This week we return to Philippians, starting in chapter 2: 1-4. Paul recognized many dangers that the church in Philippi would be facing but put the danger of disunity as a greater threat at that time. Most of us recognize disunity being brought about by disagreements among the membership which in turn is driven by egos, selfish agendas and directional desires. There is another type of disunity which in some cases can be hard to control. It can happen in a very healthy church. People on fire for the Lord, they are very protective of their beliefs, and they really matter to them. Their very enthusiasm leads to conflicts within the faith, becoming unwilling to respect the interests of others and so the seeds of disunity are spread. We start off a list of these causes with selfish ambition. We see this often in that a persons work is not directed toward the advancement of the work but toward their own advancement; this leading us to the next cause for disunity.

Recognition, the desire to be admired, respected, to have a seat at the table of decision and to have people seek our opinion. It is nice that people know your name, recognize you and on occasion offer you a flattering word. Consider this …. As with the Baptist, we must give way. Our goal should be to bring glory to the Father, our good work should elevate and glorify God. People need to see in us the wonder and goodness of our savior. It should be the Christian’s desire to focus people’s eyes on God.  To concentrate on self, when our goal in life is to be the best or do the best at the expense of others we find ourselves putting others down so that we may rise up.

Paul gives us five behaviors to consider as helping us to avoid the disunity, that fosters disharmony. When we walk with others in Christ, there can be no disunity. The very fact that we are walking with our Christian brothers and sisters keeps us in that unity of the spirit. The spirit will not walk where there is disunity. The power of Christian love should keep us in unity. God’s love for all people cannot be conquered. This love is not a matter of the heart but is result of the Spirit infused into us with the help of Jesus Christ. We must love all people, as required by our creator, it is the very essence of Christian life. We are bound by the Holy Spirit to love each other and all people. Where there is disunity the Spirit will not dwell. Compassion, sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others, gives testimony  to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Paul brings these thoughts to an end by revealing a very personal appeal. If there is disunity in the church he loves so much, then there can be no happiness for him.  There will be no happiness for us in our Christian walk if we are not unified in the faith. There is great value in these words of Paul to the Christians of Philippi for they are not shared as a threat but spoken as an appeal of love and Christ like concern.

As with the previous chapter the first few verses of Chapter 2 have much to say to the church. The one thing that I find most disturbing is the disunity brought about by social and cultural changes. Yes, the church does have to adapt and the early church did just that. I do not want to editorialize the sharing of the word. So I will leave you with this thought. The church needs work harder at changing the world through the gospel, not allowing the world to change the gospel to fit its needs and agendas. Next week we will continue in Philippians Chapter 2.

Life is Good

jk

There have always been false prophets and heretics, every generation will be visited by them. The Old Testament is full of stories about them and here the NT 2 Peter the second chapter we find Timothy dealing with a recurrence of such. We should be aware today church that they still appear from time to time. These people can do damage to the church and its teachings, can and have brought disaster on a nation by leading God’s people astray. These false prophets told people, what they wanted to hear, we see the same thing even today. We find in the OT in Jeremiah 6:14, Ezekiel 13:16 that even though the Lord God was saying there was no peace these false prophets were seeing visions of peace. Zedekiah because of his popularity was able to lead Jehosapht to a bad decision involving the Syrians that was a total disaster. False prophets always will tell people what they want to hear and not the truth they need to hear. We can continue to add character flaws to these false prophets but the important thing is to remember that these same things occur in the church today. They used the God’s word for personal gain, using religion as a money making thing, being desirous of others possessions, greedy and acquisitive individuals who preach and taught so to deceive and exploit people for their own ends. They were immoral in their own lives. Their lifestyles led people astray, their recklessness and total abandonment of Godly morals led people to evil ways. These false prophets more than any others drove the people away from their God and into a state of being separated from God by their sins. The characteristics of these false prophets are still the same in our world today. Isaiah relates how these false prophets smell of strong drink, they are confused by their overindulgence in wine(Isaiah 28: 7) Jeremiah said in reference to the prophets of Jerusalem whom he found to be committing adultery and lying, they have strengthened the hands of the evil doers and led the people astray. (Jeremiah 23: 14, 23:32) They presented a temptation to evil rather than an attraction to lead a holy life.  These are a few of the things that Peter finds difficult to accept. It is Peter’s thought and mission to destroy these prophets who are leading the people in the wrong direction. It is time for the church to stand in the gap, we can no longer accept such behavior because social convention deems it necessary to promote tolerance and inclusiveness, two words that have weaken the resolve of the church because the contextual meaning of such is misunderstood. Continuing in chapter 2 verse 1 Peter then addresses the actions of these false prophets. Here we add a new word to our discourse. He accuses them of subtly introducing destructive heresy into the struggle to control the message and mission of the church.

