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Articles by Phillip Ross

• Necessary Freedom
  Paul was compelled to preach freely. So, out of necessity he preached freely. But which is it? Did Paul preach out of freedom or out of necessity? The answer, of course, is yes.
  Published 22Nov2009, viewed 12 times

• Pay The Piper
  In spite of that rightful claim upon the Corinthian purse, Paul did not request or receive any such care. Why not? Because he did not want to give the impression that his ministry was motivated by monetary concerns. He did not want to be perceived as a hired gun that had come in to clean up the Corinthian church. He did not want to put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.
  Published 15Nov2009, viewed 25 times

• Freedom's Limits
  Against the tide of unrestrained freedom, Paul argued for caution and restraint. Here and elsewhere Paul argued that freedom in Christ did not mean that Christians were free to do whatever they wanted to do, even if there was nothing ultimately wrong with some particular action. But rather, Christians were free in Christ to live in obedience to Christ, free to care for and model behavior suited to the least discerning of Christ's people.
  Published 15Nov2009, viewed 26 times

• Morality and Maturity
  False gods are powerless because they are not real. And yet, people falsely believe they are real, and establish very real and destructive behaviors on that false basis. Consequently, the more mature are bound by the weaknesses of the less mature as a matter of service to the weaker brothers.
  Published 09Nov2009, viewed 36 times

• Unbelievable Truth
  Too many of the Corinthians who now associated themselves with Jesus Christ had not made a clean break with their former beliefs. They brought many of those former beliefs -- false beliefs and the false worldview of Greek philosophy -- into the Corinthian church with them. Still happens.
  Published 06Nov2009, viewed 49 times

• Happy Holiday!
  Thanksgiving and Christmas are soon upon us. For most people they are a time of pain and difficulty for many reasons. They are family celebrations, but our families are mostly broken and the holidays remind us of this painful fact. They may remind others of their failure to confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior -- and of the implications of that failure. For many embattled Christians the holidays bring the culture war to the front burner.
  Published 31Oct2009, viewed 51 times

• Ethics, Morality and Love
  The ethical person has abstract knowledge about what is right and wrong and has an intellectual understanding. Whereas the moral person has concrete or visceral knowledge about what is right and wrong and has a behavioral understanding. Biblical edification is not always positive, nor does the word mean to encourage. It is not that we must understand God before we can love Him, but that our love for God is dependent upon His knowledge of us.
  Published 28Oct2009, viewed 53 times

• The Illusion of Knowledge
  Knowledge based upon personal experience is neither objective, nor trustworthy. But because the Bible has been vetted by many people in many different cultures over many thousands of years, it's knowledge is as close to being objective as is humanly possible.
  Published 22Oct2009, viewed 51 times

• Sexual Ignorance
  Paul gives advice about marriage during periods of social upheaval, the marriage bed, difficulties related to child rearing and God's care that supersedes it all.
  Published 15Oct2009, viewed 68 times

• Potential Jerusalem Marriages
  Previously he had dealt with the new circumstance of mixed marriages. Here Paul was addressing another unusual circumstance that First Century Christians had been thrown into. That circumstance was not only the gospel explosion that was growing in the wake of persecution, but the fact of persecution itself.
  Published 12Oct2009, viewed 81 times

• Calling, Contentment and Slavery
  Christians are not called to do the same things, but each Christians has a unique calling that is uniquely suited to his or her unique situation. Bloom where you are planted.
  Published 09Oct2009, viewed 57 times

• Unbelieving Spouse
  If the unbelieving partner walks away from a marriage because the other person has become a Christian, then the one who walked away is not rejecting the believing spouse, but he or she is rejecting God. The rejecting spouse may argue that the believing spouse has changed since becoming a Christian, that the believing spouse is no longer the same person that he or she married -- and we hope that that would be true!
  Published 08Oct2009, viewed 69 times

• Mixed Marriages
  Paul turned his attention from the marriages of believers to what we call mixed marriages, where one marriage partner is not a believer. This is a special circumstance and calls for special treatment.
  Published 05Oct2009, viewed 59 times

