{"id":38698,"date":"2012-10-15T20:24:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-16T01:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=38698"},"modified":"2021-10-15T20:29:08","modified_gmt":"2021-10-16T01:29:08","slug":"carnal-appeals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/carnal-appeals\/","title":{"rendered":"Carnal Appeals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\tby Greg Gwin\n

\"\"<\/a>Free pizza, clowns, hot air balloon rides … you name it, and some religious group has tried it as a scheme to draw folks to their services. These things are fun<\/strong>! Who wouldn’t like to play ball, eat good food, and be entertained?<\/p>\n

But, here’s the problem — these things all appeal to the carnal man, and seek to satisfy his earthly desires. Instead of these, the Lord has made the church the “pillar and ground of the truth<\/em>” (I Timothy 3:15), and has designed its work and authorized its activities “for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body<\/em>” (Ephesians 4:12). The church, if it is following God’s plan, is working to build stronger spiritual men, not better softball players.<\/p>\n

When we challenge the ‘fun, food, and games’ crowd to justify their practices from the Scriptures, they usually refer to Jesus feeding the multitudes with loaves and fishes. They conclude that these examples demonstrate how Jesus fed the physical man to make an opportunity to feed the spiritual man (John 6:5-14). Sorry, that won’t work! Keep reading. When the people came to Jesus the next day, He perceived that they came for more free food. He rebuked them and told them they ought to be seeking spiritual things rather than carnal ones (John 6:22-27). He did not<\/strong> feed them! As a result, many stopped following Him (John 6:66), but no food was offered to draw them back again.<\/p>\n

Carnal appeals do not lead to true conversion and they are not authorized. The gospel is the “power of God unto salvation<\/em>” (Romans 1:16). Let’s use it<\/strong>!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Greg Gwin Free pizza, clowns, hot air balloon rides … you name it, and some religious group has tried it as a scheme to draw folks to their services. These things are fun! Who wouldn’t like to play ball, eat good food, and be entertained? But, here’s the problem — these things all appeal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[759,241,152],"class_list":["post-38698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-entertainment","tag-food","tag-social-activities"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":19216,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/did-jesus-use-carnal-methods-to-attract-crowds\/","url_meta":{"origin":38698,"position":0},"title":"Did Jesus Use Carnal Methods to Attract Crowds?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Greg Gwin via Gospel Power, Vol. 16, No. 23, June 7, 2009. Many religious groups use a variety of carnal appeals to draw people to their assemblies. For instance, there are suppers and ice cream socials, ball games and entertainment events, etc. When asked to justify these activities they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/top_19_bmp-300x243.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":84593,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/were-having-so-much-fun-theres-no-reason-to-be-religious\/","url_meta":{"origin":38698,"position":1},"title":"We’re Having So Much Fun … There’s No Reason to Be Religious!","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 15, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Floyd Chappalear via Sentry Magazine, Vol. 13, No. 4, December 31, 1987 Have you attended a religious service lately? Was it a service dedicated to preaching the gospel and edifying the saints, or did it more closely resemble a rock concert? Modern church services often appear to constitute little\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/IMG001-300x209.avif","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":60649,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-about-church-socials\/","url_meta":{"origin":38698,"position":2},"title":"What About Church Socials?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 2, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"by Leslie Diestelkamp Two questions have been asked: Why doesn't the church have more socials? and Why can't we have parties in the basement of the church building? The New Testament authorizes every act and activity of the church. It provides us with all that pertains to life and godliness\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":58938,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/question-and-answer-about-church-socials\/","url_meta":{"origin":38698,"position":3},"title":"Question and Answer About Church Socials","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Leslie Diestelkamp Two questions have been asked: (1) Why doesn't the church have more socials? and (2) Why can't we have parties in the basement of the church building? The New Testament authorizes every act and activity of the church. It provides us with all that pertains to life\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12710,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/about-church-socials\/","url_meta":{"origin":38698,"position":4},"title":"About Church Socials","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"by Leslie Diestelkamp Two questions have been asked: (1) Why doesn't the church have more socials? and (2) Why can't we have parties in the basement of the church building? The New Testament authorizes every act and activity of the church. It provides us with all that pertains to life\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":92036,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/following-gods-plan\/","url_meta":{"origin":38698,"position":5},"title":"Following God’s Plan","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 10, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Zeke Flores Following the pattern of authority in the Bible isn't hard; individuals and churches just need to make up their minds to do it. That means doing things that might run counter to what we've always believed. For instance, raising money for the local church using methods other\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}