Month: December 2021

Week 49 Titus

Paul and Titus spent time starting several churches in Crete. Paul left. Titus stayed. Now in his letter to Titus Paul said: I left you on the island of Crete so you could a) complete our work there and b) appoint elders in each town.
Whatever completing-our-work meant in general terms Paul also gave Titus a specific directive about the qualities of people in leadership. It’s a pretty interesting list. An elder had to:
be well thought of
be faithful to his wife
have kids who believed & who weren’t rebellious
have a blameless life
be hospitable
love all that’s good
live wisely & be fair
live a devout & disciplined life
be a strong believer…
and… he couldn’t be arrogant quick-tempered a heavy-drinker violent or greedy.
I sit thinking about the list.
…before I could be a church leader I’d have to be assessed based on this list
…if the Selection Committee probed very deeply I wouldn’t make it
…I don’t figure the list is just for elders (for example a non-elder can’t cheat on his wife)
…and it’s not a comprehensive list (for example addictive gambling or vengeance aren’t listed).
I quit thinking about the list. Guys have told me several times that the church is full-of-hypocrites. Maybe that’s so. But seeing this list makes me think that if it is full then a) it’s pretty seriously failing Paul’s test and b) hypocrisy is likely just one of the problems.

Note: quote and list from Titus 1:5, 6-9 (NLT)

Week 48 Titus

In the salutation Paul starts talking about the gospel. The thing I notice is that Paul says the gospel was: promised long ages ago. I check another version: before the world began. And another: before the beginning of time. So a pledge – a guaranteed forecast – was made long ago and then – Paul says – the vow came true: at the proper time. Another version says: the appointed season. Another: at the right time.
I get a slip of paper and draw a horizontal line. At the far left I write Promise. Along the line left-to-right I write names: Adam-&-Eve Noah Abraham Egypt Promised-Land Kingdom Babylon…like that. Through the OT people are doing what they do and the Promise is floating around in the ether. Then BOOM! The Right Time is now. The Promise happens.
I think how I scheme out my own plans. They’re my plans and they’re independent of other things (as long as there’s not another big & undetectable domain of consequential plans that are also imperceptibly in play).
Everyone makes his plans and does what he does pretty much oblivious to other goings-on.
I remember the story about American men & women in Hawaii making their plans and doing what they were doing on December 6 1941. Pretty much oblivious to anyone else’s plan until someone else’s plan materialized.
My plans…going along as planned…thrumming along in undetectable parallel with another plan.

Note: quotes from Titus 1:2 & 3 (NASB, NLT, NIV)

Week 48 Timothy

Paul to Timothy: as you know, all the Christians who came here from the province of Asia have deserted me; even Phygelus & Hermogenes are gone.
I wonder where Here is but a couple of verses later Paul mentions Rome. And he’d already mentioned prison. So he was in prison in Rome.
I check my atlas looking for Asia. It looks like the big western chunk of modern-day Turkey. Those people travelled a far piece to support Paul in Rome. And then for some reason deserted him.
It’s hard to know exactly why they all bailed-out on Paul. I check the names Phygelus & Hermogenes in a word book. They’re only mentioned this one time in the whole bible. Deserters.
Near the end of the letter Paul told Timothy again: no one was with me. Everyone had abandoned me… But then when he said that I guess Paul caught himself; remembered; back-tracked; corrected himself: but the Lord stood with me.
I’ve only met her a couple of times a long time ago but I know an old woman from Cambodia. This year she got cancer. She had to leave the country…go to a hospital in Thailand for treatments. Away from home. No family. No friends. Pretty much – but not completely – alone. One of her notes from the cancer ward said: Jesus is here with me.
So reading Paul today I thought about her.

Note: quotes from 2 Timothy 1:15, 16, 4:10, 16-17 (NLT)

Week 48 Timothy

I like the two Timothy letters because they talk quite a bit about life in the church – its organizational set-up & management guidelines & instructions for leadership & teaching content & church demographics…like that.
Anyway one of the things I noticed was that Paul gave Timothy details about a specific cohort called deacons. He said deacons:
Must be men of dignity…
Not given to double-talk…
Not addicted to wine…
Not fond of sordid gain.
It seems pretty clear that Paul was talking about men in verses eight-nine-ten – men who were deacons – and he talked about them again in twelve-thirteen. But for some reason he started talking about women in verse eleven. That seemed weird and out-of-place until I noticed a marginal reference that said the women Paul was talking about in eleven were either deacons’ wives or deaconesses (which I guess could mean female deacons who were married to male deacons or unmarried female deacons or married female deacons who weren’t married to deacons). That made sense. Paul said that these women:
Must likewise be dignified…
Not malicious gossips…
Temperate…
Faithful in all things.
The two lists – one for men & one for women – line up pretty well. In fact they line up pretty-well enough that I wonder why Paul didn’t just make an inclusive list. But I don’t have much time to wonder. My first question about why-women-in-verse-eleven has a possible answer. So that’s good enough for now.

Note: quotes from 1 Timothy 3:8 & 11 (NASB). NLT margin also says women deacons.

Week 48 1 Thessalonians

Halfway through chapter five there’s a subtitle that says Paul’s Final Advice. I count 15 items.
It’s a kind of bible-reader’s To-Do & To-Be List.
I re-read it to see if anything jumps out at me. They all do but a couple jump higher than others:
be patient with everyone…
try to do good to each other…
be joyful…
be thankful.
Even my short list is pretty demanding. I know these are things I (only) aspire to – in other words they’re not comprehensively-&-totally achievable – but that doesn’t mean they’re disregardable.
I sit thinking about how to address the list.
Be patient with everyone… I visualize a person I know who’s difficult to be patient with. Since Paul doesn’t say that some people can be exempted from his be-patient-with-everyone list I figure my task is to take a first step (on what I fully expect will be a long-long-long road) of trying-trying-trying to be more patient with that person. I figure I’ll not likely ever be as fully patient with him as I am with some other person I’m patient with. On the other hand I’m figuring that – in the process of experimenting with a variety of Patience-Building Exercises and also praying for Enhanced Divine Assistance  over a period of years & decades – that I’ll eventually develop more patience (even if I am only moving along at the pace of evolution).

Note: quoted from 1 Thessalonians 5:14, 15, 16, 18 (NLT). Added reading update: as of December 1 I’ve read 1654 of 1730 pages.