• Paul's Celibacy
  Paul surely knew that if all Christians were celibate, they would die out. The Essenes believed that Paul wanted all Christians to be celibate, and they actually died out. Paul was not stupid. Celibacy is a strategy of death, not life. This all suggests that Paul was not speaking in this verse about celibacy as a gift of the Spirit. This misunderstanding has been read into the verse, not taken from it.
  Published 29Sep2009, viewed 74 times

• Marriage And The Trinity
  The principle of all unity is God's covenant, or God's law. God's law is the binding force that holds the world together. All things exist because of or on the basis of God's law (or God's love). God's love and God's law are different expressions of the same thing, the same reality. And just as law holds human societies together so God's law holds the entire universe together. Thus, all violations of God's law (sin) are ultimately suicidal.
  Published 17Sep2009, viewed 106 times

• What's Wrong With Sex Apart From Marriage?
  Sex apart from biblical marriage violates God's covenant, and God's covenant is the unifying factor of the universe. So, to violate God's covenant constitutes a violation of most fundamental cohesion of the universe. It violates and blurs one's own personal identity and the fabric of social cohesiveness. It destroys trust and promise-keeping, truth and the dependability of nature, social law, scholarship, science, etc
  Published 14Sep2009, viewed 64 times

• Membership Is Not A Club
  Being a Christian is not like being in a club. It is much deeper. Christian membership cannot be compartmentalized or separated from other aspects of life. It necessarily affects all of life, nothing is excluded. And what is more, being a Christian means being a Christian here on the earth today. It's not simply about going to heaven.
  Published 10Sep2009, viewed 101 times

• Freedom and Possibility
  Real freedom is not doing what you want. Our wants are controlled by sin, so that kind of freedom is slavery to sin. Real freedom is doing what God wants us to do.
  Published 31Aug2009, viewed 112 times

• Heaven's Short List
  Who goes to heaven and who doesn't? What is the difference between believers and unbelievers? Paul does not neglect the spiritual aspects of this difference between believers and unbelievers. He simply makes the point that the difference is not merely spiritual. It also manifests in the flesh.
  Published 25Aug2009, viewed 65 times

• Separation
  The problem was not that some of the members were living in sin. Who isn't? The problem was that some of the members had not repented of their sin. They were in process of justifying it to themselves and to the church, trying to make it okay in the eyes of God by suggesting that God forgives everyone of everything, that in the light of the amazing grace of Jesus Christ repentance and turning from sin doesn't matter.
  Published 18Aug2009, viewed 94 times

• Whittling The List
  Paul was not calling the Corinthians to greater effort. Rather, Paul was calling them to Jesus Christ. The only righteousness available to them was the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Paul was painfully aware of the sins of the Corinthians. And he was painfully aware that too many of them had hold of the righteousness stick by the wrong end. He knew that they had been chasing worldly foolishness and forsaking godly wisdom.
  Published 12Aug2009, viewed 98 times

• Shame and Judging People
  True reformation and revival of the Christian church must reform and revive church courts. Indeed, as the civil court system continues to collapse from the backlog of cases and the moral corruption of the legal system, the Christian church may well find itself faced with an opportunity to actually be what God has called it to be -- a vehicle of forgiveness and reconciliation among all people.
  Published 08Aug2009, viewed 123 times

• Church Courts, Hate Crimes and Moral Decay
  Church courts are charged with keeping the peace and purity of the church. And that is no easy job because the very things that contribute to the purity of the church often disturb its peace, and those things that contribute to the peace of the church often contribute to its impurity. An emphasis upon right doctrine disturbs many Christians. And an emphasis on "going along to get along" often pollutes right practice.
  Published 06Aug2009, viewed 114 times

• Hypocrites and Cognitive Dissonance
  The real danger to Christianity is not sinners, but hypocrites, people who identify themselves as Christian but who disregard the practice or essence of Christianity. We must note that no one is ever completely free from sin in this life. The difference between a Christian and a hypocrite is that a Christian repents of his sin, whereas the hypocrite does not repent. He wallows or stagnates in sin. He makes no effort to resist or avoid it.
  Published 31Jul2009, viewed 95 times

