Steven Garofalo
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LIVE AS YOU ARE CALLED NOT AS YOU WISH
By Steven Garofalo, November 13, 2023 (Copyright Steven Garofalo 2023)
November 13, 2023

In life, most Christians, at one point or another seek to do something “Christian” with their life. But what does that mean? Today, I will take you through 1 Corinthians 7:17 and surrounding verses to show you what it means exactly to “live as you are called” in a world without focus, a biblical moral code, or purpose.

For a Christian to “live as you are called” biblically speaking, each of us needs to understanding what the Apostle Paul meant by those words. The Apostle Paul was making clear in verse 17 (and the passage in whole) to the Corinthian church and to you and I today, that once saved, we are to “live as you have been called today”. For a very few, this means seminary as they’re calling, but for most it means living out their Christian faith through family, community, vocation/work-marketplace and the world in whole.

As Christians, to live as we are called does NOT mean that we are to “shelter in place”, but “live out our Christian God-calling mission right where God picked us up, cleaned us off, and put us back into society. In other words, once saved, we are not to depart from the world and confine ourselves exclusively to some Christian bubble community, but to as well, stay in the unique community and circles in most cases to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. There are exceptions initially speaking. For example, for those who have been redeemed from things such as drug addiction or sexual perversion or addiction, it is most often necessary to change communities and social circles altogether. This means leaving their current community and immersing themselves within the biblical community to be healed, built up, but then sent back out once ready to “live as they have been called”. It was comfortable for Christian’s in the early church to live in commune before the Lord scattered their Christian community through the Great Dispersion. The same principle holds true for you and I today. Let’s jump into our passage today to see what exactly Paul is saying in chapter seven about “living as we were called”.

When Paul said, “Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God HAS CALLED HIM". This is my rule in all the churches” (1 Corinthians 7:17) he had a very specific meaning that is made clear by the surrounding verses. Let’s take a look.

In order to understand what Paul was saying in verse 7:17, we must understand that verse within 1 Corinthians 7:17-24 as a whole. The bottom line is that most often, we ware called to live our life in the same place we were when first called by God. Paul gives specific examples, including staying in our existing marriage, our same social status/circles, and life direction in general.  I want to repeat verse 17 as it makes the central point of today’s devotion and break it down into three simple points which are: FIRST: We are to be faithful to our Christian calling. SECOND: That as Christians, we are to put off the “old self” and put on the “new”. And THIRD: That as Christian’s, we are to stay in the same place and live out our God given mission as our “new self in Christ”-just where God found us, in order that we may effect that space through our existing relationships with those specific people around us. Let’s look once again at verse 17 and then dissect what Paul is saying through verses 17-24.

“Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God HAS CALLED HIM “. This is my rule in all the churches” (1 Corinthians 7:17). Let’s break this down even further.

FIRST: This section in its entirety develops the theme of faithfulness to the Christian calling rather than a social status. All to often, once saved, Christians migrate into the “Christian bubble”, meaning the Christian culture/community and park themselves or seek to be something other than they were called by God to be and do in the first place. There is nothing wrong with this except for the fact that they withdraw from being salt and light to lost world. Paul gives specific examples in that, “Whether you “are a slave or free, upper class or lower, powerful or powerless, married or single” is irrelevant; what matters is your calling from God” (Colossians 3:11). Submerging oneself in Christian community is good, but withdrawing from being on mission to the lost world is not. More often than not, there is a brief time of submersion of the new Christian out of the world and into the Christian community, but the Christian needs re-entry as a light to the darkness at some point.

SECOND: In Colossians 3:10-3:11, God makes clear that we have put off our old self and put on the new. From that perspective, we are NOT called to live sinfully or in the sinful state the Lord saved us out of. We are to live as new creatures in Christ. I wanted to clarify that point before it becomes a point of confusion or misunderstanding. Paul says in 1 Colossians 3:10-11,

“you have put off the old self with the practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is NO GREEK and JEW, circumscribed or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian slave, free, but Christ is all and all in all”.

Paul uses the words “BARBARIAN”. In proper context, at this time in history that Paul wrote this, the Word was applied to those who did not speak Greek or had not adopted Greek culture. Speaking of slaves, the word “SCYTHIAN” represents the lowest type of uncouth barbarian nomads of southern Russia. IN CHRIST make clear that distinctions of race, class and culture are transcended once we accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The point is that despite whether you are slave or free, rich or poor, etc, we are a new creation in Christ and ought to live as such. This means not going back to your old ways with your old friends.