What is happening here is the confrontation of the God given truth challenging the heresy of the false prophets. There was a time when heresy was nothing more than one of the definitions of a word. The Greek word is heiress from the verb haireisthai, which means to choose, and originally it was a perfectly honorable word. I chose to keep this simple by just pointing out that as with all things, things change. Why this sudden change and opposition to other choices being offered? With the coming of Jesus, God’s truth came to the world, and people had either to accept or to reject it.  Now there was the way, the truth, the life. The certainty of Jesus Christ, the resurrection  and the promise of life after death revealed these false prophets and heretics as someone who believed what they wished to believe and not accepting the truth of God. They were a sly group as they did not assume the position of an adversary, they sold themselves as the very best and learned of available Christian thinking. They were so good that little by little and subtly Peter’s people were lured away from God’s truth and began embracing the false opinions of these prophets and heretics.

Before Christ purchased us with his death and resurrection on the cross, we were slaves to sin. Paul reminded us that we were bought with a price… 1 Corinthians 7:23. We who have accepted him as our Lord and Saviour belong to him. The cost was great and should not be marginalized by the false teachings of these people. These heretics were denying the Lord. There is so much to share here but the bottom line is that the things they taught and did were a complete denial of Him. They were teaching SIN and that would lead to their condemnation.

Parousia, Eschatology and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and Second Petter’s defense of such against false teachers has brought us to this weeks blog. We have now met these false teachers and I hope have a better understanding of how important it is for the Church to know that the Jesus who died on the cross will be the Jesus that will preside over the completion and joy of God’s gift of salvation. Peter set out to defend the faith, we today need to be doing the same. Here in our day false prophets and heretics are still among us. They continue to believe what they wish to believe, not accepting the truth of God.

Life is Good

jk

Parousia, Eschatology and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and Second Petter’s defense of such against false teachers are the subjects of this weeks blog. We will first look for an understanding of Parousia and how, eschatology, the study of the last things or ultimate end of creation finds common ground in 2 Timothy. Parousia a Greek word meaning “presence” or “arrival,”and is often translated as “second coming.” The parousia is thought to mean the completion of God’s gift of salvation, which occurs on Jesus’ return to earth. This will be at a future time and

judgement and evil will cease, God’s purpose for the creation will be fulfilled. In simple talk it will be the completion of God’s gift of salvation.

The next subject to keep it simple is referred to as Eschatology.Two Greek words meaning “last”and the study of ‘end things’. Whether the end of an individual life, the end of the age, the end of the world or the nature of the Kingdom of God, Christian eschatology is a major branch of study within Christian theology dealing with the “last things. Christian theology is the theology of Christian belief and practice. Such study concentrates primarily upon the texts of the Old Testament and of the New Testament, as well as on Christian tradition. Christian theologians use biblical exegesis, rational analysis and argument. (Wikipedia)

Let’s leave the library and get in the scripture. In 2 Peter verses 1:16-3:13 we read of the refutation of the accusations of the false teachers. The section we will look at is all about bringing the message concerning ‘the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ’. Peter is attacking the heretics whom no longer believed in it and even the people were beginning to doubt it and think it would never happen. We will go through the end of Chapter 1 this week.

We need to go back to the first part of this chapter for some background material . I will bypass verses 1 and 2, they are a whole blog in themselves. In these following verses we see Christ as Peter saw him. Christ is power, generosity, great promises. Step away for a moment and consider this. There are those even today that believe as many did then that believing in Christ can gain forgiveness for any and every sin.  As crazy as it may sound there were those that gave no heed to sin, after all there was grace aplenty for all. That is not the way it works. With Christ in our life we can put aside our fascination with sin and the lusts of this life because of his presence in our life. There were those that believed that by the very virtue of our humanness we had a right to share in this divine nature. Life itself contradicts that. Everywhere we look we see our failures as humans. The decay of our Christian values and morals and the bitterness, crime and suffering that accompanies such behavior. If we look to John 10:10, we have an answer, ’I came’, said Jesus, ‘that they may have life, and have it abundantly’. Because of Christ we all have within us the ability to share the nature of God. The divine nature that often eludes us. Peter urges his people to equip their lives with every virtue and this letter even provides a list to add to other lists we already have. Let’s list those here.

Faith, courage, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, piety, brotherly affection, and of course Christian love.

Peter continues to encourage the people and speaks to the value of knowledge. We can understand even today how important it is to know what we are about, the more we know the more we can learn. By making these virtues he speaks of a part of our daily lives the closer we will come to knowing Christ. Should we choose not to do this we will become blind, unable to see the light; we become short-sighted and unable to follow the good way. The Methodists have a saying for this….Going on to perfection. Peter knows these false teachers will make the way difficult but with God’s help we will reach the journey’s end. Verses 12-15 Leaves us with this. We must teach God’s truth as long as we are here and we must make plans to see that we keep the truth in the minds of the people; we must lift up the name of Jesus Christ to all people.

