashion and bad or good looks won’t be an issue. Thank you Jesus!
Blessings on all us saints, no matter what we look like:-)
C. S. Lewis: “Christians increasingly live on a spiritual island; new and rival ways of life surround it in all directions and their tides come further up the beach every time. . . . Some give morality a wholly new meaning which we cannot accept, some deny its possibility. Perhaps we shall all learn, sharply enough, to value the clean air and ‘sweet reasonableness’ of the Christians ethics which in a more Christian age we might have taken for granted.”
David I don’t know what to think I have is a friend who wheres a covering over
her head when she attends church. Does it matter to God when we go to
heaven if we have or not ?
Lianne Hogg
if someone wishes to wear a scarf, hat, so be it…a lot of younger men wear a form of a touque inside a place and outside, it doesn’t matter to God, what matters is that we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour, that we believe that Jesus Christ dies for the sins of ALL people and that includes us, and that through the death and resurrection of God’s Only Son, all mankind is saved from going to hell….the only way that will happen is if a persons turns around and walks away from God….their decision, head covering or no head covering…Lianne I am very glad you brought up the question…everytime people ask a question many people are happy because they were wondering the same thing, thank you again, God bless you
Thanks David for the amusing anecdote regarding the ‘topknot ‘. The manipulation of Scriptures reminds me of a statement made by someone in my old Bible College in U.K. …. ‘ a text without a context , is a pretext !’
Hi David I had to laugh about the top knot come down I can tell we went to the same Bible College. If I remember right it was Rev. Atter who told that story.
I am remembered of the song “Just as I am“……..I may be homeless, an addict, have a severe mental illness, blind, deaf, but I can come to Jesus Christ “just as I am” broken, and He opens His arms to me and saya “COME, HERE I AM” ‘COME JUST AS YOU ARE“
Amen Sah…you “hit the nail on the head” as the saying goes…you are absolutely correct…
Jesus accepts us “Just as we are” …or as the hymn says “Just as I am without one plea but that thy blood was shed for me”
He loves all…hat or no hat…long hair, short hair, no hair…What a Marvelous Savior.
appreciated your anecdote Pastor David.