First Timothy

First Timothy.  The Holy Bible.  New King James Version.  Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

The Bible includes two letters from Paul to his protégé, Timothy.  Timothy traveled extensively with Paul on his missionary journeys and sometimes served as his messenger.  Timothy is mentioned in several of Paul’s letters and in the book of Acts.

At the time of this letter, Timothy was serving as a pastor at Ephesus.  Though there were many Christians in Ephesus, they met in small, home-based groups.  In this sense, Timothy was more a pastor to pastors.  Paul wrote to him with encouragement and instruction.

Paul opens his letter with a theme that occurs in many others: doctrinal purity and false teachers.  Then, as now, there were people who wanted to draw followers, fame and fortune to themselves and found an opportunity in religion.  They presented themselves as scholars discriminating the finer points of the law and engaged in disputations.  Mostly, they sold what was selling and lived immorally, making excuses for themselves.  Paul encouraged his disciple to stick to the Gospel he had received.

Because of this, Paul gave instructions about who would make suitable leaders in the church.  These were to be mature, of good character, with orderly lives, especially in their family.

Speaking of family, Paul was very concerned about relationships, especially how Christians relate to each other.  He wrote about who Christians should treat each other.  He discussed how pastors and congregations should relate.  He wrote about charity to the poor.  He gave direction to masters and slaves, husbands and wives, parents and children.

Though he doesn’t address it directly in this letter, you can see in his discussion of relationships Paul’s vision of authority and submission in a context of loving relationships.  God is the model and source of all authority.  Of course, no human rules with the absolute authority of God; human authorities are trustees and agents of God, in the church, government and family.  God not only rules, He loves.  Jesus Christ suffered agony and death to atone for our sins and give us everlasting life with Him.  No one can repeat what Christ did, nor is it necessary, but his sacrificial love and submission to His Father are a mode for human rulers.

On the flip side, we are all to submit to God.  This submission to God is a model of our submission to authorities, who are all appointed by God.  We love, reverence and obey authorities just as they love, care for and thoughtfully lead us.  The notion of submission is unpalatable to many, but it is possible, even good, in the context of God’s love and authority working through people.

Paul’s love for Timothy comes through the letter.  The terms of affection, the concern for his health, the encouragement to face problems with calm faith, the reminders of friends and family break up the teaching sections.  Paul himself was a model for the things he was teaching Timothy.  Paul was an authority and Timothy served him for years.  Paul was also a loving friend who cared about his wellbeing and success.   As both an authority and one under authority, Timothy had a good teacher in the apostle.

Paul also wrote

Colossians

First Corinthians

Galatians

Philippians
Romans
Second Corinthians

Second Thessalonians

Google

Acts

Acts. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

Acts is attributed to Luke, author of one of the gospels. The gospels focus on the life of Christ, but Acts focuses on the apostles as they established the church. Much of the book tells of the missionary journeys of Paul, and Luke indicates that he accompanied the apostle on some of those journeys.

In his gospel, Luke described the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus, made several appearances to his disciples, sometimes large groups of them, until His Ascension. Luke shows that the resurrection of Jesus was central to Christianity from the beginning, being preached by Peter immediately after Pentecost and by Paul repeatedly wherever he went.


Peter was a leader of the apostles and he is prominent in the early chapters of the books. During this time, the growth of the church was concentrated in Jerusalem until the persecution led to its dispersion. This dispersion, along with a vision God gave Peter, was the beginning of the gospel being carried to non-Jewish people, Gentiles, and the growth of the church in that sector.

With the shift to Gentiles, the book turns from Peter to Paul. Paul was a Jewish scholar and a leader of the prosecution of the church. His conversion is described in Acts. He was appointed by the other apostles to be a missionary to the Gentiles and rose to become one of the great teachers in the church.

Paul took three missionary journeys. In the first, he established or encouraged churches in Asia near the Mediterranean Sea. His second journey revisited some of these churches and expanded into Greece. His third trip focused on Ephesus, a major economic center of the Roman Empire.

His preaching in Ephesus, and the growth of he church there, lead to conflicts with the temple of Diana. In Ephesus, Paul begins to feel the call to carry the gospel to Rome. Before he goes, he revisits Greece and Jerusalem.

