Medicine Hat Joe

Week 49  Ephesians

I decided to look a bit more carefully at Ephesians this year. It’s not like I have a bunch of extra time but I’ve been wondering about Paul’s writing style. His habit seems to be: a) start writing about something but then b) charge off in some other direction. It might make perfect sense to him. But I’m left wondering.
So anyway I thought I’d use Ephesians as a test case to see if Paul did – or didn’t – stick to a single central idea.
One thing I see right away is that the letter divides pretty nicely into two big sections. The first 66-verses are mostly what I’d call religious theoreticals. The section is pretty abstract. By that I don’t mean the section is pure imagination. It’s more like this: I see a guy walking down the street. I see a pedestrian. But Paul is thinking about his circulatory & respiratory & skeletal & muscular systems. I just see a guy. Paul is assessing his bio-engineering. That’s what I think I’m seeing in the first three chapters.
The second half of the letter – about 99-verses – is very different. There’s a lot of instructions on how-I-should-live-my-life.
So my first impression carving-up Ephesians is that it’s like a live-theatre performance. I know that behind the curtain a lot of necessary production stuff is going on to make the show work. And then out in front of the curtain under the lights are the performers .
Ephesians 1-3 backstage.
Ephesians 4-6 front-and-centre.

Week 48

December 1…I’m into the last month of the reading year and today I did my last Reading Review progress-check. I know that by November 30 I need to read 92% of the bible. So I’m relieved to see that I’ve read 95%. I’m glad to be ahead. (I’m especially glad since December is the hardest reading-month for me because a) there’s a bunch of preoccupying seasonal busynesses and b) I’ll be faced with Revelation at the end (one of bible-reading’s Heartbreak Hills). But barring some Major Unexpected Event I figure I can finish on time.
There’s one glitch though. I’ve been reading Paul’s letters. Whenever I read Paul I’m faced with a low-grade frustration over the way he writes. He seems to be all-over-the-map. Normally I just accept the annoyance. But this past month a surprising thought came to me. What if Paul is more coherent than I think? What if I’m just not getting it?
So I’m going to go back and re-read the Ephesians letter a couple more times. It’s an add-on exercise I’m giving myself: does Paul have a consistent theme through one whole letter (my suspicion is that he doesn’t – so he’ll have to prove I’m wrong).
I’ve still got to keep up with my December reading – that’s my priority. But I’m curious enough that I’ll be looking at Ephesians for the next couple of days. It’s an extra task during a busy month. So we’ll see.

Week 46  1 Corinthians 6

Last week I discovered two groups of people:
Group A (people with no interest in the Lord) and
Group B (people attracted to the Lord)
Today I landed on a list of a few Group A practices: idolatry adultery prostitution homosexuality theft greed alcohol-abuse dishonesty. So on the upside people in Group A can do pretty much whatever they want. Unfortunately none of them will inherit the Kingdom of God (but I’m guessing Group A don’t really care about the kingdom.)
Anyway last week I was thinking that it was a big change for a person to shift from Group A to Group B. (For instance it’s a bit more complex than – let’s say – deciding to quit smoking.) Since there are lots of attractive & compelling things to do in Group A Paul says that other invisible things need to happen to help propel my decision. For instance:
You have been set apart for God
You have been made right with God
Your sins have been washed away.
Without these Special Assisters it’s unlikely I’d have the motivation to leave Group A. But with them I can make the jump. With them I can start taking some Group B action steps.
While I’m in Group A I love Group A practices.
But when I get help to shift to Group B then having a shot at the kingdom of God starts to be a more attractive option.

Note: quote & Paul’s list are from 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (NLT)

Week 45  1 Corinthians 3

A couple of days ago I saw where Paul identified two groups of people in Rome. Group A people were: dominated by a sinful nature and Group B were: controlled by the Holy Spirit.
Here in 1 Corinthians Paul was talking to church people – Group B people. But he told them he couldn’t talk to them like advanced or mature Group B people: I had to talk to you as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in the Christian life.
This is a pretty useful comment because it looks like even though these (formerly) Group A people had shifted over to Group B they were still so Group A-oriented that it’s like they never left Group A. Other people in Corinth’s Group B showed some Group B qualities – but only at a pretty elementary level. It’s like they had no Group B chops. Group B Juveniles. Paul told them they were still:
controlled by evil desires
jealous of one another
quarrelling with each other
acting like people who don’t belong to the Lord.
So they were technical members of Group B…but with a case of Group B Rookie Blues.
But it’s no real surprise. Starting in on something brand new there’s two things going on. First I’m on a steep up-curve learning a lot of new things. Second – and at the same time – I’m unloading a bunch of old familiar things.

