1 Corinthians 12:31 Be sincere in seeking God’s gifts for there is always a better way. (My Paraphrase)

This is not so much a quote of that verse as it is an understanding of any present condition for any Christian no matter how far you have come on your walk.

Romans 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

The moment we receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior we have peace with God. The moment we step out into the world in faith, we are hounded by the world.

Psalm 123:3-4 Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us: for we are exceedingly filled with contempt. Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud.

We only deceive ourselves if we think that the peace of God protects our souls in this evil and corrupt world. It does not. The world is at war with our souls and the peace of God is useful only as a guide to keep us on the path of His will for us. Our soul is made up of our mind, will and emotions which are flesh and therefor subject to wounding.

The Lord made provisions for healing and rest. Restoration comes from the Lord and is found in His presence. But then we are sent right back out into the world with a new set of orders. Having had those wounds healed, do you not also have a better understand about how you received them? Will you take that into battle and avoid being wounded again?

Galatians 1:15-16 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:

I strive for a better way, were flesh and blood have no part in this conversation.

Acts 17:17 Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.

Acts 13:42 And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath.

Because the New Testament was not yet written the early apostles had nothing in writing to show the first century Jews about the Good News, they had to reason Christ out of what was already available, the scrolls of the prophets and of Moses.

Imagine if you will that the Spirit of Truth shines the light of truth upon scriptures that have been seen and taught as legalistic ritual for thousands of years and then, in that moment, removed the chains of bondage and set them free. Christ was in those ancient parchments but was seen for the first time because for the first time they were spoken not by men of God but the Spirit of God Himself.

It is one thing to read the Word of God and yet a whole better thing to hear God. The blind could now see and the deaf could now hear for the first time ever, because the Spirit was now given unto men who accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

The first traditions of that early church were oral. The Holy Spirit spoke to men thru men. It was in essence Logos Rhema, the Spirit of God spoken thru the voice of men. It would be decades before the first letters were written to men whom the apostles had already approached, spoken to directly and delivered the Gospel directly.

After Paul’s greeting to the people of Ephesus he writes in verse 16 “Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,” showing that the oral traditions had already been established and love abounded long before the epistles were written.

Have we gotten away from that oral tradition?