Hm.. Life is pretty stressful....
I really need to finish off this 1 Corinthians essay.... I have to start on my Theology one, which is due in 1.5 weeks!! I seem to have an essay due in every 1.5 weeks from here on out.... (So far 1 down, 4 more to go!) and once I've handed in my last essay, exams will be 2 weeks after that lol!
So basically I have my schedule packed out until after the first week of June! I don't even think I can maintain my weekly readings!
I love doing the essay readings.... but somehow I really struggle to actually write it up. I end up with so many thoughts floating through my head, that I don't even know where to start!
It doesn't help that I'm sick now too!
This essay has been pretty amazing though. I'm writing on how Doctrine relate to Ethics in 1 Corinthians, and in doing this I've covered basically all the aspects of 1 Corinthians lol! I love doing essay questions which give you a larger overall picture of everything.
I'm gonna try to start preaching at my church on 1 Corinthians. Just going through block by block every month (we have one English Youth/Young Adults Service a month)...
On another note... God has been pretty amazing. Other than the stress of the workload, life has been good! Relationship with Katrina (gf) has been good! Work (once a fortnight) has been good! Money has been good! Yeah..everything is going pretty well. I do get a bit stressed when I think about the future...but I need to stop thinking so much!
Church hasn't been so great...but that's just cuz of my expectations, which has led to a lot of disappointment. The actual practical play out of Church has been fine. But I feel like I make a really bad leader.... cuz of my lack of people-skills. I have the heart, definitely, but trying to get things to how I want them......well to be honest it's just not really even on its way >.<
But as what I read yesterday from Calvin in his Institutes, and which I posted on FB:
"To the pious and placid his advice is,
mercifully to correct what they can, and to bear patiently with what
they cannot correct, in love lamenting and mourning until God either
reform or correct, or at the harvest root up the tares, and scatter the
chaf." Book 4 Chapter 1 - John Calvin: Institutes (of the Christian Religion).
And according to what I've been reading in 1 Corinthians: I'm just a steward. Someone planted, all I'm doing is watering....but it is God who makes things grow! 1 Corinthians 3:6-9.
Though the concept of "reward" is a funny thing. It's something I've been thinking about for a long time. If God elected and predestined us, and everything we have and do come from God himself (He even predestines us to do the good work that we do), then why would there be a reward? What do I have that I did not receive? And if I receive it, how can I boast in it? 1 Corinthians 4:7.
Paul gives a dual view: sometimes he talks about running to claim the prize that God calls him (Phil 3:14), having run the good race (2 Tim 4:7), getting a reward for building (1 Cor 3:8, 14)....
While other times he talks about how his work and preaching is laid on him and he has to do it (1 Cor 9:17), so to get reward, he has to go beyond that and do it without cost to the people he's ministering too. Then there's Jesus' words in Luke 17:7-10, whereby we should just say that we've merely done our duty, and do not deserve any recognition.
The Bible is full of seemingly paradoxes. I wanna write a book on them! Will/choice vs Election/predestination. Trinity. Jesus' work on the Cross. Eschatology ("already" vs "not yet")... the list goes on and on. And heresy are those who tend to lean too much on one or the other. Instead we need to always uphold and balance out the truths that the Scripture presents. Not trying to harmonize them and come up with an answer which ticks both boxes (which would be nice, but never works - for we usually end up compromising BOTH views). Instead upholding BOTH sides as full truths. How can they both full truths? Only God knows.