THIRD: God makes clear through Paul, that we as followers of Jesus Christ are to  remain in whatever condition (place in life) were were found when God redeemed us as our mission field. Looking a bit ahead to verses 18-23, Paul makes clear that Christian’s are to stay and live just where God found them to effect that space and those specific people with the saving Gospel message of Jesus Christ. It’s a brilliant-perfect, God ordained strategy that gives God an army of pre-positioned, scattered believers who are already positioned exactly where God wants them. They have existing relationships, history and familiarity of the terrain and have now be re-deployed in the same environment they know so well. Simply put, new believers are “sent out” into their unique communities to affect them for Christ

Let me explain further according to the specific examples Paul gave us. Looking at verses 18-23 in whole: Paul addresses a common problem with new believers at that time in their not wanting to remaining circumcised or enslaved or even remaining married. As in v.15, they were to remain in whatever condition (married or single) God “CALLED” them. When Paul wrote He is not to become uncircumcised (v.18), he was probably referring to the minor surgery whereby a Jewish man who adopted Hellenistic values could reverse his circumcision to be more palatable to the Greco-Roman society in an effort to “fit in” to his new role as a believer. This is Paul’s point in that we are “live as you were called”. I expanded our understanding in application regarding “living as we are when called to how you and I might live this our in our modern lives.

In other words, Paul’s point was that if God called one as a Jew, he was to continue to be Jewish (albeit having trusted Christ as a “completed Jew”), and if as a Gentile, he was to stay that way also. Paul qualified this directive, however, in v.21, when he urged slaves to become free if they could, though that choice belonged to the master.

IN SUMMARY: When Paul said, “Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God HAS CALLED HIM “. This is my rule in all the churches” (1 Corinthians 7:17). Paul was saying for example, that we are not to seek a divorce from our husband or wife, but to remain faithful to God and the covenant marriage promise we made with our spouse. For Jewish people, they are not to stop being Jewish but only to become “completed Jews” in that they accept, embrace and follow Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And the list goes on.  In the end, FIRST: We are to be faithful to our Christian calling. SECOND: We are to put off the “old self” and put on the “new” in terms of how we think, speak and act. And THIRD: That as Christian’s, we are to stay and live just where God found us to effect that space and those specific people around us that we have existing relationships with the saving Gospel message of Jesus Christ. This includes our marriage, family, work place, and everywhere else we were found when the Lord called us to Himself. The one exception of course is the person living in a sexually deviant community, a cult, criminal community or a truly abusive situation. Outside of that, we are to live out our faith just were we were when God call us to Himself as our mission field.

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Not Serpents of Skin, but From The Falsehood Of Sin: Uncoiling The Ending of Mark’s Gospel
By Del Potter, M.A.A. (Copyright 2025)

Not Serpents of Skin, but From The Falsehood Of Sin: Uncoiling The Ending of Mark’s Gospel

By Del Potter, M.A.A. August 27, 2025

Opening Remarks

From the outset, this article is NOT contending whether or not the ending of Mark 16 should be included. Although, it is in my humble opinion that some of the strange language in the ending of Mark actually affirms the truthfulness of the events inserted into the ending of Mark. There are several striking words in Mark's longer ending (Mark 16:17–18):

“These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them...”

As a first impression, the imagery suggests a miraculous ability to resist snakes and poison. It is nevertheless important to note that serpents and poison consistently function within Jewish, Biblical, and early Christian thought as symbols of false teaching and spiritual corruption, not simply physical danger.


Serpents in Scripture: Symbols of Deception

From the beginning of Genesis through Revelation, the serpent is never merely zoological—it is the archetype of deceit. In Genesis 3, the serpent slithers into the Garden not to bite with fangs, but to inject Eve with poisonous doubt about God’s word. Later Jewish wisdom literature follows this thread:

  • Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 21:2: “Flee from sin as from the face of a serpent: for if thou comest too near it, it will bite thee.”
  • Psalm 140:3: “They make their tongue sharp as a serpent’s, and under their lips is the venom of vipers.”

This same imagery flows into the New Testament:

  • Matthew 23:33: Jesus calls the Pharisees a “brood of vipers,” not because of biology, but because of false teaching.
  • 2 Corinthians 11:3: Paul warns that, just as the serpent deceived Eve, so false teachers corrupt the simplicity of Christ.
  • Revelation 12:9: John describes Satan as a serpent “And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.”

Therefore, when Mark refers to "serpents" and "deadly poison," his Jewish-Christian readers would have recognized the metaphor: heresy slithering into the church among the people with its false doctrine poisoning the entire church (2 Peter 2:1).


The Poison Of Heresy: A Dangerous Drink

The early Church frequently described heretical teaching as venom or poison. Ignatius of Antioch warned the Trallians:

“I therefore, yet not I, but the love of Jesus Christ, entreat you that ye use Christian nourishment only, and abstain from herbage of a different kind; I mean heresy. For those [that are given to this] mix up Jesus Christ with their own poison, speaking things which are unworthy of credit, like those who administer a deadly drug in sweet wine, which he who is ignorant of does greedily take, with a fatal pleasure leading to his own death.” (Letter to the Trallians 107 A.D.).

