Gospel

Welcome to Colossae – The Problem

Posted on by chgruver

Last time we ended by talking about the unity of the believer and how it was because of this brotherhood that Paul felt it necessary to address the issues he heard the Colossian church was facing. So what were the issues he addressed, why was the letter to the Colossian church written? The issue that the Colossian church was facing was a mixture between Eastern philosophy and Jewish legalism.

Eastern Philosophy

The first part of the issue came from a concept that eventually became known as Gnosticism, this concept was that there was a special wisdom and knowledge that would only be achieved through spiritual perfection; and once one achieved this wisdom they were released from the earthly and material things. It came out of the philosophical question of “why is there evil in the world if creation was made by a holy God?” This question led to the belief among eastern philosophers that matter  was evil and as such God could not come in direct contact with evil matter. They also held a belief that angelic beings ruled the heavenly bodies and influenced the affairs on earth.

Jewish Legalism

Eastern philosophy was not the only issue that the church faced as Jewish legalism was also thrown into the mix. The concept of circumcision was believed to be helpful in one’s spiritual development as well as following the Old Testament Law, especially the dietary laws. This provided rigid rules and regulations that defined what was evil and what was good. The combination of these two led to the view that since material world was evil, a way was needed to control one’s human nature to pursue perfection. This resulted in either a strict legalistic view with rigid discipline or the view that since matter is evil all things are permissible; the Colossians more than likely drifted towards the more legalistic end of the spectrum.

The Issue

With the combining of beliefs that were found in the area the foundation of the Christian faith was being undermined. They attacked the person and work of Jesus Christ. They made a belief structure that had something for everybody by taking bits and pieces of Jewish legalism, Oriental philosophy, pagan astrology, mysticism, asceticism, and even Christianity. This is an issue that is even seen today. With the concept that it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you are sincere, or the mixing in of eastern/new age philosophies and practices with the Christian faith. They took the view that “God is far away, matter is evil, and demonic forces are constantly threatening us;” where the Christian faith is that God is near us, God made all things good, and Christ has delivered His people from the powers of darkness. It was a heresy that tried to change people from the outside in, where spiritual growth happens from the inside out.

Welcome to Colossae -The Church

Posted on by chgruver

Last time we started our look at the book of Colossians by talking briefly about the author and the city of Colossae itself. Today I want to focus more on the intended audience of the letter by looking at the church in Colossae. Again looking at the first two verses in Colossians we read, “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will, and Timothy our brother: To the saints in Christ at Colossae, who are faithful brothers. Grace to you and peace from God our Father.”

The Church Itself

The first thing is to take a little background look at the Colossian church itself. This was a church that would have never been mentioned in the Net Testament if this letter was never written. That is because this was a church that Paul did not start nor even visit, instead Paul heard of their faith. This was a church that had more than likely started due to Paul’s ministry in Ephesus, in which the Gospel went out through all of Asia from there. It was probably in Ephesus that Epaphras and Philemon came to faith in Christ. These were two ordinary guys which God used to start ministries and churches in the three cities of Colossae, Laodecia, and Hierapolis. As with the city itself the church was predominately Gentile with a diverse background which probably led to some of the issues Paul deals with in the letter. Now in looking at Paul’s greeting we also see three things about the church that he reminds them of.

Saints

The first thing Paul tells the Colossian church is that they are saints, or that they are holy. This is a familiar address Paul uses in his letters to the churches, Galatians and 1 & 2 Thessalonians are the exception. The concept of a saint in Paul’s day was not how we view a saint today. Today when we think of a saint we think of a dead person that the Catholic church has granted the status of sainthood to after meeting a certain set of criteria. To Paul a saint was someone set aside for God’s purpose, or in other words a believer. You see it is not anything they did that made them saints, but it is all what God did; as it was through Christ that God made them, and makes us, holy.

Faithful

The next thing Paul states about the church is that they were faithful. You have to remember this was a church that started through hearing from others that more than likely brought the Gospel to Colossae after hearing it while in Ephesus, yet they held fast to their faith. In fact Paul later expresses praise in hearing about their faith. This was a young church started by regular ordinary people, no apostles, missionaries, or pastors started it, and when they faced an issue Epaphras probably told the church that they should seek advice from Paul on the issue. Rather than stray they sought out godly counsel to help correct wrong teachings that were trying to creep their way in.

Brothers

Finally Paul called the church in Colossae brothers. This demonstrates the unity that is shared among believers, we are all part of a family and as such work together. This sense of unity shows that we are not supposed to go at it alone, instead we should be willing to help each other out in times of need. I have often heard with some branches of the military the concept of “no man left behind,” as Christians we should have a similar concept that we should not allow each other to fall. We should encourage and life each other up, pray for each other, and when one of us falls we should be willing to help bring them back to Christ. The unity of the believer, the brotherhood of faith, means we should be willing to help and protect each other from falling into the grasp of the enemy. Paul exhibits this concept in that he doesn’t leave the Colossian church to their own devices, which he had no direct ties to the church to warrant his involvement, but because they were fellow believers that was the only reason needed for Paul to step in to address the issues that they were facing. So what were these issues? Well we will look at that next time.

