PerryDox – BeJustAChristian

Everyone is affected by peer pressure, regardless of age. What peers, what pressure, and how we react is the difference between: 1) Doing Wrong; 2) Doing Right but Wrong; 3) Doing Right.
1. Every teenager in a Bible class has heard, “Bad company corrupts good morals” (1 Corinthians 15:33). Paul is quoting a Greek poet, Meander. Paul is quoting him to warn adult Corinthians against false teachers. Every adult needs to heed Paul’s warning. Even religious peers can be dangerous!
2. Selling your possessions to give to others? Very good! Selling your possessions because you want credit and glory from others? Very bad. The way Luke writes, he implies Ananias and Sapphira were influenced by Joseph (and others) whom the apostles called “the son of encouragement”, that is Barnabas (Acts 4:32-5:11). Did they want acknowledgement and a cool nickname? They did good but for the wrong reason which caused them to greedily lie about how much they sold their property for. I wonder if Paul thought of them when writing, “And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3). Pure religion (James 1:26-27) must be pure in heart.
3) Our assembling together is not just about worshipping God. We are commanded to “not forsake” (Hebrews 10:25) so we can influence one another: “And let us watch out for one another to provoke love and good works” (Hebrews 10:24). To provoke is “a provocation which literally jabs (cuts) someone so they “must” respond” (Bible Helps).
We all will be influenced by religious peers. Let’s make sure our peers are good and so is our heart.

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This entry was posted by PHall on Friday, February 9th, 2018 at 9:43 am and is filed under Acts, I Corinthians, Hebrews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.