Colossians 1: Spanning the Gap

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things.

Don't be surprised if Colossians strikes you as vaguely familiar. More than half of its verses have close parallels in Ephesians. The cities of Colosse and Ephesus were neighbors in Paul's day, and one of the believers in Ephesus has taken the gospel message to Colosse. Paul, who has never visited Colosse, writes this letter to people who know him by reputation only. The letter opens on an optimistic note, with Paul thanking God for the Colossians' spiritual progress. Then he brings up a doctrinal flaw that has crept into their church.

Paul's letters tend to follow a pattern: a greeting, a prayer, some doctrine and a practical application of how Christians should live. Although Paul often launches out into deep water theologically, he always leads his readers back to practical issues: What difference does theology make in daily life?

One stately paragraph (verses 15-20) contains a compressed summary of the absolute supremacy of Christ. Then Paul brings it down to the practical: Christ's supreme power does not distance us from God, but brings us closer. Christ alone has the ability to span the vast gap between God and humanity.

Reflection

Because Jesus bridges the gap between God and us, we don't have to approach God indirectly, through a "ladder" of angels, saints, or other deities. Before Christ, a mystery was kept hidden for many centuries. But with Christ, everything broke out into the open. We can come to know God directly because of his son, Jesus.

Philippians 4: Paul’s Favorite Church

Not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only.

The Christian church hasn’t had a perfect record throughout history. If you take a random sampling of adjectives people us to describe the church, the list will likely include such labels as racist, judgmental, narrow, divided, and pompous.

The church of Jesus Christ has fallen far short of the ideals he entrusted to it- so far short that we may sometimes forget what the church is supposed to look like. Problems existed from the beginning: Paul’s letters to Galatia, Corinth, and Colosse flame with indignation against defects in the early church. Occasionally, however, a church came along that worked, against all odds. Philippi was one of those rare congregations.

From its birth, the church in Philippi had two strikes against it. Its first recorded converts were an Asiatic Jewish merchant, a Greek slave girl employed as a sideshow fortune-teller and a gruff Roman jailer (Acts 16). Yet more than a decade later, when Paul wrote the church, he could hardly find words warm enough to express his pride and affection.

Paul turned down money gifts from other churches, out of fear that his enemies might twist the facts and accuse him of being a crook. But he trusted the Philippians. At least four separate times they sacrificed to meet his needs. And they also sent Epaphroditus on an arduous journey to care for Paul in prison.

Paul wrote Philippians, in fact, mainly as a thank-you for all that his friends had done. Its bright, happy tone reflects the fondness he felt for his favorite church. Nevertheless, Paul couldn’t resist an opportunity to give some fatherly advice. In a fireside-chat tone, he warned of encroaching dangers: divisions, a strain of perfectionism and inroads by those who wished to turn Christians back to a legalistic faith. Always, though, he returned to his underlying theme of joy, an emotion that seemed to come easily when Paul remembered the Philippians.

Reflection
It’s interesting to note that Philippians uses the word joy or rejoice every few paragraphs, but the joy it describes is a bit different from what we normally associate with the word. Rejoice, says Paul, when someone selfishly tries to steal the limelight from you. And when you meet persecution for your faith…and even when you are facing death. Paul certainly had a different understanding of the word, and it’s our responsibility as followers of the faith to take up this challenge.

Philippians 2: What Keeps Paul Going?

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.

Paul has suffered much in the ten years since founding the church at Philippi: beatings, imprisonment, shipwreck, hostility from jealous competitors. Surely he must have sometimes wondered, is it worth all this pain? Even as he writes this letter, he is under arrest, “in chains for Christ” (1:13). But whenever Paul’s thoughts turn to Philippi, the elderly apostle’s spirits lift.

If someone had bluntly asked him, “Paul, tell me, what keeps you going through hard times?” he likely would have answered with words straight out of this chapter. In Philippians 2, Paul reveals the source of his irrepressible drive. First, he gives the example of Jesus. In a stately hymn-like paragraph, he marvels that Jesus gave up all the glory of heaven to take on the form of man- and not just any man, but a servant, one who pours out his life for others. Paul takes on that pattern for himself.

Then, in a seeming paradox, Paul describes a kind of teamwork with God: While God is working within, we must “work out” our salvation with fear and trembling. A later spiritual giant named Saint Teresa of Avila would express the paradox this way: “I pray as if all depends on God; I work as if all depends on me.” Her formula aptly summarizes Paul’s spiritual style.

