Michigan Camp Meeting 2017

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Corinthians: Message to a Contemporary Church

Daniel Scarone

Eric del Valle

Corinthians: A Message to a Contemporary Church - Part 1

Father in Heaven, thank you for these moments.

We are going to be dealing with revelation coming from your disciple, the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians.

Be with us in this moment of study of your Word.

Well, when I was planning some seminars for this meeting, I've been thinking that why don't we bring into this scenario something we were performing together with Pastor Devalia with 3ABM.

And it's called biblical answers in Spanish.

That is kind of, you know, people call, send questions, and we answer back.

And we are maybe taping, what, twice a year, sometimes 3 times a year, but let me tell you that we don't have the time in every single program to deal with a lot of questions coming from the 3 Americas, because the program is reaching South America, Central America, and also USA here.

And it's very sometimes when you think that we pastors do not have problems, let me tell you that we do have sometimes problems.

And that sometimes we need some kind of reinforcement.

We do need some kind of reinforcements from time to time.

And when Friday night or Saturday night, we open the email because RB, thank you.

Sometimes we are in need of some kind of input, and people call and say their opinion regarding that, it's a blessing to know that we are reaching a lot of people.

Recently, I've been sharing with Eric that, because they connected the email with my email.

And there was a person from California calling us, telling and inviting us to go there and open a charge because they say there is no SDA charge here.

And we like that you can teach, and we are going to learn the word with you.

So come here, start your charge, because I want that my sons and my great sons be in the charge of this faith.

Sometimes you never know how you are reaching from except of this kind of female.

Pastor DeBalli, let me introduce him briefly, is a doctoral student in the last stages of the dissertation, and he is going to finish probably this year his PhD in theology.

So what you are going to find is a person that is delighted in the world, is delighted in teaching the world.

He has been a teacher and the head of the theological department in Puerto Rico when we called him from here, from Michigan Conference.

So there is another person coming from Roger Hayes that is the clerk of the church, by the way, our representant in the Lake Union in this moment.

By the way, from the same church and country.

So tomorrow, tomorrow I'm going to, I don't know if you can get them.

If you cannot get them, I'm going to provide tomorrow a copy of Methods of the Bible Study.

And it's online, but we are going to bring that copy to you.

But I'm going to share with you some introductory things regarding the presentation of the topic, because probably you are thinking, why Corinthians?

What is the rationale for a seminar on the Epistle to the Corinthians.

And we are going to give you a background of the Epistles because there are very interesting things regarding the epistles to the Corinthians.

And by the way, we are going to explain several things regarding that at some points together or with Pastor de Valle.

But 1 of the things is first the similarities with the contemporary culture in which we are.

And when, you know sometimes many of you members of a charge board, how many of you are members in a charge board?

So well, we are dealing with problems in the culture and with the society nowadays.

There was 1 charge, by the way, 1 charge in Michigan.

I'm not going to disclose the idea of the charge, but it's in a big city that after the equal marriage in USA took place, the decision in 2015, that they took a decision.

We are not going to do any marriage in this charge until the GC or North American Division decides what we are going to do regarding this.

We are in problems in that kind of environment.

And probably around maybe Wednesday, I don't know, we are going to give you a hint of an interpretation regarding Corinthians, because the Apostle in the Epistle to the Corinthians is dealing with that kind of situation.

Let me tell you, the face of the charge is going to change in the future.

If you go to the big cities and you enter into a SDA church, you are going to see that we or the Anglo-Saxon, traditional, Caucasian people is not quite represented.

Believe me, I'm not happy for that, because I do have a precious memory and respect for the Anglo-American people that built this church in the past, and I am extremely sorry for how many Anglos are going behind.

But we need to build the faith in the church with whichever is in the church.

So we are facing a new faith in the church and a mixed kind of identity and this is coming.

Sometimes when we are starting new congregations, new churches, and by the way this is a piece of information we already shared that with Pastor Del Valle and probably Nereida is aware of that, we are buying a new church in the area of Grand Rapids.

A Christian reformer church is beginning to going down, you know?

And I've been with my eye into those buildings and there was 1 congregation, it's about maybe 40, 50 years of old, the building, and they are, they put, before they put the church in the market, we come close to them, and there was a service from 1 Christian Reformer member in connection with SDA Central Church that gave the information, and we are going to buy the building in the following days.

