Disciples Church Bible Reading Plan

Proverbs 9

Proverbs 9
The Way of Wisdom

9:1   Wisdom has built her house;
    she has hewn her seven pillars.
2   She has slaughtered her beasts; she has mixed her wine;
    she has also set her table.
3   She has sent out her young women to call
    from the highest places in the town,
4   “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!”
    To him who lacks sense she says,
5   “Come, eat of my bread
    and drink of the wine I have mixed.
6   Leave your simple ways,¹ and live,
    and walk in the way of insight.”

7   Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse,
    and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury.
8   Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you;
    reprove a wise man, and he will love you.
9   Give instruction² to a wise man, and he will be still wiser;
    teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.
10   The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
    and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.
11   For by me your days will be multiplied,
    and years will be added to your life.
12   If you are wise, you are wise for yourself;
    if you scoff, you alone will bear it.
The Way of Folly

13   The woman Folly is loud;
    she is seductive³ and knows nothing.
14   She sits at the door of her house;
    she takes a seat on the highest places of the town,
15   calling to those who pass by,
    who are going straight on their way,
16   “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!”
    And to him who lacks sense she says,
17   “Stolen water is sweet,
    and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.”
18   But he does not know that the dead⁴ are there,
    that her guests are in the depths of Sheol.
Footnotes
[1] 9:6 Or Leave the company of the simple

[2] 9:9 Hebrew lacks instruction

[3] 9:13 Or full of simpleness

[4] 9:18 Hebrew Rephaim
(ESV)

Saturday Study Scripture

Saturday Study

Post author By Disciples Church
Post date June 24, 2017

Saturday Study

The Spiritual Discipline of Chastity/Purity (6-24-17)

Genesis 2:24-25 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

There is an intimacy described here …. a joining of two lives to become one that is unlike any other in creation.

God’s design for a man and his wife to become one flesh and to be naked and unashamed is a beautiful and priceless thing. The problem is that sin and society have really stolen God’s intention for Marital intimacy and made what is sacred impure and common in sin.

The world’s agenda when it comes to sex is to profane it.

Profane = to make it common! To treat something sacred with Irreverence.

So profanity comes form the word profane. So when we say “Oh God” in just a flippant common way ..instead of exalting his name… and worshipping the true God .. we use it as a casual response to life and make it common. Or we use it as a swear word to illustration the emotion of disgust. Like… “Jesus Christ”. This is to profane the Lord’s name.

This is what our culture does with God’s design for sex and marital intimacy and God honoring modesty. The world wants to remove all mystery and holiness and sacredness and selflessness and make it common & casual. They want to take purity and what Honors God and exchange it for what ever satisfies man’s flesh.

Our culture wants to make sex simply about physiology and biology. And so we they teach it to our kids in sex ED it is all about mechanics. We have been convinced by our culture that they get it and we don’t. This is why for far to many people they are captured buy the world’s casual, mechanical, free market idea of sex. I believe this is one reason why so many struggle with pornography. Many have come to believe that it is purely mechanical and therefore harmless and acceptable.

But what we have to do is see that all of what God only intended to be enjoyed or seen or experienced in a committed marriage is undone when seen or experienced outside of marriage. This is the reason for modesty and purity and chastity. The goal must be to honor God and keep our minds and bodies pure in devotion and worship of him.

We have to understand that Sexual Intimacy is more then the physical. The heart is so involved.

The emotional and spiritual scars that sex & intimacy outside of your marriage brings is as deep as it gets. And I have never seen anything in my years of counseling to be more true.

1 Corinthians 6:18 says, “Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body.”

When the bible is so specific in it’s warning against impurity and immodesty we need to slow down and really consider God’s will and ways so that we can have a spiritual disciplined life in this area.

According to the Bible, sexual intimacy was God’s creation. The Bible starts by revealing that God made us male & female with bodies built for sexual pleasure within the context of marriage. Not a Man/Man Or Woman/Woman or Man/Goat. Their bodies are not built to do what God gave for Man & Woman to do in Marriage during sex for the multiplication of the human race.