Jerusalem was also a place of conflict for Paul. He was welcomed by the church there, which celebrated the work he had done among the Gentiles, but he came into conflict with Jewish leaders. These men captured him and took him to Roman officials wanting to have him put to death. These Roman leaders were too scrupulous of their laws to laws to execute Paul on shaky charges that they probably saw as a sectarian conflict amongst the Jews, but some were willing to do a favor a keep him out of the way. This eventually lead Paul to appeal his case to Caesar, a right he claimed as Roman citizen, and he was sent to Rome under military guard.

Paul spent a couple of years as a prisoner in Rome, though he had great liberty and was allowed to preach and teach there. Paul was probably acquitted after a couple of years in Rome and received better treatment that he would later when, as a prisoner again, he wrote his letters to the churches.

Acts may come off as a biography of Peter and Paul. It is really a picture of the great commission in action as the church began preaching and making disciples first in Jerusalem (Peter), then the nearby districts (shifting from Peter to Paul), and finally to the entire known world (Paul’s missionary journeys).

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
The Holy Bible (especially the Gospels (especially Luke))
Fathered by God by John Eldredge
Into the Depths of God by Calvin Miller
The Joy of Supernatural Thinking by Bill Bright

Philippians

Philippians.  The Holy Bible.  New King James Version.  Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

Compared to some of Paul’s other letters, his message to the church at Philippi jumps all over the place.  Sadly, his more focused an organized letters are organized so out of the necessity of providing teaching and correction to troubled churches.  Happily, the Philippians seemed to need little of this.  Paul writes this letter mostly to share news and encourage a church he had not visited in years.

Paul founded the church in Philippi, a city in what is now Greece, possibly the first European church.  Early on, they had been supporters of his mission, though it appears they had not been in contact for several years.

The arrival of Epaphroditus, a messenger from the Philippian church, prompted Paul to write.  They had heard of his imprisonment and hardships and, though they had long been out of contact with the planter of their congregation, they wanted to take care of him.  Paul doesn’t say what they sent, but it seems that Epaphroditus spent some time in Rome seeing to Paul’s needs before Paul sent him back with Timothy and this letter.

The only note of correction in the book is and admonishment to be humble.  He also wanted a couple of prominent women in the church to settle their differences.

Much of the letter is encouragement.  Paul encourages the Philippians to continue faithfully in the Gospel, assured of their home in heaven.  In spite of his troubles, Paul is joyful and he wants them to be full of joy, too.  He praises their generosity.

A special point of joy is that the Gospel was advancing.  Paul was happy to endure imprisonment because it gave him opportunity to preach the Gospel.  Even people working in Caesar’s palace had become Christians.

The reason for all of this is Christ.  The salvation, assurance, and power to live a new life, for the Philippians and all believers to this day, are from Jesus Christ.  The best a man be on his own is little compared to the perfect righteousness of Christ, which God freely imparts to us His gift.  The temporary hardships of this life, with which Paul was very familiar, were nothing compare to the eternal joy and perfection God has in store for His people.

In many of his letters, Paul opposes those who preach something other than the Gospel.  Often it was Judaizers, but it was sometimes Gnostics or others who would twist the Gospel into something else.  He strongly objected to teachers of false doctrine.  In this letter, though, he mentions people who preach the Gospel for selfish reasons—even to hurt him.  This doesn’t seem to bother him much, his main concern being that the truth of Christ be proclaimed.

Paul also wrote

First Corinthians

Galatians
Romans
Second Corinthians

Google

Second Corinthians

Second Corinthians. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

Paul was a missionary who established and grew churches in Asia and Europe. He also kept up correspondence with several churches. The Bible includes two of his letters to the church at Corinth, though some think the book we call Second Corinthians may be Paul’s fourth letter to that congregation.

Second Corinthians covers a lot of ground. The Corinthians were prone to get puffed up and too ready to listen to self-seeking teachers and set aside the Gospel and sound doctrine. Sometimes they seem like children, and sometimes Paul addresses them that way. Don’t judge them too harshly; modern Christians can too easily fall into the same errors and we have fewer excuses.

Part of the letter is informative. Paul writes about what is going on in his life, his travels, his missionary work, and news from other churches.

The letter is also a tool of teaching. In the instance of someone who had been disciplined for wrongdoing, Paul reminds the church to forgive and remember that the purpose of chastising is to lovingly return people to good relationships, not to punish them indefinitely. He reiterates the Gospel and reaffirms the belief in resurrection.



The letter is encouragement as well as instruction. Paul exhorts the church to live the kind of life they were called to, imitating Christ with purity, humility and generosity.

