Will Vaus

When we moved to Highland County, Virginia, and our children entered the public school there, they quickly learned that they had to choose a team… Ford or Chevy.   You see, Highland County young people were too far away from any major sports team to identify with them. They were country folk and what was important to them were things like tractor pulls and demolition derbies. So naturally, in public school, rather than identifying with a sports team, they identified with automobile manufacturers. And what else is there when you grow up in rural America other than Ford or Chevy?   Likewise, in 1 Corinthians 10, the Apostle Paul invites us to choose between two teams, but they aren’t Ford and Chevy. Let’s read our passage for today and find out who these two rival teams are. Listen for God’s word to you from 1 Corinthians 10:14-22…   Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry.  15  I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say.  16...

The story is told of a Baptist who moved into a large Catholic neighborhood. On his first Friday in his new home, this Baptist was outside grilling a big juicy steak on his grill. Meanwhile all his neighbors were eating cold tuna fish for supper. This pattern repeated every Friday. Finally, the Catholic men in the neighborhood got together and decided that something just had to be done about their new Baptist neighbor, he was just tempting them to eat meat each Friday and they couldn’t take it anymore. They decided to try and convert him to be Catholic. They went over and talked with him and were so happy that he decided to join all of his neighbors and become a Catholic. They took him to church and the priest sprinkled some water over him and told him “You were born a Baptist, you were raised a Baptist and now you are a Catholic”. The men of the neighborhood were so relieved, now their biggest temptation was resolved. The next Friday rolled around and just at supper time when the neig...

Listen for God’s word to you from 1 Corinthians 9… Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the result of my work in the Lord? Even though I may not be an apostle to others, surely I am to you! For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. This is my defense to those who sit in judgment on me. Don’t we have the right to food and drink? Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas ? Or is it only I and Barnabas who lack the right to not work for a living? Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its grapes? Who tends a flock and does not drink the milk? Do I say this merely on human authority? Doesn’t the Law say the same thing? For it is written in the Law of Moses: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.”   Is it about oxen tha...