Study Desk

I did the groundwork with you. Apollos started you under saddle, but it was God who was doing the growin' inside ya.

Because of the grace of God, I have laid the foundations of a ranch like a top-notch cowman. Now others are working its pastures, but they must be very careful.

God will destroy anyone who tries to destroy his outfit. God's outfit is holy, and y'all are his outfit.

What's considered wisdom down here is malarkey to God. Remember when the Good Book says, "He ropes the wise with their own reata,"

and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

So, don't look at Apollos and me as anything more than cowboys who've been put in charge of teaching you the mystery of how to ride for God.

So don't go making judgments about yourselves or others. If there's breath left in either, there's time to make things right. The only judgment that matters will happen when the Lord rides back through the main gate. Like a light in a pitch-dark tack room, he will reveal our darkest secrets and our secret prayers. Then, if there's attaboys to be given, God will do the givin'.

So don't go making judgments about the way other cowboys do things. What gives you the right? What do you have that didn't come from God? And if you answer that everything is from God, then why brag like you're better than the next cowboy?

I've already said you have everything you need already. As a matter of fact, you have more access to God than you know what to do with. You're like a little kid with a champion cutting horse, but you've never straddled a saddle. But I wish you were already champions in your own rights. If you were, then we would be too.

Instead, it seems as if God has put us cowboys on display to the movers and shakers of this world to be made fun of. We are on display for men and angels alike to gawk at. We walk and there are whispers. We talk and eyes roll in disgust. We ride and folks throw rocks and laugh.

Now, just to be clear, I wasn't talking about unbelievers who give into sexual sins, or those who are greedy, or those who put a foot on the scale at shipping time, or those who bow down to things other than God. You'd have to leave this world to keep from riding next to one of these every once in a while.

God will take care of the outsiders, but the Good Book says, "If you find an outlaw in your outfit, send him down the road to keep your camp clean."

Don't you know God's cowboys will get to judge the world when the time comes? If God is going to let you judge the world, can't you handle a little squabble between two cowboys?

I know some of you used to do those things, but you sit in a new saddle now. It's been oiled and washed clean and so have you. Y'all are holy now. You've been made right with God by asking to ride for Jesus Christ and be guided by the Holy Ghost.

I know some of you are thinking, "Food was made for the stomach and the stomach was made for food." But just because this is true doesn't mean you should stuff yourselves like gluttons or use your body for sexual things God never intended. Don't use your bodies for your own pleasure, but for the will of God. He gave you your body so give your body to him.

God raised Jesus's body from the grave and he will do the same for you if you ride for him the way Jesus did.

God paid too much for you to use your body like trash. You honor or dishonor him with every action.

Now, let's talk about some questions you had in your letter. You asked if cowboys should stay away from sex. Listen, there ain't nothing wrong with sex if it is in the right context. And God is the one who decides the context, not you.

I'd say stay away from it completely, but if you cannot, get married and have sex like God intended—each man with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband.

I say these things, not as a command from God, but as a permission from him.