(60) The Book of Philippians

The Giving Church.

Philippians is the most affectionate book written by Paul. Actually it was written with Timothy by his side in prison. Two words could describe what this book is about: Joy and Rejoice. It was written in 62 AD from Rome during Paul's first imprisonment, 6 years before his death.

Philippi was a military station for the Roman Empire. It was named after King Philip, the father of Alexander the Great ca. 400 BC. It was reestablished by Caesar Augustus and Marc Antony after they had defeated Brutus and Cassius ca. 40 BC. When Augustus and Antony decided to part ways Augustus allowed him and his men to retire here. The area was also known for its gold mines giving it a nice comfort zone for the retired soldiers. The church that Paul established here held on to their beliefs and remained consistent in their faith (1:4-5).

Some of the main points are:

1. God is always working with us and on us (1:3-6)
2. Even though we die physically, we have life because of Christ (1:18-21)
3. The importance of Christ, who He was and what He did, and what people will do in the end because of Him (2:6-11)
4. We are citizens of heaven and should not be concerned with things that fade (3:17-21)
5. No matter what happens we need to rejoice in the Lord (4:4-8)
6. No matter what the circumstance we can get through because of the strength He gives us (4:11-13)

It was written to thank the church of Philippi for their gift and to encourage them. He also wanted them to welcome Timothy as it seems like he would be released from prison before Paul would be. And the last reason was because he was sending back to them one of their own, Epaphroditus, who had apparently become ill and wanted to return home. But the main key words is what this book is all about; joy and rejoice. It stresses that we can still have joy in our life no matter what happens as along as we remain in Christ. We can get through any situation that this world makes us go through, and for that we need to rejoice in what has been given to us. The world does not understand that. We live in the moment. If the moment seems bad then that is how we treat others. Instead of living for the whole we live for the piece. Joy is not situational. But the world feels it is.

(59) The Book of Colossians

The Church of the Stoic.

Colossians is considered the sister book of Ephesians because it focuses on Christ as being the head of the body which Ephesians said was the Church.  It deals with the supremacy of Christ rather than the Holy Spirit and the gifts.  Paul actually never visited the church here.  It was written in 61 AD during his imprisonment in Rome, about 7 years before his death.  He was either imprisoned with Timothy at this time or Timothy came to to see him and was given the letter to be delivered to Colosae. 

Colosae was a city in a volcanic area.  As a matter of fact during the year this book was written, the city was nearly destroyed by an earthquake. Many Jewish people had settled into the area due to persecution by Antiochus III.   But before it died out, it was a diverse city.  Many educated people came to Colossae to discuss the world.  A group that emerged in this time period were the Stoics, those who explained the world through logic and reason, a predecessor to the Enlightenment thinkers 1700 years later.  Out of this group came a sect of "Christians" called Gnostics; using astrology, mysticism, and Judaism.  They claimed Christ but denied many of the things that the Apostles said Jesus did or commanded.  They believed that God did not really come to earth but only seemed to appear in the flesh.  Jesus was no more than an angel.  God of the old testament was inferior to the God of the new testament.  Man's laws did not put a bind on Christians.  Some people gained "gnosis" (secret knowledge) and this knowledge outweighed the strength of faith.  Hence this is heresy.  The church located here did not understand that knowledge comes from the Spirit so Paul prayed for them to gain this wisdom.

Some of the main points are:

1. The connection between God the Father and Jesus the Son as One.  (1:15-17)
2. God's ways are higher than man's and we can't comprehend everything that is done (2:6-10)
3. We are not of this world and shouldn't live like we are (3:1-4)
4. The Christian household and what it should be like (3"17-23)
5. Prayer is a priority (4:2)

It was written to combat the false teachings of the Gnostics and stoics.  The main theme is that we are united with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection.  Jesus is the head of the Church.  But people using their own knowledge try to make the rules instead.  Like the stoic and Gnostics they think they can do all by themselves when in reality they can not.  Faith is important, no one can explain everything and when they can't they start to think there is no God.

(58) The Book of Ephesians

Church of the Simpletons.

Out of all the troubles that Paul wrote down that he was having in his ministry this book never really goes into any of that.   It instead focuses on how the Church is the Body of Christ and the spirituality it is supposed to have.  As one reads it though it is understood that this one is definitely for the ages since the issues dealt inside are for the whole church.  It was written around 60 AD, 8 years before Paul's death.  Paul was in prison the time he was writing this.  Ephesus was a city he loved and wanted to spend more time there than time actually allowed.

