“For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men.”
(1Cor 4:9 NIV)
‚Ä¢¬†¬† ¬†so how do you feel about that? I think this verse shows that Christianity can’t possibly be a mindset to convince people of. If I talk you into ‘christianity’ and you go to a church and make lots of friends and do lots of activities, you aren’t going to like verses like this. You’re going to do like Rich Mullins said and only highlight the verses of the Bible you like.
‚Ä¢¬†¬† ¬†Personally, I’m not quite sure what I think of this verse. whenever the Greeks and others had victory parades when they would return from some battle, at the end they would have all the prisoners that they dragged back from the battle. they’d be naked, bruised, beaten, and falling and stumbling and the subject of all the people’s ridicule and scorn. All of that only to be taken to an arena to be part of a spectacle worse than what they experienced on the battle field.
‚Ä¢¬†¬† ¬†I guess I can say when I first believed in Jesus as my Lord, I didn’t know I was signing up for that. Now that I’ve come to know him, and really love Him, this kind of teaching is fine. I guess it’s kind of like marriage. When you get married you really don’t know what you’re getting into. Once you’re in it though, you see that whatever unexpected sacrifice may come is worth it.