Adiaphora: I Corinthians 8:1-13

Some stuff in the Christian life is just plain confusing. Is it proper to eat meat offered to idols? How about a value dinner at a Casino? What stuff matters and what stuff doesn't? It's a tangled mess that Paul sorts through in the text above. The key: add the filter of love to all our fine wisdom.

Acts 7:54-60

The stoning of Stephen is a brutal chapter in the history of the church. Quickly finding meaning out of violence dishonors and devalues the grief and loss of those affected. Quick predestinarianism is insensitive to those who grieve. Stephen's brutal stoning is something that is not romantic or tender. It is mob violence of the ugly sort we have seen in Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Darfur and recently Kenya (not to mention Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan).
Growth in the church created problems. Stephen was a solution to the problem. Stephen's death was an unanticipated consequence of that solution. The value of his death can only be measured in the life of those who followed: most signifcantly Paul.

Generosity?

II Corinthians 8:1-5 tells the story of the table: overflowing generosity from those who give themselves first to the Lord.

Sacraments: Gift or Burden?

Matthew 28:18-20 and I Corinthians11:23-26 establish that both baptism and communion are to be practiced by us, the church. The question is: do we get it in the way Jesus intended it? What do we do with the burden of divergent historical customs and practices?