Paul defends himself, too. Other teachers visited Corinth. In some cases, they were not faithful to the Gospel, taught falsely, aggrandized themselves, and took advantage of their positions. Paul contrasted himself to these other teachers, reminding the Corinthians of his conduct among them, his humility and his support of himself without taking using the resources of the Corinthians. He especially emphasized his faithfulness and constancy in the Gospel.

In anticipation of a future visit, Paul sent a gentle warning. He wanted to come to Corinth and find the church in good shape, full of people dedicated to the truth and active in goods works. He wanted them to be the kind of people he was bragging about. He didn’t want to come to find a lot of problems.

Pau’s tone in this letter is interesting. I find it to be often humorous, especially in the ironic argumentation and the way he points out the absurdity of some of the things said against him and the faith. Paul speaks as an older brother with tough cajoling, a mother with gentle nagging, a father with loving discipline, and a friend with persuasive pleading, and a shepherd calling his sheep to safety.

Paul also wrote
First Corinthians
Romans

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Acts
The Gospels
King James Bible

Galatians

Galatians. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

The church at Galatia was another founded among the Gentiles by Paul. The apostle kept up with the churches, revisiting and corresponding with them, and sent to them letters, like the one we call Galatians, to encourage and correct his fellow believers.

As with his other letters, Paul encouraged the church to stay true to the Gospel as they were taught by faithful messengers, firstly himself. There were people and sects who were trying to reshape Christianity in their own fashion. The same is true today. Paul defended the received faith.

The particular group active in Galatia are called Judaizers. They sought to institute Mosaic Law in the church, especially amongst the new Gentile believers. This included all manner of laws, ceremonies and traditions. The primary practice, symbolic of them all, was circumcision.

To strengthen their case, the Judaizers attempted to undermine Paul. Paul devoted part of his letter to defending his authority and teachings. The main point is this: Paul taught the same Gospel that the other apostles taught and he taught with the approval of the other apostles, though he did not necessarily need it. In addition, the point on circumcision in particular was long settled among the apostles.



As far as I know, advocates of circumcision for religious purpose aren’t active in or around the church today. There are major religions that have borrowed superficially from Christianity to build religions of laws that depart from the Gospel of grace. The Jehovah’s Witnesses and Latter Day Saints come to mind, though they both depart from orthodox Christianity on almost every major point. Even working within the church are those who teach some kind of law or ethic that binds men with hardly a meaningful mention of the liberating grace of God.

Paul sets up this contrast in his letter: law or grace. It depends on us or it depends on God. God’s law is perfect, as is His justice. Imperfect and sinful Christians can’t keep even a portion of the law and can’t compare to the spotless character of God. A person who looks to the law will only find himself condemned by it. The purpose of the law is to push us to the grace and mercy of God, which is revealed in full in Jesus Christ.

The hymn “Jesus Paid it All” sums up the idea of grace. Jesus fulfilled the law, so in Him, the faithful are no longer condemned by the law, but they are made righteous in God’s sight. In Jesus, we are remade as children of God and given God’s Spirit. As children and heirs of God’s, we are not bound, constrained, and coerced by laws. Instead, we are free to live a new life, quickened by a new Spirit, and having faith in the unshakable work of God and not our flimsy works under the law.

Though the Judaizers attempted to undermine Paul’s teaching as aberrant, he shows himself to be both true to the Gospel and a master of scripture. His arguments are substantially founded on exposition of the Old Testament.

Paul presents the question to the church. If we can trust God, having faith in Christ that He has worked out everything to save us from the destruction of sin and gave us a new life of liberty, why on Earth would we trust ourselves to somehow earn God’s approval by submitting ourselves to laws we don’t keep except though self-delusion? If we truly believe the Gospel, how could anything else turn our heads?

Paul also wrote
First Corinthians
Romans
Second Corinthians

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Acts
Genesis
The Gospels
The Pentateuch

Google

First Thessalonians

First Thessalonians.  The Holy Bible.  New King James Version.  Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

Paul covers several topics in this letter to the church at Thessalonica.  The main theme is that Jesus Christ will return and believers should be reassured in that fact.  He mentions the second coming twice before teaching about it in some detail.

Paul praises the church for their faithfulness and godly character in the face of persecution.  Their behavior was a sign to all of their faith in gospel of Jesus Christ.  They could bear troubles with patience because they new He is coming again and He had already rescued them from the judgment he will deliver on His return.