Now in these next verses 16-18 Peter reaches the point of his message, the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Repetitive I guess, but can’t be repeated enough. Peter was on a mission to bring the people back the certainty of the second coming of Christ. The false teachers no longer believed that and the heretics said it would never happen, it had been too long. Now the detail here can be overwhelming so I will pick a few points that stand out. First of all Peter states his right to speak to this subject, defend the faith so to speak. He was with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration and that there he saw the glory and the honor which were given to him. He heard the voice of God speak to him. The importance of this revelation is that it paints a picture of the triumphant glory of the second coming. To sum this part up Peter wants to bring the people back to a living belief in the triumphant return of Jesus Christ. Peter is saying, ‘I have seen Christ in his glory and have heard the voice of God in praise of his son’. I take liberty here to paraphrase Peter as he speaks to these people. ‘You also have through the eyes of your faith seen the cross, seen him die for our sins and many have testified to his resurrection. You must return to living your faith and be made one with Jesus Christ in his death and in his risen life and power.’

I think I will wrap this up for this week by sharing this with you. There is also the defense of the Prophets in verses 19 -21. This I will address in a future blog. For now to sum it up, consider this. Scripture should not and is not about any individual’s private opinion. We in the church need to understand and respect that more. Scripture is the revelation of God, through the Spirit to all men and women. The interpretation of scripture must always be guided by prayer and the Spirit. Do not be misled, the Spirit is still very active in the church today. The sad part is many people choose to ignore it for the convenience of their agendas and lifestyles. Next week we will pick up in Chapter 2 verse 1 and explore those false Prophets that Peter is attacking.

Life is Good

jk

*Quick Note: I use several commentaries, bibles, other web sites when researching for my blogs. For this blog I visited Wikipedia, Daily Bible Study / Barclay and Bible Gateway for sources of information used to write this blog. I am grateful for these publications and the world of information available in this digital age.

As we continue our study of Philippians, in chapter 1: 3-18, we find Paul praying for these Christians with whom he shares a gospel fellowship and states his confidence of their salvation. He prays that this fellowship and the love they share will be full of the knowledge and discernment that will lead them to live holy lives. Paul recounts that he is a prisoner in chains which only seems to increase the boldness of his preaching. Although he does feel that some preaching is wrongly motivated, Paul rejoices that Jesus Christ is proclaimed. Today I will focus on the remaining verses in chapter 1, 19-30.

Paul’s priority is to serve Christ and he feels he will gain greatly when he dies, but we see here his priority is to live for Christ until such time he is called home.Verses 19 and 20 offer an interesting question for us to ponder over.

Paul speaks of his salvation. What does it mean to him? Is Paul one of those people of eternal optimism, believing the situation he is now in will end with his release. That won’t fit here because Paul goes on to say he is not sure if he will live or die.  Does it have to do with his salvation in heaven? The situation in which Paul finds himself provides an opportunity to conduct himself in such a way to be a favorable witness on Judgement Day. How we meet challenges to our faith in the present will be a witness for or against us in eternity. Just consider that maybe where Paul finds himself at that moment is exactly where God wanted him to be. We may find ourselves in situations that don’t bode well for us but would be useful to God in that present time. Our difficulties in the present will be rewarded with joy and peace in eternity. Paul also has two very powerful means of support. He has the prayers of his friends and time and time again Paul asks for those prayers of his friends. There is nothing so welcome in times of personal troubles as knowing there are others presenting our needs before the throne. Paul never felt too good or too important to forget how much he needed their prayers. There was something else which in today’s vernacular could be called Paul’s ace in the hole. Paul knows that he has the support of the Holy Spirit. The presence of the Holy Spirit is with us in times of difficulty and will be with us till eternity as promised by Jesus Christ. It is Paul’s mission to never be ashamed of the gospel or to be marginalized by silence or cowardice behavior. I believe that all believers should strive to be effective in the sharing of the gospel. We must strive to live a holy life, for once we have chosen Christ we must be ever mindful that others not only judge us but our behavior brings either glory or shame to Christ.

As we continue on through these verses we encounter the eternal question to live or to die. Paul then gives us these words….For living is Christ to me, and death is gain. That day on the Damascus Road was in Paul’s mind the day he truly started living, his life began on that very day. It is not hard for us to relate to this, because for all of us who have found Christ, it was the beginning of life for us also. It has been said that from the day we are born we began the journey to death. For a Christian the day our life begins in Christ we are on a journey to join him in eternity. We are weak but Christ will give us the strength for life. And we will be made perfect in our weakness. Christ is the beginning and the end, without Christ there is nothing left.

The priority of course is to preach the gospel and the purpose is to share the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ and to live lives worthy of the gospel and to strive together, standing up to persecution without fear by God’s grace. Next week we will break away from Philippians for a short time but in the future we will return for some more of this lovely letter to the  friends in Philippi. Come back next week and visit with us in the Pew.

Life is Good

Jk