Thank you my friend! Yes, the flesh of this old man is slower now and is probably quite close to its final stop, but it is quite another story for the "new man", is it not? Give God the glory!Blessings, John. Glad to see you are feeling better.
When you speak of "very few churches" you speak of probably physical organized groups of people, is God limited by the boundaries of such groups? Did not Jesus say,About this question, my answer would be not without the gift of prophecy in full operation. This was the very means by which Paul said they were seeing themselves through a mirror, even as they existed back then. Since very few churches operate in prophecy at the current time, we see ourselves LESS clearly than they did back then, not more clearly.
"Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.
For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Matt 18:19-20
The gathering surely need not to be a physical one when the binding thread is the Holy Spirit within each of those gathering by yielding to that Spirit? How many agreed together to keep on walking with God to the Promised Land? Only two: Joshua and Caleb! Only two out of Egypt [sin] all the way into their momentary glory land. What did Joshua and Caleb see to which the other natural children of Jacob were blind? We can limit God, but if we do not, what will He not be able to do for us?
So then be zealous with all we have...not worrying about the other guy... and ask that He takes up any slack and leave us with no blank spaces in need of being filled:- Be zealous for the greater gifts, and yet I show a way in accordance with excellence. (1 Corinthians 12:31)
"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Matt 6:33
We cannot fix any shortcomings in the other guy. All we can do is all that we can and pray for the other guy. The rest is up to God, is it not?Here he is referring backwards to every member of the body operating in his or her own spiritual gifts, and therefore needing one another.
Congregations consist of people. There will be tares among the wheat. Don't expect them all to suddenly become wheat. Some may... but some never will.This is why love is stressed in 13:1-7. Then he states your verse quoted in the OP:
- Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will be rendered useless. Whether there are tongues, they shall cease. Whether there is knowledge, it shall be rendered useless. For we know in part and we prophecy in part. But when that which is complete may come, that which is in part is rendered useless. [Then comes the analogy of us seeing ourselves as infants would now, but as adults would see themselves in eternity]...
For now we see through a mirror as in a riddle, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall recognize [myself] even as I have been recognized. (1 Corinthians 13:1-12).
- The whole passage is about accurately recognizing one's true spiritual state as GOD sees it, and I personally think this to be utterly impossible unless the Spirit of God speaks through congregations enabling Him to do so (as the context suggests, through prophetic utterance in particular).
Thanks! Give God the glory! With us or without us, He will finish His work!No time for talk. Too busy. Just thought I'd post a comment.
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