Being a Greek city Ephesus was heavily into the pagan myths of Greek legends about gods and goddesses (Acts 19:23-27).  But it was also inhabited by Greeks who had adopted earlier religions of the original people located in the area.  The main goddess of the city, the matron, if you will, was Artemis, aka Diana, the goddess of fertility.  The temple of Diana may have been the largest Greek building at the time.  Ephesus was part of a culture center, one of the largest of ancient times and grew to a city the size of about 250,000 people.  It was a leader in politics, religion, and commerce.  In 189 BC it became part of the Roman Empire and thus took on many Roman lifestyles as well.  It's theater, which could sit roughly 24,000 people, became of the seven wonders of the world.  The church that was located here Paul said was strong in its faith (1:15) but didn't know exactly what to do with it (1:17-23).

Some of the main points are:

1. The Church is the Body of Christ and is powerful (1:19-23)
2. Salvation is a gift, not a reward for works (2:8-10)
3. There is so much more to grasp that we don't use (3:17-20)
4. There can be unity and strength through the understanding of each one's gift (4:2-16)
5. We are in a spiritual war, not a physical one (6:11-12)

It was written to the Church that Jesus was our great example and that no matter where we are in our walk with Him we need to constantly grow in our spirits.  Jesus is our goal for our character.  But character is something we do not care about in this world anymore.  We live for the moment.  We worry about what others think about us (reputation) instead of what we really are.  The main difference between character and reputation is this:  reputation is what we want others to think about us, character is what we do when no one else is around.

(57) The Book of Romans

Church of the Empire.

Romans is the longest book written by Paul.  This book takes the deepest look at sin and salvation than the rest of his letters, hence the Roman Road ideology.  But not only does it focus on these two topics it expands on other topics more than the rest of his letters.  Such as it also talks about righteousness, faith, justification, redemption, atonement, reconciliation, and sacrifice.  It was the book Saint Augustine was reading when he converted and the same one Martin Luther was reading when he came up with the idea of justification by faith that would cause him to break from the Catholic Church starting the Reformation period.  There was more than just Paul that had something to do with the letter.  He orated the letter but it was written by Tertius and delivered by Phoebe.  Paul never made it to the church in Rome until he was imprisoned there at the end of his life.  It was written around 57 AD, 11 years before Paul's death, and about 5 years before he was imprisoned there.  He was in Corinth at the time.

Rome, one of the most famous cities and empires in history, started around 753 BC by twin brothers, Romulus and Remus who were legendarily raised by wolves.  It was actrualkly a repblic until Augustus came to power in 27 BC and remained an empire until its fall in 395 AD.  Around 300 AD the Empuire started to have problems and would eventually become two separate empires, the east would become the Byzantine Empire.  The church of Rome would also split at this point.  The west would become Roman Cahtolicism and the east would become Eastern Orthodox.  Most people think Christianity brought the downfall of the Empire.  But, it may alos perhaps be the thiong that kept it alive for so long.  God perhaps used Rome for His glory.  When the western Roman Empire became the Holy Roman Empire, the word of God spread into 20 languages.  But before the Church became powerful in Rome, many people would not accept Christianity (Acts 18:2) due to a strong paganistic culture.  However the ones that did become Christian and started the church there were very strong in faith (Rom 1:8) and very obedient to the Word (Rom 16:19).

Some of the main points are:

1. We are all sinners and no one is perfect (3:10)
2. If we believe and have faith we will have justification, our belief is correct (3:26, 5:1-5)
3. Although we all died through Adam, we live through Christ (5:12-20)
4. We may be dead due to sin, but we are made alive due to Christ (6:8-11)
5. Be controlled by the Spirit, not your flesh (8:9-11)
6. Salvation is for everyone (10:5-15)

It was written to prepare the church for Pauls' visit and future imprisonment.  The church was also very young and needed guidance with the essentials of believeing in Christ.  This is why it is so widely used to help those who are struggling to understand why they need Christ.  We are all sinners and we all need someone to help us.  Unfortuantely, many think they do not need anyone.

(56) The Books of Corinthians

Church of the Sabotaged and Stubborn.

Although only two books written to the Corinthians are in the Bible there were actually more written.  In the first book, chapter 5 verse 9 Paul says, "I wrote to you in my letter...".  The word wrote of course tells the reader that there was something written before this one.  Some think that this letter was found and placed in the sixth chapter of the second book since that passage is a little off topic and seems like an interruption in flow of reading.  One way or another Paul wrote them more than twice.  These books go into great detail about marriage, love, spiritual gifts, and the resurrection of those in Christ.  The second book goes deeper into the motivation and personal life of Paul more than the rest of his letters.  It also shows his emotional side and how temperamental he may have been.  These were written in 55 AD, about 20 years after his conversion.  The first letter was sent while he was in Ephesus and the second letter was written after he had moved on into Macedonia.