If tomorrow you are going to be here, probably just for information, I'm going to show you some pictures.

It's about 600 people seated, and individual, you know?

Not every church do have that facility for $285, 000.

I've been telling somebody that is the rate of a good house in the area of Grand Rapids, in a good neighborhood, and with 55 parking spots in the rear, 22 in the side, with a potential extension of another 22 parking spots, totaling about 99.

But let me tell you that Corinthians were dealing with divisions and you know that sometimes we are dealing with divisions in the Church.

The Apostle Paul probably dealing, working with the Corinthians.

Corinthians or Corinth is a Church that was established by the Apostle Paul.

And even though an apostle founded that charge, there was a kind of division in the charge.

And we are going to be there, and we are going to explore what is the cause, what is the root of that kind of problems that sometimes affect the churches with a diversity of loyalties going into a kind of crush connections among the members in the church.

And of course, pastor, on theological challenges.

I remember to be in the defense of a dissertation several years ago in South America regarding the Baptists for the dead.

But the Apostle Paul mentioned, so we are going to be dealing with that.

And by the way, the Mormons, until today, they baptized for the dead.

I don't know if in this, Pastor Del Valle, very practical eye, come to me and say, Daniel, do you think we are going to cover everything?

And if we need to finish, we'll finish next year.

And also might be a model to help and assist in our pastoral endeavors, because we are dealing with that kind of problems.

What we are going to do with people coming into the church with different backgrounds, And when different backgrounds, let me tell you, in 2017, IE is different from different backgrounds in 1960.

We are working in the ministerial department, and I am working with multi-ethnics, but sometimes some of the pastors with a certain friendship and familiarity are coming close to us, send me an email and say, Pastor, what is your recommendation for this?

I do have 2 ladies married in another state coming into the church.

Well, you understand that that is a problem.

And that is a problem in this time, because if I will say this, in 1960s, you will say, please, please.

I am not familiar with your English from probably 20, 30 years ago, you know.

Corinthians: A Message to a Contemporary Church - Part 2

Father in Heaven, thank you for this moment.

We are beginning to deal with this second presentation regarding the Apostle Paul's letter to the Corinthians, help us to learn skills and ideas, concepts that might be helpful for us in dealing with similar things that are happening in our congregations nowadays.

Be with us, with Pastor Del Valle, myself, and with each 1 of And with each 1 of those who are here, we ask these things in Jesus' name.

Yesterday we were talking about why or the rationale for our presentation and of course the epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians was a very, very extremely challenging epistle to write.

It was a very singular condition in which the church was, and this is the geography of the place.

It is still in the same place, but of course long ago the members who required the visit and the missionary effort of the Apostle Paul are going.

By the way, some people in the new tendencies of the hermeneutics are working, thinking in this way.

They say, well, the congregation disappeared, the problem that started or moved that letter disappeared, so there is no rationale for us to be reading that kind of stuff.

There is not a purpose learning in doing that.

We need to rewrite the Bible for ourselves.

When I was in a classroom, when I heard that and I said for myself, that's the craziest thing that I ever heard, you know.

But this is what people in leading seminars working on hermeneutics are thinking in.

What is the purpose for us of reading an epistle like Corinthians?

We need to learn from that experience and be faithful to the written Word of God there, and to apply to the condition of the world nowadays because we are choosing Corinthians and that is a casual conversation coming back from 3ABM and I don't know now if we were coming back or going to, but we were in that kind of endeavor with Pastor Dr.

And I say, look, Eric, it would be good maybe to share this as Corinthians to apply to contemporary issues because that is the same kind of stuff that we are living in our society.

So today we are going, and you have a couple of documents, and we are sharing with you.

And yesterday we were telling you that we were going to share, because the Apostle Paul founded this church, was sometime 3 years in the city, and we mentioned that.

And he established, he worked with a local synagogue, and from that, probably he began to establish a connection with the basis of the early church to the Corinthians over there.

And when he left, he left an organized church, but problems appear and that is the reason of this letter.

And probably it's not, we mentioned that probably it's not the, this is not what we have, it's not the first because probably it's the second.

The Apostle Paul mentioned here in 1 Corinthians 5, 9, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people.

However, when we read 1 Corinthians, especially between the section of chapter 1 and 5, there is nothing in reference to that.

That means that probably the Apostle Paul sent another letter.