Welcome to Colossae – The City

Posted on by chgruver

This week after taking about a month’s break we are going to start looking at the book of Colossians. The thing is before we start to dig into the book we should do a little bit of background on the book. This way as we start to look at what Paul has written we can understand why Paul says what he did which in turn helps us apply the truths to our lives today. The letter to the Colossians starts out like this, “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will, and Timothy our brother: To the saints in Christ at Colossae, who are faithful brothers. Grace to you and peace from God our Father (Colossians 1:1-2).” So in setting up the background we see two clear things, the author and the audience.

The Author

The first thing to notice is that it is Paul who wrote the letter. This is considered to be one of his prison letters, and was more than likely written while he was a prisoner in Rome. This letter along with the ones to the Ephesians, Philippians, and Philemon were written among the same time frame, with the letters to the Colossians and Philemon mentioning many of the same people and carried by the same messenger. This letter is unique in that it is one of the few letters Paul wrote to a church he had not started or even visited, but he still felt the need to write them to encourage them as well as to correct false teachings.

The Audience

We also see that this letter was written to the church in Colossae, which we will look at the church closer next time; but it does help to understand some about the city as it will help us to understand both the church and Paul’s reason for writing to them. The city of Colossae was one of three cities located in what was considered Asia Minor in the Lycus River Valley. While it was a prominent city when the Greeks ruled the area, by Paul’s time it became more of a small town, with a main road between Ephesus and the east running through the area. This probably helped lead to the diversity that would have been seen in both the city and the church. This also meant that it was a prime area for all kinds of philosophies and religions to mingle and essentially breed to form new sets of beliefs.

Does this landscape sound familiar? At least to me it sounds much like the religious landscape of many post-Christian nations, America included. There are those that look at the different philosophies and religions and take those teachings and practices that they find enjoyable and apply them to their life. They create their own hybrid religion that is appealing to them and may outwardly sound good; but in reality it is nothing but empty promises that lead people away from Christ. So now that we have seen what the city of Colossae looks like next time we will look deeper at the church that was located there.

Table Talk – Episode 48 – Peace of God

Posted on by chgruver

May 27, 2016: This week we took a look at walking in the peace of God

Table Talk is a weekly gathering of men in the Pinellas Park area from different denominations and backgrounds. We meet every Friday morning from around 6:30-8:00 at the Egg Platter restaurant. It is located at 6767 US Highway 19 North in Pinellas Park. If you happen to be in the area feel free to come out and join us for a time of fellowship and Bible study.

Table Talk – Episode 47 – World vs The Spirit

Posted on by chgruver

May 20, 2016: This week we looked at James 1:20-27 and what it means to be “unstained by the world.”

Table Talk is a weekly gathering of men in the Pinellas Park area from different denominations and backgrounds. We meet every Friday morning from around 6:30-8:00 at the Egg Platter restaurant. It is located at 6767 US Highway 19 North in Pinellas Park. If you happen to be in the area feel free to come out and join us for a time of fellowship and Bible study.

Table Talk – Episode 46 – Why Church

Posted on by chgruver

May 13, 2016: This week at the prayer breakfast we talked about the importance of the local church.

Table Talk is a weekly gathering of men in the Pinellas Park area from different denominations and backgrounds. We meet every Friday morning from around 6:30-8:00 at the Egg Platter restaurant. It is located at 6767 US Highway 19 North in Pinellas Park. If you happen to be in the area feel free to come out and join us for a time of fellowship and Bible study.

Live Life Unfiltered – Sober Minded

Posted on by chgruver

This week we have been looking at the concept of living life unfiltered and have seen how it combines evangelism, discipleship, and accountability together. Then last time we saw how because of how exposure to the truth convicts us and shows one need for accountability to keep us from straying because of the convictions we face. Today we will finish up this concept by looking at 2 Timothy 4:5, “As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”

Sober-minded

Paul now personalizes his warning to Timothy by telling him to be sober-minded. What Paul is saying here is to remain faithful to the truth and not deviate from it. To be sober-minded is to be level-headed, vigilant, steadfast, and unwavering in your beliefs. The opposite of being sober to us would be the concept of being drunk, when you think of a drunk you see that their senses are dulled, and they are not in their best state of mind. It is when we are in this drunk state spiritually that we can be easily led astray. Again this is why accountability is so important. We have seen in past weeks how we need fellowship with other believers, accountability is just another aspect as we cannot be a Lone Ranger Christian; we are to help keep each other to be sober-minded to keep us from straying.

Endure Suffering

The next thing Paul tells Timothy is to endure suffering. We are never guaranteed an easy life once we become Christians, in fact we are told the opposite. You see we need to surround ourselves with those that will encourage and lift us up when we face suffering. That are willing to keep us faithful to Christ when we feel like we are ready to throw in the towel to avoid suffering. In turn we are then to be willing to do the same for them. It is much like when changing your diet or starting an exercise program. If you do it by yourself, eventually you will quit for some reason or another. However, if you have just one other person that is willing to encourage you and check on how you are doing you are more likely to continue on. The Christian life is much the same, things will come up that if you are by yourself you will eventually give up, but if you are in fellowship with others it makes it easier to bear.