This language reflects the very pattern of Mark 16—poisonous teaching disguised as nourishment. The faithful, however, are promised preservation: “it will not harm them.” The believer, rooted in Christ, can discern and resist corruption.

No early Christian expressed this more vividly than Tertullian of Carthage (c. 200 AD). In his treatise Scorpiace, he likens heresy to venomous creatures:

  • Heresy “creeps into the church like a scorpion,” injecting spiritual poison.
  • The faithful must resist with the antidote of Scripture, wielded like the staff of Moses against the serpents of Egypt.

Tertullian believed that the danger was not from reptiles in the marketplace, but rather from false teachers within the church. Similarly, heresy pierces the souls of believers in a quiet and lethal manner, just as the scorpion stings unseen. As a result, he viewed Christ's promise in Mark not as a test of reckless physical stunts, but as a promise that the faithful will not suffer from the venom of falsehood if armed with the truth. As Paul rightly reminds his audience:

 "Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil (i.e. snakes & poisons)." - Ephesians 6:11


Mark’s Ending and the beginning of the Early Church

NT writers wrote within a culture steeped in metaphor. The early church never staged snake-handling rituals to “prove” faith. Instead, they testified by enduring persecution, refuting heresy, and preserving sound doctrine.

The apologetic force of Mark 16 is not spectacle—it is survival. The church would face vipers in pulpits, scorpions in councils, and poison in doctrine. Yet Christ promises: “These things will not harm you.”

Just as in the first century, serpents and scorpions creep into the church today—not in the form of reptiles, but in the form of false witnesses, compromised truth, and distorted gospels. The call of Mark 16 is not to chase miracles, but to guard against lies.

In a world full of theological poison, the believer’s protection is not daredevil faith, but faithful discernment: Scripture, the Spirit, and the witness of the saints.

“But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers [i.e. snakes] among you, who will secretly introduce destructive [i.e. poison] heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.” - 2 Peter 2:1


Closing Remarks

The ending of Mark’s Gospel, far from a literal dare, is a prophetic warning and promise:

  • Serpents = false teachers.
  • Poison = heretical doctrines.
  • The promise = Christ’s people, if grounded in truth, will not be overcome.

Tertullian’s scorpions, Ignatius’ poison, Paul’s vipers, and Jesus’ own words unite: the greatest danger to the church is not fangs and venom in the field, but lies and venom in the pulpit.

In Christ, the Church endures—immune not to biology, but to blasphemy.

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MAN'S PROBLEM-"HIDDENESS"
By Del Potter, M.A.A., August 16, 2025

The Problem Is With Man's Hiddenness Toward God, Not Vice-Versa

Why Doesn’t God Make His Existence Unmistakably Clear to Everyone?

One of the most common objections to faith is: “If God is real, why doesn’t He just show Himself beyond all doubt?” Skeptics ask why God doesn’t write His name in the sky or make His presence undeniable. But Scripture, reason, and the earliest witnesses of the Church tell us a different story: God has already made Himself known, yet it is humanity that hides.

God’s Self-Revelation in Creation

Scripture consistently teaches that God’s fingerprints are everywhere. The Apostle Paul writes:

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20)

Psalm 19:1 echoes this truth: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.”

Job reminds us that creation itself—beasts, birds, earth, and sea—all testify to the Creator:

“But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In His hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.” (Job 12:7–10)

God’s existence, then, is not hidden. It is written into the very structure of reality. As St. Athanasius later argued, creation itself acts as a universal witness, speaking of God’s power to every culture and language without need for words.

Why Does God Seem Hidden?

The real issue is not divine silence but human resistance. Moses records God saying:

“I will surely hide My face in that day, because of all the evil which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods.” (Deuteronomy 31:18)

This is not a statement about God being unknowable but about mankind turning its back to Him. God’s “hiddenness” is a moral and relational reality, not an intellectual one. As Isaiah wrote:

“Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God.” (Isa. 59:2)

Early Christians echoed this. Justin Martyr argued that those who live according to reason (logos) recognize the true God through creation and conscience. Clement of Alexandria explained that ignorance of God is not due to His absence, but due to the blindness of the soul enslaved to passions.

The Attributes of God are Revealed According To His Nature.

If God were to force belief by overwhelming proof, He would violate the very nature of faith and love. Love cannot be compelled; it requires freedom. Blaise Pascal later captured this well: “There is enough light for those who desire to see, and enough darkness for those who do not.”

The early Church understood that God provides evidence sufficient for faith, but not coercion. Origen taught that God “gives signs to those who are willing to see, but hides from those who shut their eyes.” This allows space for genuine seeking, humility, and love—rather than forced acknowledgment.