Part of the persecution the church face appears to involve attempts to discredit Paul and the gospel he taught.  He presents two defenses.  First was his conduct during his time in Thessalonica.  He did not try to take advantage of the people, but worked hard to take care of them.  Second, the proof of the gospel was the endurance and faithfulness of the people who believed it.  Paul concludes this section of his letter with another reference to the second coming, stating how much he will delight in them with the Lord at that time.

The letter was prompted in part by Timothy’s visit to Thessalonica and his report on the state of the church there.  Paul is encouraged by what he hears and encourages the Christians to continue in the faith.  It may seem disheartening that he reminded them to live lives of sexual purity, good order, and peace.  A glance around almost any church even today will show how much we need such reminders.

Before wrapping up, Paul gets deeper into the subject of the second coming.  First, he addresses the question of those who die before Christ’s returns.  Is that the end for them?  Will they not be with the Lord?  They though Christ might return in their own lifetime, and were concerned about Christian brothers who had passed away.  Paul reminded them of Christ’s resurrection, and taught that dead Christians would be brought back to life in the same way.  When He comes again, all of His people, alive and dead raised to new life, will join Him.  We don’t need to worry, those who God calls He will keep forever.

The other question about the second coming, one that people still ask, is: When will it happen?  Only God knows.  The rest of us will be caught by surprise.  For Christians, though, this is no cause for fear.  At any moment we could be with the One we long to be with, our God, our Savior, our Helper, with a kind of unveiled intimacy we have barely tasted.  In the meantime, we should live with faith, love, and hope as we have been called.

Paul’s message to these Christians, and by extension to us, is simple.  You believed the truth and God has saved you.  Keep living well.  Don’t worry.  Jesus Christ is coming and we will be with Him.

Paul also wrote

Colossians

First Corinthians

Galatians

Philippians
Romans
Second Corinthians

Google

Pauline Letters

The apostle Paul wrote most of the New Testament.  His letters to the early churches mix doctrine, biography, advice, and personal messages.  Paul was Jewish and belonged to a sect of zealots called the Pharisees.  He was an up-and-comer with a prestigious education and leadership roles beyond what was typical for a man his age.  He prosecuted the early church, especially congregations of Jewish converts to Christianity.  He gave it all up, though, after having a vision in which he was confronted by Jesus Christ and he eventually became a missionary and apostle to the Gentiles, planting churches in Europe and Asia.

Several themes recur in Paul’s letters.  Some of these are: the Gospel and doctrinal purity, Christian living, and relationships.

The Gospel

Paul was a preacher of the Gospel.  He frequently reminded people to remember and stick to the Gospel he taught with directness and simplicity.  There were a lot of false teachers who taught alternatives, often to draw followers and enrich themselves.  In Paul’s teaching, everything depended on Christ and what He accomplished through His life, death and resurrection; nothing could be added or subtracted from it.

Of course, some tried to add or subtract.  Some of the teachings Paul opposed were Judaizers, Gnostics, and legalism.  Judaizers proposed that to be Christian, one must be Jewish first.  This included conversion to Judaism, including circumcision, and observance of the law of Moses.  According to the Gospel, everything needed was satisfied in Christ.  The Gnostics came from the tradition of mystery religions, taught “secrets” and proposed a Christ who was resurrected as a spirit.  Paul would have none of that either.  The Gospel was plain and all significant events of Christ’s life for our salvation were publicly known, including his physical resurrection.  Both of these groups touched to some degree on legalism.  People wanted to establish rules to live by, either to control people or to aggrandize themselves or to suggest people had a part in their own salvation.  Paul’s Gospel asserted that Christ is all, His sacrifice atoned for our sins and His power in us enables us to do good.

Christian Living

If Christianity wasn’t about following rules, how were we to live?  Could we do whatever we wanted?  Of course, it is silly to think that God would save us from our sins just so we could do whatever evil came to us.  It was equally naïve to think we could, on our own, live up to any rule that is truly pure and perfect.

Instead, a Christian life should be typified by love, humility, gratitude, and obedience to God.  We are to honor Christ our rescuer by imitating Him.  This isn’t to win his favor, but to return the love He showed us and express gratitude for the mercy we did not deserve.  Christ empowers us to live in a new way, knowing Him and doing good instead of sinning and becoming more estranged from God.

