My Corner Online

1 Corinthians 8:1-3

 Paul is begins answering questions regarding eating meat that was offered to idols instead of sacrifices to God by first talking about the principles of knowledge and love. How we live and behave is based on God's love, not on knowledge. The goal of Christian living is love, not gaining more knowledge. Which way do I want to grow? Do I want to be puffed up with a swelled head of pride of all the knowledge I have absorbed or do I want to build up love? Love is shared with others. It is love that builds up others. Edify means to instruct or improve someone morally or intellectually. That is building up in knowledge. If we think we know everything, we really know nothing. The only knowledge that is important is the knowledge of God. Get to know God and He, the one who knows everything, knows you. God knows who loves Him and who does not. Knowledge leads to sinful pride, but love leads to building up others by sharing God's love. See companion digital Bible journaling on Romans 12:1-2.

Moralistic therapeutic deism is a term that was first introduced in the 2005 book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers by Christian Smith with Melinda Lundquist Denton. Moral Deism is a new term for contemporary gnostic doctrine.  A gnostic is someone who believes there is a God but does not believe in what is taught in the Bible. Before this term was coined in this book, I called this trend "new-age religion" which focuses on self-striving and self-accomplishments.   When we have morals, we know what is right and what is wrong and we choose to do what is good. Therapeutic has to do with healing by what feels good. There are many churches today which are red flags to me in that they are "feel good churches." They attract folks because they "feel" God's Spirit and feel good.  If you go to church seeking to feel good, eventually you will be let down and it will lead you to unbelief. Instead go to church to worship God and nothing more. Anything more is a blessing. Our culture is rapidly becoming non-Christian. With social media, believers are being taught a new way to look at God that is not godly and is really harmful. So many posts sound good and seem to be good knowledge because they are morally right and, yes, Jesus does want us to do right. However, the underlying meaning is "self" and "doing good" and "feeling good." It is not wrong to feel good. Feeling good is such a blessing from God! Give Him the credit. It is nothing that we do and God does not promise us that we will always feel good.