So we are going to be dealing with this, the first, probably the second.

And the second is not the second then, because it's or the third or the fourth.

There were something, and we mentioned that yesterday, that in the early days, that was a kind of distance learning process in the early churches.

And because Paul was in Ephesus and he was writing to the Corinthians in Corinth and leading them from distance.

And that is a kind of distance learning process.

We were giving you an idea and we said that we didn't promise that we were to finish this week.

We say that if we can't, we are going to continue until we finish next year probably.

But the topics are quite interesting because this is a synthesis of the picture, the whole picture of the epistles.

And probably there are people that might be interested in certain other topics.

But remember, before you leave today, write something and tell us what are the topics that you prefer to be dealing with.

And we are trying to concentrate upon that.

Because, for example, there are people that say, I would like to talk seriously about the gift of tongues, or tongues interpretation in the church.

What is the connection between, for example, the gift of tongues in the Book of Corinthians with the Book of Acts and the manifestations in Chapter 2 of the book of Luke, Acts of the Apostles.

And of course there are several issues of connection and also several issues of variance in between both documentations.

Yesterday we began to be exploring divisions in the charge.

And basically, we were dealing with that.

And we are going to be dealing today regarding the divisions in the charge.

Of course, maybe what we need to work today is a little bit of the application.

I don't know if in the morning they can write this.

It's a very important electronic address here.

And don't say to Shim that I am deleting the email of the wife.

But when we work in the charge, and this is a kind of applied sometimes schedule, we in conference are working in a kind of triangle with the charges.

It's the local charge, the local charge is who elect the conference officers.

And the conference officers select the pastor and sometimes there are problems.

This is, in the Bible you are going to see the theory, okay?

Here is the picture that we are having and this is our reality.

Sometimes from the conference we are dealing with internal problems in the church.

Sometimes the problem is between leaders or among leaders.

It's a tension and sometimes we are working from the conference through the pastors about this and sometimes neither the pastor or the conference might solve some kind of problems.

And we are trying to, you know, to balance and to look for solutions in the local churches.

Let me, I can use a lot of examples of Michigan, you know, but I prefer not to use it inside Michigan.

Let me share with you, I was visiting Costa Rica and every time that I visit that country which we served for a certain amount of years, about 20 years ago, they invite me to a church early in the morning.

So I preach in that church and they moved me into another place.

And we went preaching in that congregation, preaching in a third congregation, and a fourth sermon They took me into, they say, another church.

But when I arrived to the church, I said, we were here before.

It's the same building, but this is a different church.

And you say that early in the morning was a church.

And now is another church, Seventh-day Adventist, yes.

They do have a body of elders, church board, different.

So sometimes, sometimes we are dealing with problems and we are not solving at all the problems.

So how in the world you might be able to understand that?

Even when we have the same Bible, the same Spirit of Prophecy, the same Church manual, and the same hymnary book, we do have 2 churches because difference of worship?

Well, the problem here was that 1 was with the 1 was with the hymnal and the other was with kind of contemporary style of music.

Is the problem in the people of the church or is the problem in the conference look the same Bible, you agree with that, same Bible, same charge manual, and same hymnal.

Yeah I understand that, But even though we have in Spanish, by the way, because in the Spanish world we have a new hymnory in which there is a lot of element renewed for the new hymnory.

So there is no reason in which we might have an issue on that.

That is something that we need to take into account when we consider the context.

Corinthians: A Message to a Contemporary Church - Part 3

Father in heaven, thank you for these days and your blessings.

Father, we pray for these officers that has been attacked and pray for the family also.

Help us to spread the word and the message of the gospel.

Basically this is the only protection that we might have, you know.

I am convinced that we need to study the Bible and the teachings of the Scriptures, and we are going to be safe here.

Well, 1 Corinthians 1 and 3, We were dealing with 1 of the problems.

We are dealing, because I detected that several of you were not in the first presentations, we are dealing with Corinthians and the Epistles to the Corinthians because there is a kind of similarity, if I can call in certain form, in between the problems of the early Christian Church with the local cultures and especially those who were located like Corinthians in the middle of the paganism And with the problems that we are having, planting churches, establishing churches, starting new congregations in the context in which we are today, especially in the mission.

And the Apostle Paul we were referring in the first 2 presentations, he was the planter of the new congregation to the Corinthians.