Evangelism And Ministry

Paul finishes this out by telling Timothy to do the work of an evangelist and to fulfill his ministry. What this means is to first share the Gospel; Paul is basically restating what he said at the beginning “preach the word.” The second part of fulfilling your ministry is what I would like to focus on. As men one of our ministries is that of being the spiritual leader in our homes. We are to be leading and pointing our families to God. The way we do this is to again lead by example; we are to ourselves be drawing near to God, showing our families how they are to focus on God themselves. This is again why fellowship and accountability are important. We need others to help keep us focused on God in order to keep us from leading not only ourselves astray but to keep from leading our families astray as well. I said it earlier and I will say it again there are no Lone Ranger Christians.

Live Life Unfiltered – Sound Teaching

Posted on by chgruver

Last time we started this look at living life unfiltered and briefly mentioned how it has an aspect of accountability. This time we will look more closely at accountability in regards to the concept of correcting or reproving false teachings. You see Paul addresses this in 2 Timothy 4:3-4, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” These two verses point out the need for accountability in the life of a Christian.

Sound Teaching

The first thing Paul warns about is that a “time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching.” You only have to look around and see how true that is. We can find teaching that will appeal to just about any taste. You don’t want to believe Jesus is th only way to heaven, there is a teaching that states all religions lead to heaven despite Jesus claiming to be the only way. Then there is the teaching that if we have enough faith we will always be rich, happy, and nothing bad will ever happen to us; yet Jesus told us to expect persecution. You see we need to be vigilant to remain faithful to sound doctrine, to keep our beliefs Biblically sound, this is because the false teachings will speak to our human desires rather than promote the truth of God.

Convictions

When looking at this verse the thought of accountability comes in when looking at how Paul presents his warning. The word Paul used for endure brings a concept of patiently suffering, this is because the truth always convicts. It does not matter who we are there will always be something in our lives that when exposed to the truth we will be convicted. It could be something as simple as claiming all your meals eaten out as business expenses or as big as cheating on a final exam. It could be forgetting to leave a tip at the restaurant for your waitress or lying to your wife. No matter what it is the truth and sound teaching will always carry along with it a level of conviction. The thing is as Christians and the spiritual leaders in our homes we need to be willing to both endure sound teaching, endure the conviction that listening to the truth brings into our lives, and to present sound teaching to around us that are turning away “from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” This is the basic concept behind accountability, we need to be willing to have others that will ask the tough questions and expose us to the truth to keep us from straying; while we need to be willing to do the same for them.

Live Life Unfiltered – Evangelism, Accountability, Discipleship

Posted on by chgruver

This week’s topic is one that is sort of a cross post from my other blog, Unfiltered Ministries. There I started with the question of what is “Unfiltered” and as I worked on those posts I realized that most of what I found can apply to men and being the spiritual heads of their homes. What we will look at this week has application no matter if you are married, single, divorced, widowed, with kids, or not; every man can learn from this to be a better spiritual leader in their home and in their relationships. Unfiltered came from the concept of preaching the whole word of God, which while not written exactly in the Bible the concept appears in both Old and New Testaments. The one passage that sticks out to me is part of Paul’s farewell address to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:27 where he states, “I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.” You see as men we are to be the spiritual leaders in our homes, no matter what, and that means to our wives and kids, if we have them, or in a dating relationship we should be able to boldly proclaim that we did not shrink from proclaiming the full counsel of God to those around us. So what does this look like? Well to me I then looked at what Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:2-5, “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” Today we will look at verse 2, “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.”

Preach The Word

So the first thing we notice in Paul’s command to Timothy is that he is to preach the word. Now what many of you may be thinking is getting up on a stage and preaching a sermon; this is not fully what Paul is getting at. Rather what Paul is saying is that we need to proclaim God’s word. We are to be heralds spreading the message of the Gospel to any who would listen. This means sharing our faith with those we meet in daily situations. The thing is this will serve as an example to our families for them in turn to follow, as they see you sharing your faith it will help make them realize the importance and need for them to share their faith as well. You see as a spiritual leader in our homes we need to lead by example.

In Season And Out

Paul next mentions that we need to be prepared “in season and out of season.” What this means is that we need to be ready to at the drop of a hat be able to impart to someone the wisdom and knowledge that the Holy Spirit gives to us. Yes there are times when we may need to spend time and prepare what we are going to say, these are the times when it is in season. Then there are the times when “preaching the word” is more providing that simple word of encouragement when a friend is feeling down, those times were what is said is more spontaneous, this is preaching out of season.

Reprove, Rebuke, Exhort, Teach

Paul finishes off this thought by telling Timothy to “reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.” What Paul is getting at is to correct false teachings, confront or point out sins that need to be confessed, and encourage others. What we see here points some to the concept of accountability as well as discipleship. As believers we need to be one be willing for other believers to help hold us accountable, as well as be willing to hold others accountable. One thing I will point out is that living a life unfiltered discipleship, evangelism, and accountability all go together hand in hand for helping us to mature spiritually as well as to be the spiritual leaders in our homes that God wants us to be.