Dear saints and seekers of the Holy One,
Some on you may be gifted as a prophet as I am. If so and if you routinely exercise this marvelous opportunity, it won’t be long until you encounter this cry of protest from the hyper-sentimentalized and hyper-feminized Christian.
“That is not 1st Corinthians 13 love!”
Clearly emblazoned on my mind is the first time I heard directly on this from a woman in my family who was a looooooong time argumentative and feisty Christian. In reply to a dicey article of how Jesus and the apostles treated the wayward church with rebuke, she just emailed me the 1st Corinthians 13 passage. No explanation. Zip.
When I responded and asked her to engage her doctrine to look at the whole counsel of God, of course she never replied, and retreated behind her cyber-bunker forevermore. I heard from her once more and she then too sent the same passage. She declined to respond again. Shortly thereafter, I deleted her from my email list.
As a brief aside, she also ran her house with an iron fist, fussed and complained with her quiet and reserved Christian husband, and trained her daughters to disrespect and control their husbands too. So much for 1 Peter 2-3 of a quiet and gentle spirit to win her husband without a word by her chaste and respectable behavior.
Let’s look at the main part of passage in question that church people quickly quote.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Now this is not a treatise on this passage but only to illustrate the main words used to bludgeon the truthful proclamations of prophets and other truth seekers.
Patient and kind are not what we think
Words and phrases like “patient,” and “kind,” and “not jealous,” and “bears all things” are pregnant in the modern western culture with meaning absorbed from the culture. And not from the careful study and musing on the exegesis, the then and there, of the ancient culture that spawned these words from the Holy Spirit.
“Patient” in the modern parlance of Biblical error means to bear all things, and keep your mouth shut. “Kind” means to them to be nice, and keep your mouth shut. “Bears all things” means to them to accept everything, and keep your mouth shut.
Of course, with gross hypocrisy, these deceived folks are never “patient” with the prophet for they spout off with a hair trigger. They are not “kind” for they attack or withdraw. And they certainly never “bear all things” when they disagree. And forget about them every keeping their mouth shut if the prophet happens to be around them in person!
Praise God for those who truly desire proper and correct Biblical interpretation, hermeneutics. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of passages that provide a thorough explanation what the Lord meant by “patient, kind, and bears all things.”
Now to the matter at hand: naming names in the Word of God. Is this being patient, kind, and bearing all things?
Yes. According to God, that is.
No, according to the naysayers attempting to use 1 Corinthians 13 as a tool to silence the whole counsel of God.
Jesus names names
First our Lord. This is just a sampling.
Matthew 15:7-9 “You hypocrites (false religious leaders), rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you: ‘THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME. ‘BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.'”
Matthew 16:23 But He (Jesus) turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”
Matthew 23:33 “You serpents, you brood of vipers (sons of snakes), how will you escape the sentence of hell?
Luke 10:41-42 But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”
Luke 12:56 “You hypocrites (the crowds)! You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why do you not analyze this present time?
Luke 13:32 And He (Jesus) said to them, “Go and tell that fox (Herod), ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I reach My goal.’
John 3:9-10 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?
Revelation 3:1 “To the angel of the church in Sardis write: He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars, says this: ‘I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead…”
Revelation 3:14-16 “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this: ‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth…’
So, dear one, how do you think Peter, Martha, Nicodemus, the false religious leaders, Herod, and the Revelation churches felt about all this? Jesus Christ demands obedience as our measure of love and devotion. Feelings are a distant second at best.
Of course, the leaders betrayed the Lord of Glory, tortured, and murdered Him. This does not happen to “nice” people.
Was Jesus patient, kind, and bearing all things? Is this 1 Corinthians 13 love as the naysayers envision it? Hardly.
The Apostles name names
It gets worse with the apostles. Much worse.
Galatians 2:11,14 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned…But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, “If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?…
1 Timothy 1:19-20 keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith. Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, so that they will be taught not to blaspheme.
2 Timothy 4:10a for Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica….
2 Timothy 4:14-15 Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. Be on guard against him yourself, for he vigorously opposed our teaching.
Titus 1:12-13 One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” This testimony is true. For this reason reprove them severely so that they may be sound in the faith…
The apostle John too gets into the act of naming names. Not nice.
3 John 1:9-11 I wrote something to the church; but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not accept what we say. For this reason, if I come, I will call attention to his deeds which he does, unjustly accusing us with wicked words; and not satisfied with this, he himself does not receive the brethren, either, and he forbids those who desire to do so and puts them out of the church. Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God.
A close look at how Jesus Christ treated His wayward sinning church was anything but nice, but altogether holy and effective to build His kingdom as the King of kings.
The Old Testament names hundreds of examples. Saul, David, Solomon, all the evil kings, etc. are but a few names that are named.
Calling out any evil and bad behavior is a serious past time for all the apostles in the New Testament. We’re not even speaking of all the multitudes of passages that command us to expose error, but will show just a smattering right below.
Titus 1:10-11 For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain.
Titus 3:10-11 Reject a factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned.
2 Peter 2:1 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.
Rebuke and reproof is common occurrence and commanded to keep the loaf unleavened and the body of Christ holy and pure.
Of course, when helping protect the kingdom of God by naming names, we’re to do so in an attitude of humility and without malice. Now, that humility includes reproof and rebuke, plus sarcasm when called for by the Spirit: the same as Jesus Christ and His original apostles.
Please remember, dear saints, that the sober charge of Almighty God is always present in fighting the good fight as Paul declares here.
2 Timothy 4:1-4 I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.
Love is not nice. Jesus is considered mean to the average modern church goer. If they ever identify who He really is in the first place, they will leave their spiritual identify crisis behind.
And in so doing, join the rest of us in naming names like Jesus and the apostles.
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You may find the article on Agree On Everything right here.
You may find the article on Unity right here.
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Please comment on this post right below. Feel free to write and proclaim your leadings in the Spirit in an honorable fashion.
Your friend and brother in fighting the good fight,
Marc
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Saints, we’re one day closer to Home, and Him! Love Him wholeheartedly!
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Please comment on this post right below. Feel free to write and proclaim your leadings in the Spirit in an honorable fashion.
Marc White, Director, Walk Worthy Ministries, www.WalkWorthy.org