Relationships

One of the most important ways we can show our love for God and be Christ-like is in our relationships with others.  Paul wrote about all kinds of relationships: marriage, parent-child, employer-employee (in those days sometimes master-slave), and fellow in the church.  We should treat others with the love, kindness and generosity that Christ shows to us, especially in the church.

The Pauline Letters appear in most Bibles generally from longest to shortest: Romans, First Corinthians, Second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, First Thessalonians, Second Thessalonians, First Timothy, Second Timothy, Titus, and Philemon.  First and Second Timothy, Titus and sometimes Philemon are called the Pastoral Letters because Timothy and Titus were young pastors.

Google

Romans

Romans. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1982.


Paul wrote this letter to the church at Rome around A.D. 57 and expressed his desire to visit them. In the meantime, he gave them much to consider.

I think Romans is a very important book of the Bible, one that Christians would do well to read carefully. This is because Paul lays out the fullness of Christ’s atoning work and what it means for the way Christians can and should live more thoroughly than possibly any other single book. He also argues that Christ fulfilled the plan of God to reconcile with man that had been in the works from the beginning, drawing heavily on the Old Testament.

Paul may have been uniquely prepared to write this book. He was Jewish, a Pharisee, a zealot and, prior to his conversion, a persecutor of the church. (Paul talked and wrote about his early life and conversion regularly. A nice summary form his address to Agrippa in appears in the 26th chapter of Acts, though it is addressed elsewhere in Acts and his epistles.) Later, the leaders of the church appointed him to serve as a missionary to the Gentiles. Paul came to this letter steeped in the Jewish scripture and tradition, longing to see them experience salvation in Christ and he had, and committed to his calling to carry the Gospel to the Gentiles.

After the introductory matters, Paul lays out the foundations of Christianity going back to the Old Testament. A summary of the major points follow.

-The Universality of Sin. We’ve all sinned, done wrong, and deserve the judgment of God against us. Whether we’re a Jew, a Gentile, or anything else, we’re all in the same boat.

-The Primacy of Faith. From the start, or at least as early as Abraham, God has chosen to have mercy on people who have faith in Him, forgive their sins, and impart to them a righteousness (right standing, merit, or goodness) that wasn’t their own. This began before the law was given to Moses (in the example of Abraham), continued during the law’s seeming primacy (from the words of David), and was completed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, who bore the punishment of our sins and gives us a new life.

-Christ Enables Us to Live in a New Way. As Christians, we can and should live in new way that is characterized by honoring God, doing good, and eschewing sin. However, God doesn’t transform us in an instant; we struggle with sinful habits and new temptations and sometimes we lose. Even so, we can have confidence through our faith in the One who saved us. God chose to love us and adopt us as His own children. We are indwelled by the Holy Spirit, i.e. God lives in us, and He step-by-step quickens us in our new life. Chapter 8 digs into this issue and many believers can read this chapter repeatedly.

Paul them moves on to other issues. One is the unbelief of the Jewish people of his day. He had hoped that his people would respond to the Gospel.

As he approaches the end of his letter, Paul touches on many practical matters of the Christian life. The include service, character, citizenship, getting along, loving and helping each other.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Acts
Genesis
The Gospels

First Corinthians

First Corinthians. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

Corinth was a major commercial center for the Greeks. The church there, like churches elsewhere are too often, was fractious. To settle disputes, leaders of the Corinthian church sent a delegation to the missionary who established their church, Paul.

Sometimes you might get a sense of exasperation in reading Paul’s letter. He had hoped they would continue in the things he had taught them, growing in Christ. Instead, they were acting like children. In some ways, they were worse than children.

Paul had a lot to say to the Corinthian believers about how Christians should conduct themselves, especially in relation to their brothers in Christ. The general rule was this: love.

Love, and the corollary attributes of humility and generosity, was to be the governing principle in the church. There are many particulars Paul deals with in terms of the disputes going on in Corinth like partisanship, lawsuits , marriage, eating meat from sacrifices to idols, women in the church, and spiritual gifts. In every case, the advice was to be thoughtful and accommodating of others. It is better to inconvenience yourself for a while for the sake of a new or weak brother, drawing them into maturity of faith through love, than to assert you prerogatives and potentially hurt or alienate others, causing them to fall away or into error.

The love theme culminates in Chapter 13. This description of love is one of the most famous passages of the Bible, popular at weddings, and well worth reading.

