A Boomer in the Pew

Colossians: Beware of Being Captive to Human Philosophies, Empty Deceit, and the Confusion of Demons

Bible in a Year Series - Day #349 -  This post is part of a year-long series where we are reading chronologically through the Bible.  Click here to learn more.  You are most welcome to join along at any time.    

Today's text from the ESV Study Bible: Colossians

It is generally believed that Paul wrote the letter to the Colossians while imprisoned in Rome around a.d. 62.

From the ESV Study Bible:

"The church at Colossae apparently got its start during Paul's three-year ministry in Ephesus (a.d. 52–55). During this time, a Colossian named Epaphras probably traveled to Ephesus and responded to Paul's proclamation of the gospel (see Acts 19:10). This new believer returned to his hometown and began sharing the good news of Christ, which resulted in the birth of the Colossian church (Col. 1:7). At the time of this writing, Epaphras is with Paul in Rome and has likely shared the bad news that there was a dangerous teaching threatening the church at Colossae (4:12). Paul writes this letter to respond to this situation and to encourage these believers in their growth toward Christian maturity."

Bible scholars are not in agreement over the specifics of this dangerous teaching afflicting the church at Colossae, but Paul makes it clear that we are to follow only Christ in whom the fullness of diety dwells:

"See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily..." (Colossians 2:8-9a)

The "elemental spirits" refers to a persistent demonic influence to confuse and twist the truth of the gospel. 

The student of the Bible can easily find "truths" that conflict with the words of Christ and his apostles.  To protect ourselves from being "taken captive" by these human philosophies of deceit we must be diligent to study the Scriptures and stay plugged into the true body of Christ.

I can personally attest that a false philosophy is easily obtained if one isn't willing to invest time into reading the Scriptures and prayerfully seeking to understand its teaching.

This year-long journey of reading the Bible has been eye-opening and has also been a real wrestling match as my 54 year-old belief system has been constantly challenged.

Can I challenge you, dear reader, to make a committment to yourself and Christ to instill a daily discipline of study in God's word? 

Without a steady diet of God's word, then we too are subject to the false philosophies of "elemental spirits".

A Dead Man Named Jesus Who Paul Claimed Was Alive

Bible in a Year Series - Day #348 -  This post is part of a year-long series where we are reading chronologically through the Bible.  Click here to learn more.  You are most welcome to join along at any time.    

Today's text from the ESV Study Bible: Acts 21-28.

The Book of Acts ends with Paul sitting in Rome under house arrest.

As we look back on this man's life, and try to boil down why he was so passionately driven to preach as he did we can only come to one place:  the road to Damascus.

Paul, a learned Pharisee, hated Christians and was ferverently going about putting an end to this plague upon Judiasm. 

But, this dead man named Jesus met Paul on the road to Damascus and forever changed the direction of his life.

Seems impossible to believe, doesn't it?

Consider this, Paul, the apostles, and countless other eyewitnesses suffered horrible deaths proclaiming the this dead man named Jesus was resurrected from the dead.

Were they all decieved?  Unlikely. 

As yourself this, if you were facing a horrible death, would you give up your story?  Would you die for a lie?

In just a few short years after Paul's coming death, Jerusalem will once again be destroyed to a pile of rubble.

Why would a sovereign God allow the holy city of Jerusalem to be destroyed?  Because once again, just as in the time of Jeremiah, his own rejected him.

It is significant that Paul is in Rome.  Rome was the center of the known world, and Christianity is going to take root here.

Listen to Dr. Mark Dever  as he takes us through the final chapters of the Book of Acts on a recent Easter morning in his congregation.

Dr Mark Dever_End of Acts

Creation and the Fall, or the Big Bang and Primordial Soup?

Bible in a Year Series - Day #345 -  This post is part of a year-long series where we are reading chronologically through the Bible.  Click here to learn more.  You are most welcome to join along at any time.    

Today's text from the ESV Study Bible: Romans

John Calvin wrote, “When anyone understands this Epistle [Book of Romans], he has a passage opened to him to the understanding of the whole Scripture.”

As I sat down to read the Book of Romans this morning, I thought, who am I to read this book in one setting when it took Dr. John Piper seven years to preach his way through this text?

Granted, as I was reading, there were a great many sections where I wanted to throw anchor and do a bit of deep sea diving.  Nonetheless, I continued.

Furthermore, I am certain that the Romans, up receiving this letter, read the whole thing in its entirety and then likely discussed it for the rest of their lives.

The whole of the Old Testament points to Messiah, Jesus Christ came proclaiming himself to be the Messiah, and here we have the Apostle Paul telling us that the whole of God's redemptive plan, his reconciling himself to his creation, is found in his mercy, his sending of Christ as a propitiation, and in our response to this free gift through faith, and faith alone.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”  (Romans 1:16-17)

I was sitting in the California Academy of Sciences' Planetarium on Sunday listening to their scientists describe how mankind has mutated over billions of years; first from a big bang and then from a random getting together of a few primordial molecules.

The Apostle Paul refutes this notion as foolishness, begs us to see God in creation, and calls us to recieve the free gift of salvation offered through faith in Christ.