Further, God’s design was not a man and a woman who are not committed for life in marriage. Look with me…

Genesis 1:27-28 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Genesis 2:24-25 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Sex is not for love… Sex is not for Commitment Sex and intimacy is for Marriage!

What this means is that intimacy and nudity is only to be enjoyed between a husband and his wife. Everything outside of that must be modest and pure in order to honor God with our thoughts and actions. Because God’s design for sexual intimacy is so potent the reality is any engagement with these things outside of marriage can be extremely damaging to ones life.

The analogy I find that helps us understand this goes like this:

A big burning fire in your fireplace is a wonderful gift of warmth and comfort and beautiful sight in your home. But that fire burning anywhere else in your home other then the fireplace is utterly destructive and damaging to your home and life.

This is the case for sexuality and nudity. Within the context of the covenant of marriage it is a wonderful gift and God honoring. Outside of marriage it is damaging and God dishonoring.

So, this means we are to be pure and modest in every other circumstance.

The way we dress should not be revealing anything that God intended to be private and for marriage. The way we talk should be pure and God honoring and not making what God designed to be sacred and make it common or casual.

The reality is: we live in a lost world that has a true and aggressive agenda to take all that God made holy and pure and profane it. I can’t watch regular television with my kids anymore not even because the programming might be compromised but because the commercials are often explicit and profaned. Just about everywhere we look we are inundated with sexuality and immodest images. Song lyrics have come a long way from Elvis Presley and even the entertainers of a few decades ago. We have to practice the discipline of modesty and purity in the most practical ways. The shows we watch or the music we listen to should keep our mind and eyes pure and not defraud our spirit unto sexual immorality. IF Social media is introducing compromise then we should have a discipline to step out of that environment in order to keep our mind and spirit focused on the Lord and not the temptations of the world. What are you doing to practice purity and modesty? What are you doing to fight in this area of life and very real temptation.

When Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:13-20 that “the body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.” We must realize that how we use our hands, our eyes and our minds is of the upmost importance in honoring our Lord.

He goes on to clarify that, You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your life. 1 Cor. 6:19-20

Paul continues his plea with those who belong to God in 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8

When emphasizing that we “ought to walk and to please God…for this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God….For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.”

The scriptures are clear that how we conduct ourselves. Our thinking, our looking, our actions must honor God. But how do we do this in a land full of sexual immoral people, images, songs, movies? We fight. Meaning we work hard.. Paul goes so far to say run away. In other words when you see immodesty on the horizon we run the other direction. We don’t put ourselves in those environments where temptation will be ramped up. We keep our families from these places too. This means a real and consistent effort to screen what they have access to. I am praying for you as you consider this spiritual discipline and that you make a true effort to be accountable and sanctified in this area. There is simply to much at stake to take it lightly.

God is worthy of all of our lives. Let us honor him with them.

By His grace and for His glory,

Pastor Joshua Kirstine

Disciples Church

Scripture

Chastity/Purity

Proverbs 2:16-22

16   So you will be delivered from the forbidden¹ woman,
    from the adulteress² with her smooth words,
17   who forsakes the companion of her youth
    and forgets the covenant of her God;
18   for her house sinks down to death,
    and her paths to the departed;³
19   none who go to her come back,
    nor do they regain the paths of life.

20   So you will walk in the way of the good
    and keep to the paths of the righteous.
21   For the upright will inhabit the land,
    and those with integrity will remain in it,
22   but the wicked will be cut off from the land,
    and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.
Footnotes
[1] 2:16 Hebrew strange

[2] 2:16 Hebrew foreign woman

[3] 2:18 Hebrew to the Rephaim
(ESV)

Scripture

Chastity/Purity

Ephesians 5:1-17
Walk in Love
5:1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
3 But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. 4 Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. 5 For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. 7 Therefore do not become partners with them; 8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), 10 and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. 13 But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, 14 for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,

  “Awake, O sleeper,
    and arise from the dead,
  and Christ will shine on you.”
15 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
(ESV)

Scripture

Chastity/Purity

Galatians 5:19-21
19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy,¹ drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do² such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Footnotes
[1] 5:21 Some manuscripts add murder

[2] 5:21 Or make a practice of doing
(ESV)