Posts from March 2022

In Philippians chapter three, Paul warns these saints about some who were trying to impose parts of the Law of Moses on them in addition to the Law of Christ (vs. 2, cf. Acts 15:1 & 24). The point he makes in verse 3 is that “we” (i.e., Christians) – not those who were fleshly Jews – are the “circumcision.” This was the Holy Spirit’s way of emphasizing that the church – spiritual “Israel,” Romans 2:28-29; Galatians 6:16 – is…

Paul begins the second chapter of Philippians by holding up Jesus the Christ as the pattern for all Christians to follow. At verse 2, he urged these saints to each have the same love and the same “mind;” this would allow them to act in agreement (“of one accord”) in all things. Since they are also to avoid being motivated by selfishness or ego (vs. 3), this opens the door to humility and the willingness to care more for others’…

Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi is one of the four so-called “prison epistles,” penned while he was imprisoned at Rome. (He was there because of his legal appeal to Caesar, Acts 25:9-12). Philippi was located in eastern Macedonia (modern -day northern Greece), a mountainous region known for its poverty (cf. 2 Corinthians 8:1-3). Paul had experienced notable success with the gospel while there (Acts 16:9-40), even though he and Silas had been falsely arrested and imprisoned. Unlike most…

Many twenty-first century Christians are astonished to realize that the bible mentions slavery without explicitly condemning it. In Ephesians 6:5-9 Paul encourages “servants” to obey their earthly “masters!” (The Greek word doulos commonly refers slaves, although it can also apply to bondservants.) Some readers seem unable (or perhaps, unwilling) to read the bible except through the “lens” of twenty-first century values, which leads them to miss the actual point of the Holy Spirit’s words. The fact that the scriptures mention…

Ephesians 5:22-33 is familiar to many Christians as “that passage that explains how the church is related to Christ.” It is easy for us to note the parallels Paul draws between marriage and the church’s relationship to Jesus, and then conclude that “the church is supposed to relate to Jesus like a wife does to her husband.” This is easy, BUT WRONG: Viewing these verses from this perspective puts the relationships in reverse! Paul is not trying to show the…