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Week 49 Philemon

The story of Onesimus is pretty interesting because it talks about what happens when a person believes. The basic thing here in Philemon is that both nothing and something happens.
Onesimus was a slave before he heard the gospel story. And then after he heard & believed he was still a slave. So that didn’t change.
What did change was that after he believed – even though he was still a slave – he was also now more than a slave (in the sense that a whole new department or division had been added onto his life). His expanded life had a bunch of brand-new elements…but it still included his old-life. So it was an inclusionary brand-new life…brand-new by addition…not brand-new by subtraction.
Onesimus was a slave in the first-century Roman political-legal system both before and after he met the Lord. But he’d become a free man in-Christ – a special reclassification outside of the local political-legal regime.
Anyway to further complicate things Onesimus was owned by Philemon. Philemon was a believer. After Onesimus believed Philemon was still his owner. The ticklish thing was that Onesimus’ reclassification gave him an added status – he was now Philemon’s brother.
So this letter from Paul to Philemon is a kind of case-study on fitting Onesimus’ official legal status with his newly-acquired status as a member of the faith. It was perplexing and potentially conflictual. And so it had to be finessed & worked through & developed & thought-out & negotiated.

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.

Week 48 Colossians

Paul says: work hard and cheerfully at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.
Work-hard-&-cheerfully-at-whatever-you-do is a pretty good general principle and it likely applies right across the board.
The weird thing though is that Paul addressed the advisory to slaves.
(I know that Paul gets slammed for not shouting “Slavery Is Terrible” but my personal guess is that Paul was no advocate of the institution. That said he took an eyes-wide-open look around and saw slavery was the actual labour system and a key economic driver of the Roman economy. I guess he could have told slaves to test the chains. But his advice was a bit more modest.)
I draw a circle on a sheet of paper and call it the 9-5 Daily Work Circle. I draw a bigger circle outside – the diagram looks like a doughnut now – and call it the 12-12 Daily Activity Circle. Inside the inner circle is my work. And everything inside the outer circle is my whole life.
Inside the outer circle I live my life before the Lord. And since the inner circle of my work is inside the outer circle the outer affects the inner. So I work for my 9-5 work master – he sets my schedule & tasks & hours & performance-expectations. He gets my 9-5. But he gets added-value too. He gets who I am for my 12-12 Big-Master.
My 12-12 determines my 9-5. 12-12 is who I am.

Note: quote from Colossians 3:23 (NLT)

Week 48 Colossians

Yesterday I was thinking about Paul’s list of Things-To-Think-About…wondering what was involved in thinking about something I couldn’t visualize pictorially.
I wondered if it would make a difference to rewrite the list – an anti-list – a list of Things-Not-To-Think-About. I negativized Paul’s list: don’t fix your thoughts on what is false and dishonorable and wrong. Don’t think about things that are impure and ugly and despicable. Don’t think about things that are inferior and contemptible… Changing the polarity didn’t help. My anti-list didn’t have any physical realness either. No real-world tactility for my thinking to latch onto.
So anyway Philippians 4 was still in the back of my mind today when I landed on this: let heaven fill your thoughts. Do not think only about things down here on the earth. Okay this more or less confirms what Paul said in Philippians but I’m still left wondering: how am I supposed to let heaven fill my thoughts? Fortunately for me this time Paul doesn’t leave me hanging. He tacks on some Actionables to Avoid – sexual-sins sexual-impurity lust evil-desires greed anger rage malicious-behavior slander foul-language lying…like that. So…something tangible I actually can think about doing.
Paul’s list of Principles-To-Think-About can convert – potentially – into some real life applications.
I guess some people figure the bible is just Things-Not-To-Do but it’s actually a bit of a relief when I know what can and can’t be done. It’s hard to do but better to know.

Note: quote from Colossians 3:2 (NLT); and see Colossians 3:5-6

Week 47 Philippians

I guess lots of people figure the bible is a book of Things-Not-To-Do so it’s a relief when Paul gives me a list of things I can do.
Here’s his eight Things-To-Do: fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise…
I think about this list and realize it’s not actually a list of Things-To-Do. It’s a list of Things-To-Think-About. So I’m not as relieved as I was.
I look at the eight items. None of the eight are material things. Paul is telling me to think about non-material abstractions. If a guy says “think about your dog” then I can think about my border collie – visualize him & have memories & think about taking him for a walk…like that. But if the guy says “think about beauty” that’s a different class of thinking-about. In the Dog Example I’m thinking about something that physically is but in the Beauty Example something that physically isn’t.
Personally I don’t have a huge problem accepting non-physicality. I figure I have some kind of selection-analysis-discrimination function in my brain to sort and manage different classes of things to think-about. But the bigger question & problem for me is how-do-I-do-that? What’s involved in thinking-about things that are non-materially real?
That’s the problem I’m left with right now.

Note: quote from Philippians 4:8-9 (NLT)

Week 47 Philippians

Paul stacks up a pile of his life-accomplishments in chapter three…then just knocks the pile down.
I think if I was a clinical psychologist I’d likely discourage Paul’s critical and unnecessarily negative self-view. I think I’d try to cautiously steer him in the direction of a little credit-where-credit-is-due. I think if I was administering a Retrospective Personal Inventory with a client like Paul I’d try easing him away from comments like this: I once thought all these things were so very important, but now I consider them worthless…Yes everything is worthless… If I was counselling Paul I’d hope to get him off this worthlessness-track. More look-on-the-bright-side.
On the other hand it’s not like Paul ended in a gloomily depressive place. His point wasn’t that his past accomplishments were worth absolutely zero-value. His point was that his past accomplishments were worth absolutely zero-value by contrast to what he had traded-up to. Which is different.
I think Paul’s main point was that he had an impressive portfolio of Self-Generated Goodnesses that was – let’s face it – pretty enviable. But on the road to Damascus he discovered he needed to be invested in Non-Self-Generated Goodnesses. He needed to piggy-back on someone else’s goodnesses because no matter how hard he tried his goodnesses weren’t good enough.
Paul described his trade like this: I’ve discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I may have Christ and become one with him.

Note: quotes from Philippians 3:8-9 (NLT)