Thoughts for another day

Sept. 26, 2013.

Today's verse: 1 Tim. 4:4,5. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving; for then it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer. (RSV)

(Pls. read the above before you read further.  Thanks)

The Word of God is a reference manual, so to say, to understand the way we should live for in it we find the answers of what to do and how to do things etc. All these of course, are in a spiritual sense and believe me the Bible is complete with all answers and never shies away from approaching even difficult issues.  Today, our Word tells us that whatever God created is good and it’s not to be rejected but received with thanksgiving and consecrated by the Word of God and prayer.

A clarification I’ve been most often asked is: can you eat food offered by idol worshippers to their idols and then distributed.  Now Paul has a detailed say on this in 1 Cor. 8 and we know from it that if by my eating, I disturb the conscience of a weak brother and bring him to destruction, then I shouldn’t eat it because he’s disturbed; else, as our Word directs, we receive it with thanksgiving and consecrate it to God and it becomes fit to eat.  Jesus even said, Mk. 7:18,19, “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him ‘unclean’? For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods “clean.”) This must be ingrained in us who’re mature Christians, living in countries such as mine (India), where it’s highly probable these questions would arise.

On marriage (a few verses before our verse for today), forbidding it as to serve the Lord is no longer the way but we can marry because we know this truth from the Word of God.  Now, those who don’t wish to marry could remain like that but not indulge in anything that could be as a result of being in that state, says Paul in 1 Cor. 7:8 ff.  Even to the marrying of an unbeliever, Paul says, in the same chapter v 14 that the unbelieving husband is made holy by the believing wife and vice versa.  See, all rules for living are there in the Word and it’s essential we seek to know God’s Word for whatever difficulty we have and if we live as the Bible tells us to, we will LIVE.