Philemon and Slavery

Click here for an excellent article about the relationship of the early church and slavery.

Colossians

Colossians was probably written during Paul's first imprisonment in Rome. Philippians and Ephesians come from the same era and share many of the same themes.

Alongside the Gospel of John, the book of Colossians stresses the deity of Jesus to a great extent. Paul seems to have been writing to a church that was mixing elements of legalism, mysticism, and speculation that distracted from the preeminence of Jesus.

In the first chapter, Jesus is referred to as the "firstborn" meaning the preeminent heir who has authority. He is described in this way relative to the created world and to the church.

Jesus is also described here as holding all things together. This reminds us of the ongoing scientific search for what holds everything together from atoms to the universe.

Another phrase used to describe Jesus in the first chapter is " the head of the body, the church." The Greek word translated "head" literally meant head or source. According to scholars of ancient Greek, modern English connotations involving hierarchical power, as in "the head of our company," were not part of the term for Biblical and other writers around that time. Those writers use another word for that meaning, and that word is also used in the Bible to refer to Jesus.

Understanding these shades of meaning is important for understanding passages that apply the term translated "head" to people other than Jesus, such as when the Bible says the husband is the head of the wife.

Easter Snow at Woodland Heights

Romans

While the Gospels contain the facts about Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, Romans explains their significance.



Romans revolves around these points:

All people have sinned

Salvation of the spirit (justification) comes through faith in Christ

The natural outcome of saving faith is a life given to God (sanctification)

Romans 1:16-17, 3:21-25, 6:20-23



Sanctification is important for ourselves and for us to obey God, but it also makes a big difference to the people we encounter.

The following passages outline how to be involved in the sanctification of our lives after putting our faith in Christ:

How to relate to God 12:1-2

How to relate to others in the Church 12:3-21

How to relate to authorities 13:1-7

How to relate to those on the outside of the Church 13:8-14

II Corinthians 8 & 9: Giving

II Corinthians 8 and 9 provide a lot of information about Christian giving.

In Acts 11:27-29 we read about a famine in Jersusalem. II Corinthians 8 and 9 discuss a collection that is being taken up to help those in need in Jerusalem.

InII Corinthians 8 and 9 we learn of the excellence of some of the believers in Corinth. They had faith, plus a willingness to speak, plus knowledge, plus dilligence. Paul encourages them to add giving to this great combination of qualities.

We also see that the collection is being handled by an upstanding group including Titus and maybe Luke. Paul goes out of his way to make it very clear had respectable these individuals are.

Throughout these chapters we find many reasons why the Corinthians (and ourselves) ought to give. Here are some of the reasons from the chapters.

to add to other virtues

in response to Christ's generous gift to us

to see our commitment through to the end

we will be enriched to continue caring for others' needs

that resourses might be fairly distributed

that when we are in need, others who are able will help

to obey God

God will be thanked

God will be glorified by our giving


The idea that resources should be fairly distributed is striking in our current world in which more than 1 billion people live on $1 a day, and nearly 3 billion (about half the world's population) live on less than $2 a day.

As we journey through Holy Week, it would be worthwhile to consider the suffering of the poor in the world by visiting one of the following sites.

Click here for a site that is filled with statistics that help one to understand the magnitude of the poverty issue and the impact of poverty on issues like health and peace. The sources of all the statistics are cited for those who want to follow up on the information in its original context.

Click here for the United Nations page commited to poverty iniatives. In the media we mostly hear about the UN in terms of diplomatic confrontations between groups of nations, but we rarely hear about its goals regarding human rights, poverty, and so forth.

Corinthians

Corinth was the capital of the province of Achaia and it was positioned with seaports on both the Aegean and Adriatic Seas. It was a city of 700,000, two-thirds of which were slaves. It was also a city where debauchery and prostitution were rampant, so much so that the phrase "to act like a Corinthian" meant that one was wildly involved with immoral behavior. Acts 18 tells a bit about Paul's time ministering there.

While in Ephesus on his third journey he received a letter about the Corinthian believers. I Corinthians addresses the many problematic issues that had sprung up there:

divisions
lawsuits
incest
abuse of the Lord's Supper
immature stewardship of spiritual gifts
denials of the resurrection

The most problematic issue of all was that these situations were tolerated. Those involved in these practices were not opposed and were not repentant.

While we could easily become entangled in thinking about the specific problems of the Corinthian believers, a more general lesson is important for us today. As fellow believers in the body of Christ we are responsible to each other and need to speak God's truth to each other when it seems one is wandering away from God.

Possibly later in the year Timothy and Titus met up with Paul in Phillipi in Macedonia and let him know that some of those issues had cleared up - but not all. Thus, II Corinthians continues to address some of those issues, but also focuses on giving.

The fact that these New Testament letters show the churches repeated wandering from God's way after the miracle of Christ's resurrection is an intriguing parallel to the wanderings of Israel after their miraculous liberation from Egypt in the Old Testament.

Galatians

During Paul's second missionary journey he worked to establish churches in the communities of the Galatians in Asia Minor. That may have been in the mid-50's.

Paul's letter to the Galatians begins not with a pleasant greeting, but with a rebuke.

Debate had broken out amongst the Galatians about the role and meaning of the Mosaic Law for Christian believers. This issue had already been debated and decided by the Council of Jerusalem in 49.

Paul reminds the Galatians of his authority as an apostle, and in 3:23-23 he clarifies that the law served in the interim until the arrival of the Messiah.

Paul goes on to explain how we ought to live in light of Jesus' coming and the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives in 5:13-22.

Thessalonians

We are surveying Paul's letters in chronological order, or at least in a likely chronological order. The letters are actually ordered in the Bible by length. That places Romans at the beginning, which is appropriate as it conveys a broad explanation of Paul's theology.

In Acts 16:9 and 10 we read of Paul's vision of a man in Macedonia calling to him. This led Paul to Thessalonica which was the capital and largest city of the Roman province of Macedonia. There he preached in the synagogues, saw conversions of Jews and Gentiles, and his preaching provoked some riotous responses. He left for Athens and Corinth where he received reports that the Thessalonians were grappling with perplexing questions.

Some of the Thessalonian believers were concerned about the fate of loved ones who were believers that had died before the return of Christ. I Thessalonians addresses these concerns in 4:13-5:11. II Thessalonians reiterates some of the points Paul made in those chapters and also addresses the misunderstanding that "the day of the Lord" had already occurred.

One general lesson we can take from these books is not to be overly concerned about the end of time, but concentrate on leading holy lives here and now.