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Week 46 Ephesians

Galatians-Ephesians-Philippians-Colossians.
Four letters written by Paul.
Averaging five chapters and 126 verses each.
The longest is just a bit over seven pages, the shortest almost five.
I don’t know why but I tend to lump the four letters together. Consecutive order. Similar size. A kind of Ancient Near-Eastern Literary Quartet. It’s an imaginary similarity that I’ve created inside my head. I’m sure those four places were different so I admit I’m likely wrong clumping them. But I wonder ‘how wrong?’
Like if I was in Mombasa last week, Mumbai this week, Hanoi next week, finished the month in Vladivostok and then told you that they were all kind of the same then I guess you would wonder about that, wonder ‘how wrong is Joe?’
So I’m looking for differences.

Note: I’m already finished Galatians. I saw there that a big problem for the churches – and a big concern for Paul – was that an unidentified guy who was a believer in the Lord, a guy who agreed that the Lord was great and that his death and resurrection were terrific, had kind of cloak-and-daggered a hybridized version of the gospel into the church: believe in the Lord and practice OT regulations. So, one of Paul’s big points was that the gospel plus something else isn’t the gospel anymore.

Week 46 Galatians

I noticed it when I got to chapter three. Paul said: O foolish Galatians! What magician has cast an evil spell on you?
It sounded as though Paul didn’t know the identity of this guy who was operating in Galatia. I wasn’t sure about that so I did something I didn’t really have time to do. I went back and re-read the letter – really quickly.
I found this:
You are being fooled by those who twist and change the truth concerning Christ.
You were getting along so well. Who has interfered with you to hold you back from following the truth?
God will judge that person, whoever it is, who has been troubling and confusing you.
Which sounds like Paul didn’t know exactly who the guy was.
What Paul did know was that the guy was trying to change the gospel. Fundamentally change it.
Paul’s gospel was that if I believe that the Lord’s death and resurrection has taken care of my guilt then I’m spiritually reborn.
So when the Mystery Man of Galatia came along and said that if I believe that the Lord’s death and resurrection has taken care of my guilt, and additionally if I follow a prescription of OT regulations then I’m spiritually reborn, then that’s a different gospel.
Churches can accept all kinds of different opinions about things. But not different gospels.

Note: quotes from Galatians 3:1, 1:7, 5:7, 5:10 (NLT)

Week 45 Galatians

Yesterday Paul mentioned a Different Gospel but didn’t spell out what it was until chapter three today.
Really, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since it already came up in Acts-Romans-Corinthians (even if it wasn’t called a Different Gospel). It was that Jewish people living with their OT-legal-tradition came to belief in the Lord and when they believed in the Lord they brought along their OT-legal-traditional beliefs with them.
Believing in the Lord plus practicing OT-legal-traditions wasn’t the big issue – Jewish people had to practice something. The big issue was that Jewish people (who believed) started telling non-Jewish people (who believed) that they had to start practicing Jewish OT-legal-traditions. Had to!
So in chapter three Paul talks about why OT-legal-tradition was not part of the Real Gospel. One of the tricky things about the Different Gospel was that it wasn’t an Absolutely Different Gospel. It was more like a Hybrid Gospel: a) believe in the Lord, and b) practice OT-legal-traditions. But Paul’s Gospel wasn’t a hybrid. It was just a) believe in the Lord.
Believing in the Lord is the one thing that brings you alive.

Note: Paul spent two-thirds of the chapter downgrading the OT-Law in a pretty unequivocal way – leaves me feeling that the Law is maybe: archaic, stupid, worthless, terrible, irrelevant, contrary to the gospel. (Paul pulls-in-his-horns in the last-third of the chapter and talks about the not-so-stupid functionality of OT-Law. No sense in going overboard.)

