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The study notes for the second half of chapter 7 of the Revelation of Jesus Christ can be found here.
30 Wednesday May 2018
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The study notes for the second half of chapter 7 of the Revelation of Jesus Christ can be found here.
28 Monday May 2018
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We started our series of nine sermons on Acts three Sundays back. I have been using and will be using a number of slides. There is a lot of material in all of these sermons not only because there is much historical and geographical information, but also because Acts is a pivotal book in the history of God’s dealings with the world. Some of you like taking notes and I do not wish to discourage that. However, jot down only things that stick out to you that are not on the slides. If you want the information on the slides, I can email you the relevant documents. Of course, if you wish to write everything, suit yourselves.
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21 Monday May 2018
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Last week we began our brief series of sermons on the Acts of the Holy Spirit. I have been using and will be using a number of slides. There is a lot of material in all of these sermons not only because there is much historical and geographical information, but also because Acts is a pivotal book in the history of God’s dealings with the world. Some of you like taking notes and I do not wish to discourage that. However, jot down only things that stick out to you that are not on the slides. If you want the information on the slides, I can email you the relevant documents. Of course, if you wish to write everything, suit yourselves.
To continue reading click here.
14 Monday May 2018
Posted Bible Study, Colossians
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Last time we dealt with Col. 2.9-15 in which Paul stresses the supremacy of Jesus’ death and what he accomplished for us through it. In the final portion of the passage Paul claims that Jesus’ death, far from being an occasion of defeat, was one of ultimate victory because by means of his death Jesus exposed every other possible claimant to authority as being a defeated foe. Now Paul continues his correspondence with the Colossian church with some more warnings.
From the mention of sabbaths in v. 16 it is once again evident that the challenges the Colossians were facing came from Jewish quarters. This might not have been so evident if Paul had only mentioned festivals and new moons. All religions—including Christianity—have festivals. Many religions observe special days linked to the phases of the moon. Easter, for example, is celebrated on the first Sunday after the vernal full moon. However, the reference to sabbaths clearly indicates a Jewish challenge. Of the Jewish festivals, the Christians probably celebrated only the Passover, now transformed to the Lord’s Supper. Moreover, the Christians did not observe the sabbath but rather observed Sunday as the Lord’s day. In response to this, some Jews were probably telling the Gentile Christians at Colossae that they were inferior because true religion was to be found in the Jewish observances. What Paul says, however, is that Jesus is the one in whom reality is to be found—the Jewish observances being only a shadow or foretaste of things to come.
What the challengers were also saying was that their observance of all the Jewish rites demonstrated their humility and submission to God. Moreover, they probably were involved in regular fasts and vigils during which they treated their bodies harshly.
Now the phrase “worship of angels” is ambiguous. Does this mean, as most often understood, worship directed toward angels by people? Though this interpretation is very common, it is probably not the case. As we have seen, the challenges faced by the Colossians were thoroughly Jewish in character. If there were hints of pagan challenges, we might conclude that worship directed toward angels might be what is meant. However, there is no strand of Jewish thought that advocates worshipping angels. There is, however, a strand of Jewish thought that advocates certain rituals in order to be able to join the angels as they worship God.
One such strand of thought also advocated seeing visions of heaven and of God. This branch of Jewish mysticism was known as Merkabah mysticism. Merkabah is the Hebrew word for chariot and this branch of mysticism gets its name from Ezekiel’s vision of God riding on a chariot. In this branch of Judaism, visions were very important and strict observances of various festivals and sabbaths had to be maintained if a person was to hope to be graced with such a vision. Paul says that focussing on these things and not holding on to Christ who is the head and life of his body is to have a fleshly mind—that is, a mind that is incapable of grasping true spirituality and true faith.
Paul goes back briefly to Jesus’ death. Now he does not say that the Colossians died to the elemental forces of the world or to the basic principles of the world as the NIV has it. The Greek construction does not use the preposition “to” but “from”. This once again seems to indicate that Paul wants the Colossians to focus on Christ. The issue is not that the Colossians individually died to the basic principles when they became Christians but rather that in his death Christ has freed all who believe from captivity to these basic principles. This makes more sense of the fact that Paul repeats the Greek word stoicei`a, that he used in v. 8.
Dying to these basic principles carries the notion of self-discipline or asceticism, exactly what Paul denounced in v. 18 when he refers to self-abasement or false-humility. Dying from these basic principles, though a difficult phrase, carries the notion of liberation from their power.
Now Paul reveals what these basic principles are. They are regulations such as “do not touch”, “do not taste”, and “do not handle”. These most probably refer to the observances related to the Jewish purity laws where contact with anything unclean rendered a clean person unclean. Now the role of these regulations had become that of maintaining the purity of the Jewish people. Initially, however, they were given as a sign that the Jewish people were chosen by God. Paul says that these negative regulations could not maintain the purity of God’s people—Jewish or Christian. After all, that is not what they were intended to do in the first place!
10 Thursday May 2018
Posted Reflections
inI normally do not write very explicitly political posts despite believing that the Christian message is a very political one. I normally restrict my ramblings to more general issues. However, with the elections in Karnataka just a couple of days away, I have received many messages trying to persuade me to vote one way or the other. This post aims to address one particular type of message.
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10 Thursday May 2018
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The saying goes, “One must not lose sight of the forest for the trees.” Perhaps holds true for me, someone who likes to zoom in and analyze parts of scripture. But there are times when one must zoom out and take in and understand the big picture.
If you read the four Gospels carefully, trying to read as though this were the first time you were reading this wonderful story of Jesus, you will realize that the four Gospels are quite different from each other. In Mark, for example, Jesus’ manner of speaking is abrupt while in the other three Gospels Jesus often speaks at great length. Only John records the raising of Lazarus, surely one of the most remarkable of Jesus’ signs. Only Luke tells us that Jesus met two disciples on the road to Emmaus.
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09 Wednesday May 2018
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The study notes for the first half of chapter 7 of the Revelation of Jesus Christ can be found here.
08 Tuesday May 2018
Posted Reflections
inDon’t get me wrong! Please don’t get me wrong. I have no problems with Christians saying, “Jesus came to save me.” I fully agree with that. Even Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, writes, “The Son of God… loved me and gave himself for me.”
But does Jesus have no purpose for which he has saved me? Is my salvation an end in itself? Or has he saved me with a purpose? Too often in Christian circles, we do not talk about this. We think of salvation as an end in itself. And quite erroneously we conceive of salvation as being a one-way ticket to heaven or something like that.
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07 Monday May 2018
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Like the Gospels, Acts is an anonymous book. No author is mentioned, though church tradition has ascribed authorship to the Luke who is mentioned in some of Paul’s letters. For a variety of reasons, which I will not mention, no serious objection has been raised concerning this tradition.
The Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts form a two-volume work as seen from the prologue of Acts. Luke’s Gospel, probably written around AD 75, is the longest book in the New Testament. As seen in the first slide, Acts, authored around AD 80, is the second longest book in the New Testament.
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