Corinthians was a church in the middle of the paganism, very close to the place in which the Greeks had a temple to Aphrodite that was the goddess of love in the past days.

So besides the cultural side of that, that was a very economic nurture for the entire Greece and connection from North Africa, the Middle East, Europe in those days, Rome, and also the continent.

So that was a kind of convergence of multicultural background people coming from a big, big diversity.

It was very common to find out a multilingualistic background.

And 1 of the topics that you are going to find in 1 Corinthians is about the so-called glossolalia, the gift of tongues.

And sometimes some people are putting in an emphasis about that.

But let me tell you that is not that is not the mainstream in their gospel message.

Lord Jesus never say go into all the nations and speak in tongues.

But to go to the world you need to speak their language and that is a horse of another color, you know, because that is that is different.

So probably when, I don't know if during the week we are going to be reaching that point, but at some point in the future presentations we are going to be dealing because Corinthians is very challenging, it's very interesting, and it's very attractive.

The first things that we were dealing is about divisions in the church.

And when we were doing about the text and we were exploring the context in which the Apostle Paul was presenting, remember Paul was in the Corinthian church for about 3 years, says the Bible, and that is in the book of Acts.

We were, you know, sometimes going back and forward from the book of Acts to the Corinthian epistle in order to have a whole picture of that.

We were telling also that this is probably the second letter to the Corinthians.

And probably there is another that is in between our first Corinthians and the second Corinthians, probably is another letter.

But I do believe what the Seventh-day Adventist Bible commentary says, that in the Bible we have enough information for salvation, so there is no problem at all for us regarding this point.

Just reinforcing important information that you need to be aware of.

And we were dealing with that, especially when the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians, I guess it's 5.9 we mentioned yesterday, when he says that I already wrote to you not getting in touch with immoral people.

But when you go to the pistol, you find out that there is not.

So this is a previous kind of letter in which the Apostle Paul probably sent that information.

But there were divisions in the Church that those divisions were created by a kind of idolatric loyalties to leaders in the church.

And we made clear yesterday that there were no problems between Apollos, Cephas, or the Apostle Paul, or even the Lord, because that was a kind of tension.

And we may touch base with some similarities that sometimes we might have in the local congregations nowadays.

Yesterday, before finishing the presentation, we were beginning to read and deal with the Christian behavior and discipline, and we described the issue.

Briefly, if you go to 1 Corinthians 5, you are going to find this in chapter 5 from the verses 1 on, you are going to see that the Apostle Paul is dealing with this situation.

And normally when you see this kind of, what I will say, orientation given, we need to remember something that is important to take in count.

This is a problem that appears after the presence of the Apostle Paul was there.

I don't know if if being the Apostle there this might be changed.

Let me tell you, you know, because sometimes sinful nature is just that.

But Paul is at Ephesus, somebody from the Clovis household, family, gave the Apostle Paul information about the situation that is in Corinth, and here you have the report, and the Apostle Paul several times says, I hear, I've been reported about this.

It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you and such fornication is not of such a name among the Gentiles.

So here for first time you can see something that is uncommon in the Apostle Paul.

Says that if here is the church and here is the world, the world is surprised Because those who are followers of the Lord are having a kind of behavior that is worse in the charge of the behavior that is in the world.

Yes, it is for learn about the Lord in the church, live and tell the world the message.

But if this is worse than the world, well, at some point, what we need to do is to try to solve this situation because what is in the objective of the Church, that is the mission of the Church, is here at stake.

So that is the problem that we are having here.

And the Apostle Paul is beginning to deal, because the situation is serious.

So when we left yesterday, it was very clear that the problem that the Apostle Paul, if you continue reading, I'm not to enter into many details, you can get that.

There was a member of the congregation that was living with the mother-in-law.

It's not with the mother, it is with the mother-in-law.

However, it says it's punishable sin in the Bible.

When you go to Leviticus 18, 7 and 8 and 29 and Deuteronomy chapter 22 and 30.

It's very clear in the Bible, really, in that.

But it's curious and interesting that also incest was prohibited by the Roman law.

And remember that Corinth, that is this, the world here, that is Corinthians, is under the Roman law.

So here there was a very serious problem.

After dealing with the situation, the Apostle Paul began to explain the rationale.

Series

Corinthians: Message to a Contemporary Church

Corinthians: A Message to a Contemporary Church - Part 5

Transcript

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