Week 45 Galatians

Yesterday Paul wrote to the Corinth church about a Different Jesus. And so right away today I noticed that Paul said it that the Galatian churches were deserting the Lord for what he called: a different gospel.
So…a Different Jesus yesterday in Corinth; a Different Gospel today in Galatia.
Yesterday I was wondering how I could fictionalize the real Jesus and make him into a Different Jesus.
Today I’m wondering what a Different Gospel looks like (I’ll wait and see what else Paul says).
Anyway I thought Paul’s opening greeting was pretty interesting: may grace and peace be yours from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. He died for our sins, just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live.
I don’t know if Paul was sneaking in a preview of key elements of the Real Gospel right out of the chute. But these sound like gospel-ideas…
The Lord died for my sins
His death was planned by his father
The reason he died was to rescue me from an evil world.
These three basic ideas sound pretty consistent with what I already read in Matthew-Mark-Luke-John-Acts.
So as of today I’ll keep them in mind as parts of the Real Gospel. And I’ll try to stay focused on where Paul takes it from there.

Note: quotes from Galatians 1:6 (NASB) and 1:3-4 (NLT).

Week 45 2 Corinthians

The Corinth church had some glaring and obvious deficiencies.
But there was one that wasn’t so glaring or obvious. Paul told them: I fear that somehow you will be led away from your pure and simple devotion to Christ, just as Eve was deceived by the serpent. You seem to believe whatever anyone tells you, even if they preach about a different Jesus.
Paul doesn’t spell out what their different Jesus was like.
I thought back to September and the stories I read about the Lord. I wondered how I’d make Jesus different. I’d only make him slightly different. Some parts I’d keep – a really popular guy, a sage & prophet, a charismatic personality, an appealing public speaker. But to make him different I’d maybe subtract his miraculous powers, subtract his claims to being divine, subtract his coming-back-to-life – things like that. Keep the believable stuff; get rid of the unbelievable. He’d still be a great guy. But he’d be different.
Anyway I don’t know for sure what a Different Jesus was like. But Paul mentioned three things that would be part of a Jesus Makeover:
First, I’d have to move away from a pure and simple devotion to the Lord.
Then I’d have to be deceived – just like Eve was.
And then I could listen to someone’s Different Jesus Story.

Note: quote from 2 Corinthians 11:3-4 (NLT)

Week 45 2 Corinthians

I just accept when I’m reading through that a) some things will be clear to me, and b) other things won’t.
I think of it as Bible Reader’s Disability. I’m not sure how common it is but I have it.
There’s at least two factors contributing to BRD. One is a Factual-Informational-Knowledge Incapacity (I just don’t get what’s being said). Another is when my mental focus volleys from fuzzy-to-sharp, in-and-out, on-off. This is Unfocussed & Irrelevant-Tangent Driftage (I slide off-topic thinking about something else).
Anyway, I got past this today when I saw the line: we live by believing and not by seeing. Another version said: we walk by faith, not by sight.
It caught my attention. I stopped reading to think. If I believe in the Lord I have to be walking by faith.
Technically-speaking I get to keep my normal sensory abilities in the material world – I can still see – but in addition I have an enhanced kind of sightedness. Normal-vision plus a new extra-normal-vision. And it’s on me to start using the one I wasn’t born with.
A great example of this is Noah. The Lord told him to build a ship. A normal-vision Noah wouldn’t have wasted labour-power or building materials. But extra-normal-vision Noah went ahead with his weird project while his neighbours watched their goofy shipbuilder in blind wonder.

Note: quote from 2 Corinthians 5:7 (NLT & NASB). Noah is in Genesis 7-9.

Week 44 2 Corinthians

In January I’d read about Moses so I was feeling pretty confident when I saw his name come up in chapter three. But Paul tricked me. He was talking about Moses’ law, not Moses. Talking about The Law changed everything.
For me law in the bible is a very sticky subject. It bogs me down mentally.
Of course one slick way of managing the law is to say it’s a mainly useless OT idea that never worked in practice and was only a stop-gap kind of wait-until-Jesus-arrives measure. So I can end up with an Out-With-the-Law and In-With-the-non-Law fix. Which is a pretty smooth Concept Reassessment technique.
I looked up Law in a word book. It’s used maybe 200 times in the OT and 220 times in the NT. I only checked a couple of dozen references but it seemed obvious that the word Law didn’t mean exactly the same thing all 420 times. Not by a long shot. Sometimes it was elastic enough that it seemed to have totally different meanings. Which complicates things. And so the solution of just dumping The Law has a certain appeal. The short-cut would save me the time of a) having to read through 420 references, and b) trying to figure how or if they fit.
If just dumping The Law gained me everything and lost me nothing then I’d wonder: why not?
But if it gains me a lot and loses me a lot then why?

