Weekly Bible Verses: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13: What Is Love?

1 Corinthians 13: If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ²And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
⁴Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant ⁵or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. ⁷It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
⁸Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. ⁹For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; ¹⁰but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. ¹¹When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. ¹²For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. ¹³And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

So, Where Do We Find Joy? Neville Peter - Jesus, You are the Center of my Joy - Praise Medley

The apostle Paul wrote that Jesus is the source of all joy. Unlike happiness, joy is available to us whether we are healthy or sick, weak or strong, and it is highly contagious. Joy works best when freely given. Then it returns in abundance ... like love. Enjoy the song, which points to the source of joy ... and then take up Jesus' personal invitation to you ... "Follow me." Follow the source of joy today so that you may spread joy now and always. God bless you.

What Joy (Psalm 146) by Generation Church

An exploration of joy in song based on Psalm 146. Turn to God, who holds joy in the palm of God's hand and Jesus, the source of joy. Spread joy wherever you go and you will have joy. God bless you. Wishing you joy today and always.

Who Are American Baptists? American Baptist Churches USA Serving as the Hands and Feet of Christ

Here is a short video that will introduce you to the American Baptist Churches USA denomination, of which Exton Community Baptist Church is a member. We invite you to watch this and to join us if you feel God call you in our direction.

Weekly Bible Verses: 1 Corinthians 12:3-13: Gifts for Everyone

1 Corinthians 12: 3Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says “Let Jesus be cursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit. ⁴Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; ⁵and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; ⁶and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. ⁷To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. ⁸To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, ⁹to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, ¹⁰to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. ¹¹All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.
¹²For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

ECBC VBS Coming in August

Mark your calendars. Your children are invited. We will run our summer Vacation Bible School (VBS) from 6:30 to 8 pm on August 21st to 25^th! We hope to see you at the church in Exton, Pennsylvania.

ECBC's Seminarian Returns

Jeff Snyder has returned from nine months senior theological field education at Grace Baptist Church of Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. Now all of his field education experiences are complete (two at Grace Baptist and one at Tel Hai Retirement Community). He will finish his seminary education next year, graduating in the spring of 2012.

Jeff is pleased to announce his research paper, "Joy in Evangelism," has been published as a scholarly, peer-reviewed article in Witness, the Journal of the Academy for Evangelism in Theological Education."Communicating joy, and joyfully communicating, should be integral to evangelical witness in the twenty-first century. Both the methods of Jesus and those of the clown show just how joy may be conveyed in evangelism."

Where Is God When We Suffer?

In times of trouble, all of us who have faith have wondered at one time or another where God is during our struggles and our pain. Philip Yancey addresses that thorny question well in his popular book Where Is God When It Hurts? On pages 278-279, Yancey states:

Where is God when it hurts?
He has been there from the beginning, designing a pain system that, even in the midst of a fallen world, still bears the stamp of his genius and equips us for life on this planet.
He transforms pain, using it to teach and strengthen us, if we allow it to turn us toward him.
With great restraint, he watches this rebellious planet live on, in mercy allowing the human project to continue in its self-guided way.
He lets us cry out, like Job, in loud fits of anger against him, blaming him for a world we spoiled.
He allies himself with the poor and suffering, founding a kingdom tilted in their favor. He stoops to conquer.
He promises supernatural help to nourish the spirit, even if our physical suffering goes unrelieved.
He has joined us. He has hurt and bled and cried and suffered. He has dignified for all time those who suffer, by sharing their pain.
He is with us now, ministering to us through his Spirit and through members of his body who are commissioned to bear us up and relieve our suffering for the sake of the head.
He is waiting, gathering the armies of good. One day he will unleash them, and the world will see one last terrifying moment of suffering before the full victory is ushered in. Then, God will create for us a new, incredible world. And pain shall be no more.

"Listen, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we will all be changed--in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: 'Death has been swallowed up in victory.'
'Where, O death, is your victory?'

'Where, O death, is your sting?' " (1 Corinthians: 15-51-55)

Take heart, all who suffer. You are not alone in your pain. You are never alone in this world, even though your suffering seems to isolate you. God is always with you. We who believe stand with you and pray for you in your struggle.

Weekly Bible Verses:John 17:1-11: I Glorify You ...

John 17After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, ²since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. ³And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. ⁴I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. ⁵So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.
⁶”I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. ⁷Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; ⁸for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. ⁹I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. ¹⁰All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.
¹¹And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.

Are There Different Ways to Read the Bible?

 Yes. There are three models (ways) to read and interpret the Bible. Which model you use will profoundly impact upon your understanding of the Bible and how you relate to the Scriptures ... and to others.

The possibilities:

Inerrant: God Spoke the Words and They Were Written Down Exactly

General Inspiration: Humans Were Inspired Like Shakespeare Was Inspired and Wrote the Bible Stories. God Was Not Involved.

Infallible (or Incarnational): The Bible Was Fully Inspired by God and Written by People. 

The possibilities explained:  

Inerrant: At the Chicago meeting in October 1978, the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy issued the following statement on inerrancy: ‘Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God’s acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God’s saving grace in individual lives’ (James Montgomery Boice, Does Inerrancy Matter?, Oakland: International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, 1979, p. 13.)”

General Inspiration: The Bible was written by people and for people. These writers wrote very well and were inspired by the muses, much as a novelist is inspired. God was not involved directly in the writing. The Bible is a fully human endeavor.

Inspired: Scripture is inspired by God and was written in sixty-six books by human beings over many centuries. The scriptures are infallible in all they have to tell us about God, God’s attributes, and God’s interaction with humanity. However, written by fallible humans, the books of the Bible are limited in their cultural, historical, and scientific scope as each was written in a particular time, place, and culture. Therefore, the Bible must speak in the language and with the understanding of those peoples at those times. However, through the Holy Spirit, the Bible transcends its human limitations, crossing cultural and historical barriers to bring us God’s message today.