“The Culture of Christ or Pagan Parades”

1 Corinthians 10.31
So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
³² Don’t give offense to Jews or Gentiles or the church of God.
³³ I, too, try to please everyone in everything I do. I don’t just do what is best for me; I do what is best for others so that many may be saved.
^11.1 And you should imitate me, just as I imitate Christ.

Instructions for Public Worship
² I am so glad that you always keep me in your thoughts, and that you are following the teachings I passed on to you.
³ But there is one thing I want you to know: The head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.
⁴ A man dishonors his head if he covers his head while praying or prophesying.
⁵ But a woman dishonors her head if she prays or prophesies without a covering on her head, for this is the same as shaving her head.
⁶ Yes, if she refuses to wear a head covering, she should cut off all her hair! But since it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut or her head shaved, she should wear a covering.
⁷ A man should not wear anything on his head when worshiping, for man is made in God’s image and reflects God’s glory. And woman reflects man’s glory.
⁸ For the first man didn’t come from woman, but the first woman came from man.
⁹ And man was not made for woman, but woman was made for man.
¹⁰ For this reason, and because the angels are watching, a woman should wear a covering on her head to show she is under authority.
¹¹ But among the Lord’s people, women are not independent of men, and men are not independent of women.
¹² For although the first woman came from man, every other man was born from a woman, and everything comes from God.
¹³ Judge for yourselves. Is it right for a woman to pray to God in public without covering her head?
¹⁴ Isn’t it obvious that it’s disgraceful for a man to have long hair?
¹⁵ And isn’t long hair a woman’s pride and joy? For it has been given to her as a covering.
¹⁶ But if anyone wants to argue about this, I simply say that we have no other custom than this, and neither do God’s other churches.

• When the culture collides with the Bible, we must not bend, fold, edit, omit, twist, censure, or try to mold the Bible to be more palatable to the pagan populace.
• Why do we want to look cool to people that hate God?
• Or, on a more immediate, personal, level - are you (secretly) offended at the possibility that God would tell you how to wear your hair?
• If God has an instruction on how to eat, drink, dress, speak, etc, and you carry a resistance to it - ‘nobody tells me what to do’, do you understand that you’re walking into the first temptation that Satan offered Adam and Eve?
• “God is holding something back from you.”

• When I don’t understand, I need more Jesus.
• And the Bible tells me (and the lives of the faithful show me) HOW to approach God.
• I do not come to God about the 1 Cor 11 passage and start with “God, you need to explain why you’re telling women that they have to be doing this and that.
• Explain yourself.”
• Instead, we come to God recognizing His holiness and His goodness and How He has told us He deals with us.

Psalm 84
¹⁰ A single day in your courts
is better than a thousand anywhere else!
I would rather be a gatekeeper in the house of my God
than live the good life in the homes of the wicked.
¹¹ For the Lord God is our sun and our shield.
He gives us grace and glory.
The Lord will withhold no good thing
from those who do what is right.
¹² O Lord of Heaven’s Armies,
what joy for those who trust in you.

• Our ‘kingdom’ cultures collide - we’re citizens of Heaven living here. Which culture prevails?

• Does the Bible ‘push your buttons’? Does the Bible and following God make you feel anxious about how you’re perceived or about how you don’t necessarily understand all of its implications in our day?

• What we must do is ask God for more faith.
  James 1
  ⁵ If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.
  ⁶ But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind.
  ⁷ Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.
  ⁸ Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.

• 1 Corinthians 11 tells us that we’re a New Creation in a New Culture and prompts us do our living to the glory of God, to follow Paul and only those who are following/imitating Christ.
• Then in 1 Cor. 12, he’ll explain to us all the gifts God has for us instead of / replacing the culture of this fallen world.
• We are freed from garnishing our new life with the garbage of the culture.
• Instead, God gives us gracious gifts for growing in our new life, increasing in our grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Leon Morris:
“This section of the letter raises the perennial question of the relationship of current social customs to Christian morality and practice. Behind all that Paul says is the principle that Christians must always act in a seemly manner: ‘everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way’ (14:40).
The application of this principle to first-century Corinth yields the direction that women must have their heads covered when they worship.
The principle is of permanent validity, but we may well feel that its application to the contemporary scene need not yield the same result.
In other words, in the light of our totally different social customs, we may well hold that the fullest acceptance of the principle underlying this chapter does not require that in Western lands in the twentieth century women must always wear hats when they pray.
‘We must remember that when Paul spoke about women as he did in the letters to the Corinthians, he was writing to the most licentious city in the ancient and that in such a place modesty had to be observed and more than observed; and that it is quite unfair to wrest a local ruling from the circumstances in which it was given, and to make it a universal principle’”
(W. Barclay, Letters to the Seven Churches [SCM, 1957], p. 75).

1 Corinthians 12
Now, dear brothers and sisters, regarding your question about the special abilities the Spirit gives us. I don’t want you to misunderstand this.
² You know that when you were still pagans, you were led astray and swept along in worshiping speechless idols.
³ So I want you to know that no one speaking by the Spirit of God will curse Jesus, and no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit.
⁴ There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all.
⁵ There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. ⁶ God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us.
⁷ A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.
⁸ To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge.
⁹ The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing.
¹⁰ He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said.
¹¹ It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.

James 1
¹⁶ So don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters.
¹⁷ Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.
¹⁸ He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession.

Psalm 37
¹ Don’t worry about the wicked or envy those who do wrong.
² For like grass, they soon fade away. Like spring flowers, they soon wither.

³ Trust in the Lord and do good.
Then you will live safely in the land and prosper.
⁴ Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you your heart’s desires.

⁵ Commit everything you do to the Lord.
Trust him, and he will help you.
⁶ He will make your innocence radiate like the dawn,
and the justice of your cause will shine like the noonday sun.

⁷ Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for him to act.
Don’t worry about evil people who prosper or fret about their wicked schemes.