• Community Union
  Christians need to fellowship with other Christians. Because our values and interests change once we have been converted, we find that we have less and less in common with people who are not Christian. Our circle of friends changes because we like being with Christians more than with non-Christians. The old adage is that birds of a feather flock together.
  Published 29Jul2009, viewed 121 times

• Viral Pride
  The problem today is not keeping people from the pride virus because virtually everyone has it. The problem today is finding the cure. And again, the key to the cure is like the key to contagion -- contact.
  Published 23Jul2009, viewed 131 times

• Sin & Judgment
  We confuse ourselves when we neglect the fact that Scripture treats repentant sinners differently than it treats unrepentant sinners. Repentant sinners have the protection of Jesus Christ the advocate, where unrepentant sinners face the full consequences of God's law on their own.
  Published 19Jul2009, viewed 112 times

• Porneia Defined
  It is very interesting to simply define a word that Paul used and understand it as he understood it. This kind of clarification speaks volumes about our own abandonment of God's law in the Twenty-First Century. By simply defining a word, we come face to face with our own immorality.
  Published 13Jul2009, viewed 433 times

• Foolishness, Pride and Church Growth
  Imagine that Paul is your boss, who has been away, and you are talking to him on the phone. He has a disagreement with how you are handling things in his absence, and he tells you that he will return next week. Then he asks you how you would like him to approach you about this problem when he gets back.
  Published 06Jul2009, viewed 100 times

• Against Originality
  We are taught in our schools, colleges, universities and through the media that being human means being original, that we become most human when we are most original. Indeed, Humanism is the celebration of original thinkers as embodying the best that humanity has to offer. Artists will know what I'm talking about. But the Bible teaches that human beings were created in God's image. We are not originals, but some sort of copies of the Original.
  Published 01Jul2009, viewed 115 times

• The Art of Genuine Imitation
  Paul calls Christians to imitate him, but not to be mass produced copies of the real McCoy. Rather, Paul has called Christians to become life artists, artists whose medium is life itself.
  Published 26Jun2009, viewed 116 times

• False Christianity
  The Corinthians were engaged in worldly thinking and outright sin -- all in the name of Christianity! He told them that they were proud of the success that their church enjoyed -- it's wealth and political power -- because they were worldly minded and unfaithful to Christ. Their pride in their church was an expression of their faithlessness and their misunderstanding of the gospel.
  Published 23Jun2009, viewed 193 times

• Divisive Waters
  Apollos, prior to meeting with Aquila and Priscilla, appeared to have everything right. Yet, Paul faulted him for knowing only the baptism of John, implying that there was something significant that Apollos lacked -- some sort of baptism, or something related to baptism.
  Published 20Jun2009, viewed 105 times

• Baptisms
  Apollos had been missing one thing. In spite of the fact that Apollos had been nurtured by and educated in the essentials of Christianity, and had been teaching and preaching about Jesus in a correct and accurate way, he was for a time still missing the central element of faithfulness -- a changed heart or baptism by the Holy Spirit
  Published 18Jun2009, viewed 125 times

• God's Objectivity
  It is not through knowledge of the world that we come to know God's place in the world. But rather it is by being known by God that we come to know our place in the world. The difference involves a seismic shift in perspective.
  Published 12Jun2009, viewed 112 times

• No Common Ground
  If the difference that Christ makes is insignificant or trivial, then we might say that our experience or perspective is not much different from that of unbelievers. But if Christ makes a significant difference, a real difference, then we don't see things in the same light, we don't know or experience things in the same way. The more real Christ is, the greater this difference.
  Published 10Jun2009, viewed 106 times

• Crazy Christians
  We have been trained by the values of secular humanism through our public education, through the secular values and practices of the media and the workplace. That training has taught us to ignore the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit when that testimony is not in conformity with the values and practices of secular humanism. And Christians are not immune from the pervasiveness of secular humanism in contemporary society.
  Published 06Jun2009, viewed 121 times

• Defilement & Unity
  Inasmuch as we defile the church, God will defile us. It appears that God will give back to us what we give to Him.
  Published 03Jun2009, viewed 90 times

