First Epistle to the Corinthians

Amen.

1 Corinthians 12:13.

I'm giving you some few scriptures that indicates that God is one.

Now, "For by one Spirit we are all baptized in one body." You see one...

So meaning wherever you see separation, division, confusion, that means God is not there.

Satan has taken root.

First Corinthians 14:33, God is not an author of confusion.

Wherever you see confusion in the choir, it means the Holy Ghost has been, has been muted.

Now every believer is baptized by the Holy Spirit when we receive Christ.

You say, how so? Well listen to I Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 13.

You may want to mark this as a reference.

Chapter 12, verse 13 of I Corinthians, For in one Spirit We are all baptized.

All baptized into one body.

Jews and Greeks, slaves are free.

Number four, faithful grout comes from God.

The Bible makes us understand in 1 Corinthians 3 verse 6, I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.

Hear me, child of God, our duty is faithfulness.

God's duty is increase.

I pray that I will be saved.

1 Corinthians 3.15, it talks about a man who after his death is being purified, and it says he will be saved.

He's not there yet, not in heaven yet.

And for good measure, you could say this will happen by remaining in the state of grace and friendship with Jesus until the end of my life.

Now, St. Paul, for example, in Romans chapter 1, he has an extended section where he talks about homosexual activity.

And specifically, he says, beginning in verse 26, "...for this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions for their women, exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature." And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

And in 1 Corinthians 6, beginning in verse 9, he gives a list of things that will prevent you from going to heaven, or to put it more bluntly, that will damn someone to hell and And here's what he says there, he says, And such were some of you.

But you were washed, you were sanctified, and you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

St. Hildegard of Bingen, pray for us.

Readings for Holy Mass for Thursday of the 24th week in Ordinary Time A reading from the First Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, Chapter 15, Verses 1-11 I am reminding you, brothers and sisters, of the gospel I preached to you, which you indeed received and in which you also stand.

Through it you are also being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

Not difficult to see why our reading from Second Corinthians is proper for the Saints Cornelius and Cyprian.

In two fifty-three AD, Pope Cornelius was exile, exiled by the Emperor Gallus, and he died of the hardships that he had to endure in exile.

So he is venerated as a martyr.

St. Cyprian, a bishop and c-close friend of Cornelius, was martyred during the persecution of the Emperor, Emperor Val-Valerian.

So what is St. Paul saying in Second Corinthians? Listen again to this passage.

"We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained.

Perplexed, but not driven to despair.

So when we're faced with difficulties and we're not sure what we need to do, ask yourself a couple of questions.

And I'm like, is that really what it is? Yeah.

Well, when you read Acts, Corinthians, and Romans together, what pattern emerges?

That's amazing.

So in the book of Acts, you see how the Holy Spirit is poured out.

And we see even in Acts 19 that when they received the Holy Spirit, they prophesied.

And so this gift of prophecy became a reality.

And then in 1 Corinthians 12, we see how Paul lists these nine gifts that are empowered by the Holy Spirit.

They're not residing gifts, and we're going to talk about the gifts of the Holy Spirit next.

But where we do need to start asking the question is, what am I dwelling on? What am I enjoying? What am I being comfortable? What am I becoming comfortable with? What am I laughing at? What am I using as entertainment? What am I feeding my mind? So to recap question one, what am I putting into my mind? Kind of study read Philippians 4, 8 to just summarize that.

Question number two, just because I can, does that mean that it's good for me? So the verse that we're going to dive into with this one is going to be 1 Corinthians 10, 23.

You say, I am allowed to do anything, but not everything is good for you.

You say, I am allowed to do anything, but not everything is beneficial.