While Philippians gives an occasional glimpse of the apostle Paul’s fatigue, it also shows flashes of what keeps him from burnout. To him, the converts in Philippi shine “like stars in the universe.” Joy in his converts’ progress is what keeps Paul going.

Reflection
The cheerful sounds that we hear from Paul while he is sitting in a jail cell can be unexpected, to say the least. He proclaims to us in chapter 3 to “rejoice in the Lord”- all the while chained to a Roman guard. Is this guy for real? Paul probably wrote Philippians in Rome just about the time Nero began tossing Christians to ravenous lions and burning them as torches to illuminate his banquets. How could a rational man devote a letter to the topic of joy while his survival was in jeopardy? FAITH. God can take even the darkest moment in history and turn it into good. The cross, and Jesus’ triumph over death, prove that nothing is powerful enough to stamp out a reason for joy- joy in the Lord.

Ephesians 3: Success Story

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep the love of Christ.

The Ephesus of Paul’s day is renowned for its religion- but not the apostle’s kind of religion. Worship of the Roman goddess Diana centers in Ephesus, and its residents take great pride in the temple devoted to her. The building ranks among the seven wonders of the ancient world, and inside it hundreds of professional prostitute-priestesses assist the “worshipers.”

In this unlikely city, Paul discovers a tiny Christian community already in existence. They know something about John the Baptist, not much about Jesus, and they have never even heard of the Holy Spirit. For the next two years Paul preaches, a church takes root, and soon word spreads throughout the entire province of Asia.

Miraculous signs and wonders mark Paul’s ministry in Ephesus, so impressing local sorcerers and magicians that they spontaneously hold a public burning of their valuable scrolls. In the face of such zeal, the Ephesian merchants who profit from the sale of idols chase Paul out of town. (See Acts 19)

Like most of the early churches, Ephesus struggles with ethnic and religious differences. Believers with a Jewish background have huge obstacles to overcome in accepting former idol-worshipers into their church. This section of Ephesians addresses the unity issues head-on.
To Paul, the new community composed of both Jews and Gentiles is one of the great mysteries of the ages, a culmination of god’s original plan kept secret for many centuries but now made known. He can hardly contain his soaring language as he marvels at God’s plan being fulfilled at that moment. He urges his readers to think through what it means to represent Christ in the world. When people look at Christians, do they see the qualities of Christ on display?

Reflection
In Paul’s time, Jews and Gentiles were the two factions most given to quarreling and division. From your perspective, what groups divide Christians today? Legalism certainly has played a role in dissention. Too often, Christian denominations get caught up in the “politics” of the church and lose sight of the Word. Staying true to scripture and keeping Christ’s two “key” commandments…love your God and love your neighbor…should keep us all on track with our journey.

Ephesians 2: A Prison Letter

And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Some of the world’s most famous literature originated in, of all places, a prison cell. John Bunyan wrote his Pilgrim’s Progress there. Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s vast output had its conception behind barbed wire, as did Dostoyevsky’s. Parts of the Bible were written in prison as well, including Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon.

Perhaps surprisingly, these books represent some of the brightest, most hopeful books of the Bible. There’s a good reason: Prison offers Paul the precious commodity of time. He is no longer journeying from town to town, stamping out fires set by his enemies. He can devote attention to lofty thoughts about the meaning of life.

The letter to the Ephesians gives a hint as to what the apostle Paul “sees” when he lets his mind wander beyond the monotony of his place of confinement. First, he visualizes the spiritual growth in the churches he has left behind. Most of his prison letters begin with a burst of thanksgiving for the vitality of the church he is addressing. Then, as he spells out in Ephesians, he seeks to open the eyes of their hearts (1:18) to even more exalted sights.

Ephesians is full of sensational good news. Unlike Paul’s other letters, Ephesians does not address any urgent problems. With a sigh of relief, the apostle turns to the grandest question of all: What is God’s overall purpose for this world? Paul answers the question this way: “to bring all things in heaven and on Earth together under one head, even Christ” (1:10) He raises the sights far above his own circumstances to bigger issues, cosmic issues.

Ironically, it takes a stint in prison to free Paul up for this happy endeavor. The book of Ephesians can hardly introduce a new thought without bursting into a song or a prayer. It is no wonder the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge would later call the book ‘the divinest composition of man.”

Reflection
Throughout his writings, Paul insisted on one fact of the gospel: Eternal life comes not by any ritual of rule-keeping (good works), but by the grace of God. Yet in this paragraph he notes that God intends for us to do “good works.” Conflicting message? Not really. Paul makes a clear distinction that good works do nothing to help us obtain God's favor, but they should follow naturally in our lives as we experience the love of Christ.

