This Week’s Sermon
Dear breakbreaders,
Sermon 20th May 2007
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
This very interesting sermon is certainly going to beg lots of questions. The issues of Christian liberty and legalism is going to be lying on the same line. Each is pegged at either end of the line. Some issues are clear cut. However many issues lie somewhere, not at the extremes, and that is where we all will have to run through the check list pastor gave at the end of the sermon. Look to see whether it is:
Excessive
Expedient
Emulates
Example
Evangelism
Edification
Exaltation
1. What are some of the practices that could possibly cause a weaker
believer to stumble?
A real life example is, a Christian organization was offered a very substantial sum of money for their building fund from the Totalisator Board ie Singapore Pools. Should they forgo this money because the money came from gambling dues?
Other issues which can be discussed are:
rock / pop music
being fashionable - style of dressing, colouring / highlighting of hair
piercing of ears in men, piercing of other (unconventional) body parts
(tongue, umbilical area, etc.)
cigarette smoking
Points for discussion
a. Some of these activities, by themselves, are not “evil” or “negative”, but are often associated with negative social behaviours (eg. rock music with illicit drugs, piercing of ears in men associated with aberrant sexual inclination), etc. If they are, by themselves, not “bad”, then, what is wrong with adopting such practices?
How will they lead to a weaker believer stumbling?
b. If such behaviours cause a weaker believer to stumble, should the
stronger believer go one step further - eg. explaining why he indulges in such practices, for example?
c. the issue of association can hijack normal practices. Let us take the example of an emotional show during singing like raising hands. Its association with the charismatic movement means they have “hijacked” this action and it has become associated with their movement. Would practicing this cause others to stumble? Would it be insensitive to others?
There are ample situations for discussions and the checklist of seven “E”s above helps to keep things in perspective.
Dr and Mrs ET Chua
Tags: This Week's Sermon