A secondary theme of the letter is liberty. The gift of grace Christians receive from God includes great liberty. Godly character in imitation of Jesus, whose death paid for sins and whose perfect rightness was attributed to His people, was to characterize life. Christians don’t earn love, favor and forgiveness from God by their adherence to laws, customs and ceremonies (as if any of us could live perfectly), but they received His gift of forgiveness and new life. It didn’t matter how people dressed or what they ate because they had freedom in grace.

Much was permitted, but not everything was fruitful. Paul encouraged people not to flaunt their liberty, but to let love rule.

Though Christians have liberty, there remain things that are immoral and not to be practiced in the church. Liberty is not lawlessness and forgiveness is not license to sin with impunity. The church was to stand against immorality, especially among its members, and encourage each other in doing good. Paul addresses moral and doctrinal issues, especially in the later chapters of his letter.



Like other letters in the Bible, you’ll find things like you might put in your own communication: greetings, introductions, plans, schedules, instructions and other matters. In addition to instruction and wisdom, this letter opens a little window into history of the early church and the people who were involved in it.

Paul also wrote
Romans

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Acts
The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
Genesis
The Gospels
Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs

Titus

Titus.  The Holy Bible.  New King James Version.  Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

Like Timothy, Titus was a young pastor who traveled with and assisted the apostle Paul.  At the time of this letter, Titus was in Crete providing leadership for the church Paul had established there.

Titus was not only to serve as a pastor on Crete, he was to help build the church there so that he could return to aiding Paul’s missionary work.  He was a church planter.  Because of this, Paul’s advice and direction deals a lot with church leadership and conduct.

As in his some of his other letters, notably First Timothy, he give specific qualifications for church leaders.  Because good leadership begins at home, they were to have an orderly family life.  In addition, they were to have good character and a good reputation in the community.  Leaders were to serve as examples in conduct as well as be teachers of sound doctrine.

Good character should be typical throughout the church, especially in relationships.  Paul discusses how we are to treat each other as husbands and wives, parents and children, employers and workers, government authorities and citizens.

The grace of God doesn’t stop working with our salvation.  It continues in use, through the indwelling Holy Spirit, to help us be better people, more pure and more ready to receive Christ when He comes again, as we anxiously await.

Paul also wrote

Colossians

First Corinthians

First Timothy

Galatians

Philippians
Romans
Second Corinthians

Second Thessalonians

Google

Ephesians

Ephesians. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus from prison. Some think this letter may have been a circular intended for several churches because of the lack of personal greetings that are common in Paul’s other epistles. His theme is far from imprisonment. He writes of liberty, unity, and harmony.

In other letter, the apostle to the Gentiles addresses the error of some Jewish converts that one must convert to Judaism and keep the law and traditions of that religion as part of converting to Christianity. Paul reiterates that the law can only condemn sinful people who don’t keep in every regard; we are dependent on the grace of God, executed in Christ, if we want to be rescued from death and live a new life that is pleasing to God. Freedom from the law is not a license to behave immorally; it’s a new way of living where we are governed by love instead of rules and the Holy Spirit living in us empowers us to do good instead of all the evil things that previously enslaved us.

Because all Christians are partakers of the same grace, both Jews and Gentiles, the church should be unified. It is God’s plan that we should be in relationship with our fellows in Christ, helping each other, working together, and loving one another. There may be a distinction in Jewish heritage and history, but all Christians have the same faith whatever their background.

Grace and unity in the church should be characterized by harmonious relationships. Paul addresses how Christians related to each other and in this letter he specifically addresses marriage, family, and work relationships. In relationships, Christ is our model. The way he treats us, he held nothing back and even suffered a painful, humiliating death to rescue us, should inform the way we treat others, especially those who are under our authority or vulnerable because the don’t have the protectors in life that others may have. As we love others we should also respect others, especially those God has put in our lives for our provision, protection, and upbringing.

In a nutshell, the message of Ephesians is let love rule. This is the broken, partial, conditional, imperfect love that typifies human relationships. It is the perfect, pure love of God, love we can hardly understand. It is love we firs receive from God. God living in us makes us able to share this love with others. Paul doesn’t directly refer to Jesus’ statement that the brotherhood of believers would be recognized by their love for each other, but the notion runs through the letter.



Paul also wrote
First Corinthians
Galatians (216)
Romans
Second Corinthians

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Deuteronomy
Genesis

Google