Corinth was a Greek economic center.  It was perfectly in the middle of an east-west trade route along with a north-south trade route.  It was mostly located on a cliff and could be defended very easily.  It is a very old city, probably over 5000 years old.  It became so big Rome saw it as a threat to them and conquered it in 146 BC and became a colony of Rome.  Most of the men and women were sold into slavery (around the same time Spartacus lived).  The city laid in ruins for over 100 years.  And because of the clash of culture the people there were mostly pagans listening to the myths of both Roman and Greek gods.

The church was started by Paul (Acts 18).  It was full of people practicing their spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 1:7) but forgot one major ingredient; love.  They focused more on the power of the gifts than the commandment of what to do with the gifts.  Paul wrote to them to remind them of the things they forgot.  Since love was not really part of their practice it became a very quarrelsome congregation (1 Cor. 1:11).  Probably even argued with Paul while he was there (2 Cor 2:1-2).  Once love was out of the picture, the world was allowed in and it was easily influenced by outside measures (1 Cor. 3:1-3).  They even started to sue each other and treat each other wrongly.  Their worship suffered because of this and they took the Lord's Supper in unworthy manners.

Some main points in these books are:

1. Unity in the church is very important (1st 1:10-17, 12:12-15)
2. We are the temple (1st 3:16-17)
3. We have the Spirit to explain things and instruct us (1st 2:14)
4. Spiritual warfare needs spiritual weapons (1st 12:4-7, 2nd 10:3-6)
5. We are a new creation when we give our lives over to Christ, but we only get out of it what we put into it 2nd 5:15-21, 9:6-8)
6. Jesus is the power and wisdom of God the father and gives us all the grace we need (1st 1:20-25)
7. LOVE (1st 13)

These were written to stop quarrels from happening within the church.  They had problems within their community and did not take care of the situations, up to the point where they became angry with each other.  Paul also had to tell them of false teachings and correct them about another letter they had misinterpreted by him.  And overall to rebuke them of their lack of love.

Without love all we do is make noise and that noise is annoying.

(55) Penance

Comments to follow soon.  Do born again Christians have to repent?

• 43% Yes everytime we sin.
• 37% Yes.  But only if we have fallen away.
• 12% No.  Once saved , always saved.
• 6%  Yes, but for another reason.
• 0%  No.  No one ever needs to repent.
• 0%  No.  But for another reason.
• 0%  Other.

(54) The Books of Thessalonians

Church of the Doomsday Prophets.

With the exceptions of the Revelation of John and some passages by Christ, the books of Thessalonians are the only real books on prophecy and Christ's return in the New testament.  Somehow every chapter closes with a theme of His return.  Although these two books were written separately by Paul they appear to be only weeks apart in time.  They were written around 51 AD, approximately 16 years after Paul's conversion, and 5 years after his first mission.  The letter was sent to Thessalonica from the city of Corinth, which is probably when he started to take notes on the Corinthian people to deal with their problems.  Every chapter ends with a comment about the return of Jesus.

Thessalonica was a commercial center.  It was the capital of Macedonia.  It was named after a wife of General Cassander, a leader in Alexander the Great's army in 315 BC.  It is located at the end of the Danube giving it a perfect location for commerce.  It's major trading partner was Corinth.  Rome did not really influence it that much which is why its Greek culture remained strong.  Being a city of commerce, it became a very diverse city, full of writings in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and even Samaritan dialogue.  Images of materialism and seductiveness plastered the city.  It was also a city that was not very receptive to Christians.

The Church was started by Paul (Acts 17:1-4).  It was a church strong in its faith and a loving church (1 Thess 1:3) but it was not properly nurtured.  Many came under persecution.  Many Jews were in the city and forced Paul and Timothy to leave earlier than they wanted and because of this the Thessalonians misunderstood many of the meanings Paul was telling them about the return of Christ.

Some main points in these books are:

1. There is glory in the second coming (1st 4:13-18)
2. We are trichotomous beings.  We need to worship God as though we are; mind, soul and spirit. (1st 5:15-23)
3. There is evil in this world (2nd 1:7-10)
4. Don't let doomsday prophets scare you, only God knows the end. (2nd 2:1-3)
5. The Lord is faithful (2nd 3:3-5)

These were written to tell of how Paul was glad to hear that their faith was growing and to settle the confusion about the return of the LORD.  They thought He had already come again, which if course is not true.  He stresses that the plan of salvation is only the beginning of our spiritual journey.  And our erroneous thinking leads to erroneous practices in life.  These errors destroy our spirit.