Daily Devotional 12-10-2021
Rom 16:17-18 CSB Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who create divisions and obstacles contrary to the teaching that you learned. Avoid them, (18) because such people do not serve our Lord Christ but their own appetites. They deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting with smooth talk and flattering words. Paul could not resist giving a final word of warning that they watch out for spiritual enemies: those who are divisive and seek to hinder the Lord’s work in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned). Believers are to keep away from such false teachers, who were not serving Christ, but were slaves to their own appetites. They were selfish gluttons. The problem, however, was that by smooth talk and flattery they deceived the minds of naive people.
Daily Devotional 8-7-2021
2Co 10:3-5 For although we live in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh, (4) since the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish arguments (5) and every proud thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ. The weapons Paul used were the proclaimed Word of God and prayer, weapons with divine power. In dependence on God these weapons, frail by worldly standards, are able to demolish the arguments and every pretension of the gospel’s foes. Neither the god of this Age nor his henchmen could oppose the knowledge of God on which Paul relied. The object of Paul’s warfare was to make people obedient. Paul was not interested in making them subject to himself or any other man after the…
Daily Devotional 7-28-2021
1Ti 6:3-5 If anyone teaches false doctrine and does not agree with the sound teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ and with the teaching that promotes godliness, (4) he is conceited and understands nothing, but has an unhealthy interest in disputes and arguments over words. From these come envy, quarreling, slander, evil suspicions, (5) and constant disagreement among people whose minds are depraved and deprived of the truth, who imagine that godliness is a way to material gain. Doctrinal error is seldom merely a case of being innocently mistaken. There is almost always some degree of culpability. The false teachers in Ephesus were conceited, with inflated egos. Such a person understands nothing. They are diseased with arguments, out of which come only envy, quarreling, malicious talk, evil suspicions, and constant friction. This contrasts strikingly with Paul’s instruction. Such evil fruits seem the inevitable external products of false teachers once one…