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
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query missionary. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query missionary. Sort by date Show all posts
Friday, March 18, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
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
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
Monday, September 10, 2012
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
Google
Thursday, July 14, 2011
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
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
Monday, October 22, 2012
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
Friday, August 3, 2012
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
Google
Monday, September 12, 2011
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
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)