God Is Not Hidden—We Are

When people ask, “Why doesn’t God make Himself clear?” the biblical answer is: He already has. The problem is not with God’s silence but with our ears. The witness of creation, conscience, Scripture, and Christ Himself leaves us without excuse.

It is not God who hides, but man who hides from God—just as Adam and Eve once hid in the Garden. And yet, even then, God sought them, calling out: “Where are you?” (Gen. 3:9).

The same God still calls today through the beauty of creation, the testimony of Scripture, and the living Christ. The question is not whether God is clear enough but whether we are willing to see Him more clearly!

"For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known." - 1 Corinthians 13:12

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INFALLIBILITY IS GREATER THAN INERRANCY
By Del Potter M.A.A.
 
God's truth (Infallibility) is greater than man's inability to write down or transmit His word (Inerrancy) perfectly. God's truth remains true regardless if man regards or disregards it to be true.
 
Allow me to explain more in-depth. Inerrancy, is defined as the belief that Scripture contains no errors in its original manuscripts, so obviously inerrancy struggles with textual variants like John 8:1–11. The story is missing from the oldest Greek manuscripts (e.g., Codex Sinaiticus, Vaticanus) and its stylistic differences raise red flags for many textual critics. But if our faith rests solely on inerrant transmission, what happens when that transmission wavers? Are such passages now less inspired? We are warned from scripture itself that errant transmission could and can occur. God through Moses warns the Israelites that "You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, so that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I am commanding you" (Deuteronomy 4:2).
 
Jesus seems to place an exclamation point on this line of thinking and says “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments" (John 14:15) clarifying further that if you love God you will not tamper with His word. God places a capstone on this discussion by warning His readers at the close of Revelation "and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book" (22:19). My point? We are warned through scripture itself there is and would be a problem with those that would add or even take away from God's infallible word thus making it errant and not inerrant. This is where the strength of infallibility steps in.
 
Infallible simply means “incapable of error.” The difference is God is incapable of error and is against His nature to error. "As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the Lord is flawless" (Psalm 18:30:). Inerrancy is like a flawless earthly mirror. Crack it, and it’s compromised. However, Infallibility is like the sun: Even if seen through a foggy lens, it still gives light and heat because its origin is not of the earth.
 
Psalm 119:89 reminds us that truth originates not in human manuscripts, but in the eternal counsel of God. Combined with John 21:25 - "Jesus did many other things... if all of them had been written down, the world itself would be unable to contain the volumes" We are confronted with a key theological insight: not all truth has been written, but all truth is known. In Scripture, it is clarified that omission from man's history does not imply absence from God's history. So, even when the earthly record is incomplete, the heavenly record has been completed.
 
Again, it is true that manuscripts such as Codex Sinaiticus omit stories like the Pericope Adulterae (John 7:53–8:11), leading some to question its authenticity. Yet, early Christians like Didymus the Blind (pre-Nicene era) affirmed the passage’s existence in "certain Gospels." Augustine later wrote that some scribes intentionally excluded the story out of fear it could be misused to justify sin using the story of the Pericope Adulterae.
 
“Certain persons of little faith... removed from their manuscripts the Lord's act of forgiveness toward the adulteress.” (Augustine 'De Adulterinis Coniugiis' - 419 A.D.)
 
This demonstrates that the story may have been removed due to fear, politics, or human discretion, but not by divine silence. In light of Psalm 119:89, we must remember that God's word is "SETTLED" [Greek: Natsab = stationed/established] in heaven before it’s written on earth.
 
This challenges an empirical view of truth. If divine revelation is only accepted when it aligns with surviving manuscripts, the church’s oral tradition, apostolic memory, and lived theology are undermined. The early church did not rely solely on manuscripts, but on witnesses, oral, and Spirit-led preservation. As Tertullian wrote in the 2nd century:
 
“We do not need curiosity after Christ Jesus, nor inquiry after the gospel. When we believe, we desire to believe nothing more. For this we believe, that there is nothing else which we ought to believe.” - Prescription Against Heretics, Ch. 7–8.
 
Scripture acknowledges its own incompleteness—yet affirms the completeness of God's eternal counsel.
 
The failure to accept any truth that has not been recorded in early papyri amounts to ignoring the 'heavenly library' where truth is established. There is a consensus among Scripture, tradition, and theology that the absence of paper does not imply the absence of preservation. Despite the fact that earth has not penned it, that does not mean heaven has not done so. As Christians, we believe that the eternal Word, who is Jesus Christ, the Logos (John 1:1-14), has embodied and preserved all truth, some written, some spoken, and some remembered in the heart of the Church. The Word of God cannot fail - even if manuscripts do. That is the beauty and greatness of infallibility over inerrancy.
 
"And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written." (John 21:25).
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