Note: quotes from Romans 8:5 and 1 Corinthians 3:1 & 3 (NLT)

Week 45  Romans 8

Paul categorizes people into two big groups (I’ll call them Group A and Group B).
If I’m in Group A I’m dominated by my sinful nature.
In Group B I’m controlled by the Holy Spirit.
The two groups are obviously different.
In Group A my sinful nature controls my mind. My focus is on sinful things. My destination is death.
In Group B the Spirit controls my mind. I think about pleasing the Spirit. I’m headed for peace & life.
The two seem to be totally separated. Isolated opposites. No common ground. It’s easy to get the impression there’s an Impenetrable Wall between them. But that’s not really the case.
It’s pretty clear that if I’m in Group A I have the potential to move in the direction the Lord. Paul wants people to move to a new master…a new controller. The Gospels & Acts have plenty of stories of people shifting from Group A to Group B.
And it works both ways. If I’m in Group B I could start dilly-dallying with Group A values. Maybe I don’t go back. But maybe I do.
Group Membership has a dynamic element to it. I shift from Group A to Group B. But maybe I shift back from Group B to Group A. It’s not so hard. I think that’s the point of the parable of the farmer planting seed. A > B > A.

Note: quotes from Romans 8:5 (NLT). See 8:5-17 and Matthew 13:1-23

Week 44  Romans 5

Next week the bible study group I’m in is looking at Genesis 3. So reading about Adam today prepped me for that.
Genesis 3 is one of the key chapters in the OT. It would be hard to make any sense of the bible without it. It’s the tipping point of everything.
A simple way to break down bible content is into three events:
1. Everything is Created & Everything is Pretty Good (Genesis 1-2)
2. Adam & Eve Make a Gigantic & Catastrophically Bad Decision (Genesis 3)
3. Almost Nothing is Any Good Any More (Genesis 4-Revelation)
Anyway reading Romans today I wondered about Adam & Eve.
I wondered about how they could be so stupid.
I also wondered how they got to make an insane decision that now affects me. (Of course that’s not a totally unprecedented thing. For instance some guy in Ottawa can make an executive decision that affects me and everyone else in the country.)
Mostly I wondered how it worked…. how Adam’s evil was transmitted. Paul says: sin entered the world through one man.
It’s almost like Adam was working in some isolated lab somewhere with – let’s say – a deadly virus. And then through his own arrogant and self-interested stupidity he opened a valve and every single thing in the whole cosmos got contaminated.
I don’t think sin is a virus-like thing that people catch. I think it’s monumentally worse than that.
But a lab spreading viral contagion is one way to think about total human degradation.

Note: quote from Romans 5:12 (NIV)

Week 43  Acts 19

This past week I’ve been thinking about the set of connected ideas related to coming to faith in the Lord. Luke bundles at least four items that are part of that decision to come to Christ: there’s the 180-degree turning-from-sin & turning-to-God plus baptism-in-water plus baptism-in-the-Holy-Spirit plus speaking-in-tongues.
Today I did a quick scan back through Acts – double-checking before I move on. Some people pretty much just turned to the Lord and were baptized-in-water. That’s what happened with the crowd in chapter two & the Ethiopian man & Paul & Lydia & the jailer & Crispus. Nothing much about the Holy Spirit or speaking-in-tongues.
In other stories the Holy Spirit is definitely part of the whole experience – the apostles in chapter two & Cornelius & the men in Ephesus. They believed and then the Holy Spirit came and they spoke-in-tongues.
Different people seem to have different experiences at the point of belief. I wonder what’s mandatory. Wonder if I’m missing something. For now I’ll stick with Peter: each of you must turn from your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
That’s fine for now but I still have 22 letters to read. So there’s more to come. Peter’s idea will likely get some fine-tuning.