Galatians 3: Legalism

Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?

On his first missionary journey, Paul learns to his surprise that non-Jews seem more receptive than Jews to the news about Jesus. He begins a policy that he comes to follow throughout his ministry career. He goes first to the synagogue and preaches among the Jews; if they reject him, he turns to the Gentiles.

Before his conversion Paul was a loyal and strict Jew, proud to be a "legalist." If a person could reach God by obeying the law, then he, a strict Pharisee, would have done it. In a twist of history, he gains a new reputation as "the Apostle to the Gentiles." As he sees God working among non-Jews, Paul becomes their champion.

This letter to the churches in Galatia (located in modern-day Turkey) dates from the time of the early Jew-Gentile controversy. Paul is emotionally worked up. In fact, he is downright furious at misguided attempts to shackle the church with Jewish legalism. Paul has felt the gust of freedom that comes after liberation from a set of confining laws, and he is not about to let that freedom slip away.

In the first paragraph of chapter 3, Paul explodes with the full force of his passionate beliefs. He then proceeds to give a "Christian," rather than Jewish, interpretation of the Old Testament covenants with Abraham and Moses. Chapters 3-4 draw sharp contrasts; a prisoner and a free man, a sheltered child and an adult. Don't act like a slave or a child, Paul says. Act like a privileged son, an heir to a great fortune! Galatians shatters the idea that God's love is conditioned upon how many rules we obey. Legalism is like a cage: it can only condemn people and lock them behind bars. As Paul points out, no one has perfectly kept all of God's laws, and all who try to do so ultimately fail (3:10-11).

Reflection

For years, I've always struggled with the beliefs of our Jewish friends and their tendencies towards legalism. In fact, just recently at our home ABF, we have discussed this very issue. By looking closely at Paul's work- here specifically in Galatians, he uses a clever argument to put the entire Old Testament law in a new perspective. The law- as he says- was never intended to make possible a way to God. Rather, the law was given to "lead us to Christ" by convincing us of the impossibility of gaining God's acceptance on our own. In fact, Paul- to prove his point- mentions a 430 year gap between Abraham and Moses. God gave his promises to Abraham, who lived long before Moses ever received the law; therefore, Abraham couldn't possibly have depended on the law. God's promise reached final fulfillment in Christ.

2 Corinthians 11: Answering the Critics

Verse 1 of chapter 10 introduces a dramatic shift in tone. The first nine chapters mainly show Paul's relief at seeing encouraging signs in Corinth. But these last four chapters make clear that hostility was still raging. In fact, some have guessed that this section was taken from the painful letter Paul referred to earlier (2:4). Here at the end of 2 Corinthians, Paul boldly confronts his critics.

Who were his antagonists? A picture of them emerges if you compile all the accusations Paul answers throughout the letter. Basically, they were carping troublemakers. In their eyes, Paul could do nothing right.

Paul's enemies in Corinth had blasted him for not visiting them as promised; yet when he did visit they gossiped, "In person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing" (10:10). They had criticized him for not taking a salary and then insinuated that he was misusing funds (8:20; 11:7-9). To these "super-apostles" (11:5), Paul somehow appeared simultaneously unimpressive and yet crafty; overly strict and yet worldly. Some even hinted that he was out of his mind (5:13).

You can almost sense Paul declaring "I've had it!" and then rolling up his sleeves to refute the charges. He insists that the future of the Corinthian church, not just his own reputation, is at stake. What does he feel? Something like the burning jealousy of a father who watches his daughter being seduced away from her true love (11:2-3).

These four remarkable chapters show Paul's passionate nature. Frustrated by having to defend himself, he almost stammers in print. He is determined to convince the Corinthians that he is motivated by a desire to serve God, not by any schemes for profit or power. Along the way, he lists an amazing catalog of his physical sufferings and reveals intimate details of his spiritual life, including one incident still shrouded in mystery (12: 1-6).

Judge for yourself, Paul seems to say, to the Corinthians and to all of us. Look at my life and decide: Whose fool am I?

Reflection

Being wrongly accused of something might be one of the most hurtful things in life to endure. Just as Paul's enemies questioned his sincerity for the church and essentially launched a character assassination against him, we too may come to a point in life where we have to "explain" ourselves to avoid this type of alienation. It's how we handle it, though, that may be the more important aspect. Again, an awful lot can be learned by Paul, in terms of temperament, restraint, and faith in Christ.