One thing is certain, something huge happened in the world 2,000 years ago.  A man walked the earth claiming to be God, and no solitary life has influenced the world as this man Jesus did.

Therefore, it is not prudent to give his claims serious consideration?

Along with the Book of John, the Book of Romans is a great place to start and begin some serious head scratching.

 

The Apostle Paul, the 2nd Book to the Corinthians, and Major Troubles in the Church

Bible in a Year Series - Day #340 -  This post is part of a year-long series where we are reading chronologically through the Bible.  Click here to learn more.  You are most welcome to join along at any time.  

Today's text from the ESV Study Bible: 2 Corinthians.

Paul's relationship with the church in Corinth was a turbulent one. 

Not only did he need to chastise them for some of their syncretic pagan-like ways, but here we find the Corinthian church rejecting Paul and falling prey to the false teaching of smooth talking "super-apostles".

Because of this, Paul's second visit to Corinth was very painful.  So he turned around and simply left, facing humiliation rather than causing a big fight.

Relationships are messy, aren't they?

As Paul was defending himself, he recounted some of the things that he had suffered on behalf of the gospel:

"...imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. 24 Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; 26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; 27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure."  (2 Corinthians 11:23b-27)

You wonder how a guy could withstand all of this and remain committed to continued forward movement.  But then, in the next chapter, Paul describes how he was actually taken up to heaven and given a rare glimpse of paradise and he "heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter".

No wonder Paul would elsewhere proclaim that "to die is gain".  We are forced to wrestle with Scriptures claims in faith while the Apostle Paul was given this unbelievable privilege to strengthen his faith and resolve.

These "God-sightings" are recounted all throughout the Scriptures and certainly without them we mortals would have long ago fallen completely into the hands of the evil one. 

Nonetheless, God has a plan of redemption for fallen mankind and through such encounters folks like Paul are given the courage to fight the battle.

I guess I should spend the day in a concentrated effort to quite my whining to God about life circumstances that I am unhappy with.  My life is a bed of roses compared to Paul's.

There is so much more in 2 Corinthians to consider, but alas, we must move along.

The Apostle Paul, the Corinthians, and Christianity in Religious Mishmash

Bible in a Year Series - Day #337 -  This post is part of a year-long series where we are reading chronologically through the Bible.  Click here to learn more.  You are most welcome to join along at any time.  

Today's text from the ESV Study Bible: 1 Corinthians.

One of the likely unreasonable pressures I have placed on myself is to not only commit to this year-long, chronological journey through the Bible, but to also write a cogent blog post about each day's journey as well.

As the pace of our travel schedule has accelerated, as the result of our growing The Roaming Boomers® on-line travel magazine, I have found it difficult to keep all the balls spinning in the air at the same time.

Therefore, I am hereby giving myself permission to slow the pace of my writing on this blog.  I am not wavering on my commitment to journey chronologically through the Bible, I am only rethinking the necessity of writing my thoughts here each and every day.

With that said, we have recently hopped out of the book of Acts to find the Apostle Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.

Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthians somewhere around A.D. 53-55 toward the end of his three year missionary stay in Ephesus.

From the ESV Study Bible:

"Corinth sat on the isthmus connecting the Greek mainland with the Peloponnesian peninsula. This location made it a flourishing crossroads for sea traffic between the Aegean region and the western Mediterranean. It was a place where many cultures and religions mingled. Since it was a Roman colony, Roman law and customs were important, particularly among the upper classes, but “many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’” found a home in Corinth. The worship of these gods was fully integrated into governmental affairs, civic festivals, trade guilds, and social clubs, and everyday life in general. Corinth was also a destination for traveling professional orators who charged a fee for attendance at their entertaining rhetorical displays and advised people on how to advance socially.

Into this milieu Paul brought the gospel of Jesus Christ, and soon a church was established. He was aided in his work by two new-found friends from Rome, Priscilla and Aquila, who, like Paul, were displaced Jews and tentmakers by trade. Paul, Priscilla, and Aquila spent 18 months in Corinth in the early 50s and then, after a brief trip to Judea and Syria, Paul traveled to Ephesus."

Biblical historians are not sure what prompted Paul's first letter to the Corintians.  But from the letter's content, it is clear that this young church was greatly struggling in its syncretic surroundings with sexual immorality, social snobbery, and "considerable theological confusion about marriage, divorce, participation in pagan religions, order within corporate worship, and the bodily resurrection of Christians" (ESV Study Bible).

If we poke our heads above the milieu of our own backyards, we will find that our contemporary syncretic culture is perhaps little different from ancient Corinth. 

The thinking person is little satisfied with the dictates of a hand-me-down set of Christian cultural rules.  Primarily because so few Christians have actually read the Bible, let alone possess the discernment to proffer a cogent worldview.

Therefore, the Apostle Paul offers a rich sea of brilliant thought, inspired by the Holy Spirit, to give us instruction how to live.

I am greatly looking forward to coming back to 1 Corinthians to further explore some of Paul's arguments against this amalgamation of religious and cultural thought.