Note: quote from Acts 2:38 (NLT) and see the stories in 8:36-38 9:18 16:14-15 16:31-34 18:8 10:44-46 19:5-7. End-of-October reading report: I’ve read 88% of the text. So I’m in pretty good shape heading into November.

Week 43  Acts 19

Paul started the chapter located in Corinth but he immediately headed inland to Ephesus. It turns out that the whole chapter is about “What Happened in Ephesus?” and it’s a really good reminder of how contentious & dangerous Paul’s life was. But it was the first paragraph that caught my attention.
As soon as he got into town Paul met a dozen men who were described as believers. For whatever reason Paul asked them if they had received the Holy Spirit when they believed. They didn’t know what or who he was talking about. They said they’d been baptized with the baptism of John.
Paul didn’t tell them that the baptism of John had been superseded by the baptism of Jesus. But he did baptize them a second time…this time in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when they were baptized this happened: when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in other tongues and prophesied.
This more-or-less confirms the Cornelius story from yesterday where conversion included belief + baptism + speaking-in-tongues. By contrast the Samaritan story & Paul’s conversion didn’t explicitly include all three elements. And the poor old Ethiopian left for home without anything said about either the Holy Spirit or speaking-in-tongues.
Anyway the coming-to-belief of these Twelve Men of Ephesus adds another piece to the puzzle. With them it was: belief + baptism + speaking-in-tongues + (the added element of) prophecy. Similar and a bit different.

Note: quotes from Acts 19:1 3 5 6 (NLT)

Week 43  Acts 8 9 10

I compared four back-to-back conversion stories.
When the Samaritans believed in Christ they were baptized-in-water right away. But the Holy Spirit hadn’t come to them yet so Peter & John prayed and then the Holy Spirit came (something else might have happened but Luke doesn’t say what.)
Philip met the Ethiopian man on a deserted road. In that case it looks like the man believed and he was baptized-in-water right away. But nothing is said about the Holy Spirit being part of the mix.
After Saul was blinded on the road to Damascus Ananias came and told him: the Lord Jesus…has sent me so that you may get your sight back and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Paul was baptized-in-water right away. The story doesn’t say if filled-with-the-Spirit meant Paul spoke-in-tongues.
Near the end of the Cornelius story Peter was talking to the people about the Lord and suddenly: the Holy Spirit fell upon (them). How did Peter know? Because he heard them speaking in tongues and praising God. The people were then baptized-in-water.
So there are three possible features of conversion:
Believing in Jesus Christ
Being baptized-in-water
Speaking-in-tongues (in some cases. Definitely with Cornelius and maybe with the Samaritans. But not with the Ethiopian & only maybe with Saul).
To me the speaking-in-tongues element is a bit of a wild card so I’ll need to keep it on my radar.

Note: quotes from Acts 9:17 10:44 46 (NLT). Samaria Acts 8:4-17. Ethiopian Acts 8:26-39. Saul Acts 9:1-19. Cornelius Acts 10:34-48.

Week 43  Acts 8

The big story in the second chapter is about the Holy Spirit coming to the believers so that they could speak other languages. It’s pretty interesting & perplexing. I think about it again when Philip went to Samaria. He told people about Jesus and some of them believed.
When this news got out Peter & John travelled to Samaria to see what was going on: as soon as they arrived, they prayed for these new Christians to receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them, for they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John laid their hands upon these believers, and they received the Holy Spirit.
So it looks like two things happened:
a) some Samaritans had believed and been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and
b) P&J prayed – sometime later – for those people to get the Holy Spirit.
The writer of Acts says that P&J prayed for them and put their hands on the people’s heads…but he doesn’t say that the people then spoke in different languages.
But did they? Something visible must have happened because Simon the Magician was watching and he offered to pay P&J to acquire the skill. If nothing visible had occurred it’s hard to imagine Simon wanting to trade for an imperceptible ability.
So I’m left wondering: what exactly happened that Simon saw…and wanted the power to give?

Note: quote from Acts 8:15-17 (NLT)