Note: October 31 – 93.3% finished.

Week 44 1 Corinthians

Yesterday I read chapter twelve where the Spirit gave people special abilities when they believed in the Lord. It seemed pretty clear that: a) every person gets at least one gift, b) no one person has every single gift, and c) there’s no single gift that everyone gets universally.
But reading thirteen-fourteen today it sounds like there’s more to it.
For example I’m wondering why Paul said he wished everyone in Corinth: had the gift of speaking in tongues. And he also wished they: were all able to prophesy. For prophecy is a greater and more useful gift. I thought no single gift went to everyone. And it sounds like there’s a kind of gift hierarchy – some are better than others.
I’m wondering about Paul saying: desire the special abilities the Spirit gives, especially the gift of prophecy. Reading yesterday I thought the Spirit gave me the aptitude he wanted me to have…and it might not be exactly the one I want. Here it sounds like I can take a shot at a better or preferable gift (though it’s not definite I’ll get it).
Paul says that if a person can speak-in-tongues he should pray for the complimentary gift of translating spirit-speak into human language. The two go together so why not pray for both? So I’m wondering about getting extra gifts.
Anyway I went from sunny and clear to cloudy and overcast in about twenty-four hours.

Note: quotes from I Corinthians 14:5, 1, 13. And see 12:39-40.

Week 44 1 Corinthians

In chapter twelve Paul’s talking about getting a gift from the Spirit of God.
When I’m giving someone a gift I usually try to figure out what he himself actually wants. Not what I want.
But Paul gives the sense that the Spirit’s gift is a kind of enhanced capacity that helps me do something he wants done. Paul says when we believe in the Lord: a spiritual gift is given to each of us as a means of helping the entire church.
So it’s a means – a tool I can use – to benefit the church.
Technically I guess it shouldn’t matter to me what gift I get. But what if it does matter?
For example take the gift of Wise Advice. What happens if I get that aptitude but I don’t really want it? What if I want the Power to Heal the Sick instead? Well…from the sound of it I’m in a bit of a jam because Paul says: it is the one and only Holy Spirit who distributes these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.
The Spirit doesn’t shop around for what he thinks I might like. He gives me what he wants me to have because the gift isn’t really for me anyway. It’s something I’m being given to pass on to the church. It’s for their benefit, not mine.

Note: quotes from I Corinthians 12:7 & 11 (NLT). Wise advice and healing are in 12:8-9.

Week 44 1 Corinthians

In August-September I was tracking how many times the OT was quoted or referred to in the gospels. There were quite a few. But I quit counting after John since it was pretty labour-intensive. So I admit that I’m guessing when I say that the OT is still being used quite a bit in the post-gospel NT (but I think it’s a good guess, better than a how-many-jelly-beans-in-the-jar guess).
Anyway a good example of the OT sneaking up on me is chapter ten. Paul talks about the Red Sea crossing, the pillar of cloud, manna, water from the rock, the gold calf, the bronze serpent, the Balaam story, and the complaint episodes.
If I had decided on January 1 to opt-out of the OT then not much of this paragraph makes sense to me.
Fortunately though it doesn’t really matter a whole lot since Paul is using OT-Israel here for illustration purposes only: all these events happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us.
It turns out that Paul’s Big Point – which I can understand even if I bypassed the OT – is: if you think you are standing strong, be careful, for you, too, may fall into the same sin.
So I’m relieved that OT-Knowledge isn’t essential (although thinking about Paul’s Big Point I realize that I don’t feel as relieved as I’d like).

Note: quotes from I Corinthians 10:11-12 (NLT).