1 Cor. 12
Which gifts has the Spirit given you and how are you using them “for the common good?” God gives us gifts through His Spirit so that we can serve Him through serving others. Though we do not receive His gifts primarily for our own benefit, when we use them appropriately, we benefit from them as well. To use Paul’s body analogy, an eye doesn’t gain anything from being able to see except in what that ability offers to the rest of the body. Not running into walls is a good thing.
“For the common good” is a concept taken by Socialist and Communist thinking, among others. But they miss the point. God’s gifts – and every good thing we have is a gift from God – are meant to be re-gifted. But a gift is only a gift if it is given willingly. You cannot force service. It is up to each individual in the body, through the guiding of the Spirit, how they use and what they do with what God gives. Imagine if the entire body could set self aside and serve God through serving each other. How God could work through such a body! That is why Paul says, “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” (1 Cor. 12). When we work together by God’s Spirit, we become like Jesus.
Judges 3-4
Name two reasons God left people from other nations in the Promised Land. I think God left other nations in the Promised Land for much the same reason that He placed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. He did it because choice isn’t a choice without viable options. There are several ways God could have made it impossible for us not to ‘choose’ Him, but He wanted a people who loved Him. And love is a choice.
The comment about teaching warfare to those who had not experienced it is interesting. Experiencing something firsthand is way different than hearing about somebody else’s experience. Thus, we see over and over again that the people’s faithfulness faded as they became farther removed from personal experience. Leaving those other nations in the land gave God the means to show those who lacked experience both their need for God and His faithfulness and power to save. Knowing that should change my perspective on hardships in my life. Instead of just seeing them as hardships, I should see them as opportunities for my faithful God, whom I always need, to display His power in my life. Not always a pleasant process, but always the potential for amazing results.