2 Corinthians 11:1-6 English Standard Version

1 I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! 2 For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. 3 But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4 For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. 5 Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles. 6 Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge; indeed, in every way we have made this plain to you in all things.

How many times can we preach the gospel of salvation and tried to keep it fresh and interesting?

There are as many angles to the salvation story as there are differences in personalities and experiences of believers. Yet the essence of the gospel remains the same.

The deceiver is the devil and not everyone who presents a new thought is by nature the devil. One line here strikes at home to the problem, verse 5 calls out the issue of ego, those super-apostles. In modern terms it is those that raised up church membership in the tens of thousands. Inquiring about those supercells I discovered their membership ranks included many  individuals that no longer attend,  what we would call sincere devoted Christians.

See how Jesus fed the five thousand.

Mark 6:39-40 English Standard Version

39 Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties.

Doing the math there might have been as many as 67 or more smaller groups. How did 12 apostles feed that many smaller groups? It is likely that other believers helped feed others so that no one would be ignored and go hungry.

So often we look at the big picture and miss the finite details that show our involvement.

As to being sincere and devout Christians, being on the membership roll of a mega church does not make a person a Christian, no more than sitting in a movie theater makes us a cast member.

Memories paint a picture but is that picture a true reflection of a life in Christ?