• Denial
  The spiritual person considers or evaluates everything on the basis of Scripture. The spirituality of such a person effects everything that they think, say and do. Such a person applies the categories of Scripture to everything, and, first and foremost, the wisdom of Scripture is applied to his own life.
  Published 28May2009, viewed 116 times

• Born Again
  Show me someone who thinks that Christianity is foolish, and I'll show you a worldly person. The reason that they think Christianity is foolish is that they cannot perceive the reality of God.
  Published 23May2009, viewed 133 times

• Two Spirits
  Wisdom and understanding are integral parts of salvation. Salvation is not just a matter of personal experience, it is also a matter of wisdom and knowledge -- both the breadth of historical knowledge and the depth of personal experience.
  Published 20May2009, viewed 94 times

• Academic Divisions
  The failure to accept the Christ of Scripture by substituting a christ of Greek or human wisdom results in, among other things, divisions in the church. The divisions arise from the false understandings produced by filtering the gospel through the categories of human wisdom, by submitting the gospel to the categories of academia.
  Published 15May2009, viewed 109 times

• Can You Dig It?
  Those who call themselves Christians but don't grow in the faith are dead, not alive in Christ. Such people will find themselves on "rocky ground" (Matthew 13:5-6). Faithful Christians are encouraged to dig down deep into the soil of Christianity. And what is that soil? It is what provides nourishment for spiritual growth -- Scripture, history, and fellowship.
  Published 14May2009, viewed 110 times

• Christian Antithesis
  The church will grow in faith and in numbers when it is seen as a viable option to the ways of the world. It will grow by differentiating itself from the world, not by trying to integrate itself into the world, or by trying to grow on a foundation of worldliness.
  Published 07May2009, viewed 113 times

• Marketing Christ
  Virtually all contemporary Christian marketing pays lip service to Jesus Christ but is focused on the people in the pews. It is primarily concerned with noses and nickels related to particular institutions. It lobbies against preaching or sharing any biblical truth that has a hard edge, that will make people uncomfortable, or that may be difficult to understand. And, like it or not, biblical truth will make us all uncomfortable. It's supposed to!
  Published 05May2009, viewed 140 times

• The Call of Church Profits
  How the idea and practice of church growth principles changed the purpose of the church from service to the Lord to the maintenance of the pew. Churches and denominations -- Christians -- need to heed and apply Paul's wisdom found here in Corinthians to the practice of evangelism, including and especially the use of modern media (marketing and advertising). We must not allow the wisdom of the world to determine the methodologies of the church.
  Published 01May2009, viewed 123 times

• Everyone Benefits From Christianity
  Though education does not and cannot save anyone, Christian education is good for everyone. The saved need to be educated in godliness for their own sanctification. The lost who are not-yet-saved need to be educated in godliness in order to draw them into salvation and sanctification. And the unsavable need to be educated in godliness in order to help them from being as evil as they can be.
  Published 28Apr2009, viewed 178 times

• Chasing The Culture vs. Leading It
  Too many Christians think that they need dress the gospel up in the latest fads of music, drama, literature, etc., in order for the gospel to be relevant to contemporary people. Too many Christians have it ass backwards. It isn't that the Bible needs to be relevant to people, but that people need to be relevant to the Bible. Is the culture to lead the church? Or is the church to lead the culture?
  Published 25Apr2009, viewed 127 times

• The Foolishness Of Trying To Save Everyone
  Christians don't need to make an appeal to others on the basis of worldly values and aesthetics because those who will respond truly will respond to the power of the gospel alone. They will not be dissuaded by what the world sees as a foolish and irrelevant message
  Published 21Apr2009, viewed 149 times

• Peace And Purity In The Churches
  Why is there so much conflict in Christian churches? Because Christians and non-Christians see things differently, and because, as Paul said in Romans 9, not all Israel is Israel. Not all church members are actually Christians (see Matthew 7:21-22). Christians are born again and people who are not born again are not Christians. And this is the chief source of the conflict.
  Published 17Apr2009, viewed 172 times

• Discerning Divisive Divisions and Understanding Unity
  Unity and diversity in the Christian church comes in two flavors -- cultural and doctrinal. Paul said "yes" to one and "no" to the other. Failure to note this difference has caused much confusion.
  Published 14Apr2009, viewed 131 times

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