Jeremiah 1:1-2:30, Philippians 4:1-23, Psalms 75:1-10, Proverbs 24:17-20
Today is the 4th day of October welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian. Here we are friends at the threshold of a shiny, sparkly, new week that we are entering into. Whether we like it or not there’s only one way to go and that’s forward into this week and this is our first full week of the 10th month of the year. So, we are well on our way in our journey although there are some tremendous miles in front of us. We began the book of Jeremiah and we’ll continue with that today. We concluded the letter to the Philippians yesterday and so when we get to the New Testament, we will begin the letter to the Colossians. But first we’re reading from the New Living Translation this week. Jeremiah chapter 2:31 through 4:18.
Introduction to the letter to the Colossians:
Okay. So, as…as I said at the beginning, we are now at the New Testament so we’re moving into some new territory, another letter, another epistle from the apostle Paul, this one to the Colossians. And the city of Colossae, this is a place that Paul frequented. It was like 100 miles maybe from Ephesus and Paul spent years even in Ephesus. So…so, Colossae wasn’t unfamiliar, and the people weren’t unfamiliar to Paul. And the ancient ruins of Colossae, they exist. They’re in the western part of modern-day Turkey, but they’re largely unexcavated to this point. But during Paul’s life Colossae, like so many of the other urban centers…and we notice that…we notice the early church, at least under Paul’s ministry is more of an urban center thing. Like you don’t see a lot of churches being planted in rural areas. He’s is going into these cities and so the Roman cities, they…all…although they have their own personality like every city even today does, they had a lot of similarities. It was a stew of people and a lot of the philosophical and religious ideas being thrown around and argued about and wrestled with. And, so, some of this had made its way into the Colossian church. And, so, Paul writes this letter in response, because he’s been there, he’s given the gospel. But then, now it's…you know, now it’s being made into theology, now the philosophy is getting involved. And, so…and this isn’t a bad thing, it’s just a thing and this is what’s going on. And, so, Paul is responding to things that they’re asking about, responding to things that he’s hearing. And like the letter to the Ephesians and the letter to the Philippians, Colossians is another of the letters that are considered prison epistles, letters that would’ve been written while Paul was awaiting trial before the Emperor And basically we got…we got two sections to this letter. We have the first doctrinal issue. Like, people were coming into the church and they were bringing in, kind of like…well like we’ve said before. At the time of this writing of this letter there was no New Testament, right? There is nothing…there was nothing to go like, “well, this is this is the baseline.” So, lots of people thought lots of things about Jesus and lots of writings and lots of basically early denominations were happening. And some people had come into the church and they were teaching angel worship and some other rituals. And, so, Paul has to basically address this by making them understand that no matter what lesser thing you might try to give yourself to there is only the most-high God and Christ is supreme over all things. And it’s in this letter that hear Paul saying the universe itself was created by and through Jesus and remains sustained by and through Jesus. And then there’s this issue that…ahh…I mean we’ve seen this issue so many times. It’s the circumcised versus uncircumcised controversy that seems to permeate the early church writings from Paul. And, so, once again we’ll see Paul comment on that very issue. And of course, that issue goes back to the very very beginning – does a person need to be Hebrew and obey the Mosaic law to become a follower of the rabbi, teacher, wisdom teacher, miracle worker, Jesus or is God in fact doing a new thing in the world, one in which He is inviting everybody who believes to be a part of no longer needing to be under the law, but realizing freedom has come from the law? A direct relationship with God is possible. There is no chasm because righteousness has been bestowed upon us, which was the purpose of the law like to lead a person to become righteous. But Paul’s argument is that Jesus made that possible. We are righteous. And, so, these rituals especially, or the one that seems to crop up the most is circumcision. And, so, with that said, we begin. Colossians chapter 1 verses 1 through 17.
Prayer:
Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for bringing us into this shiny sparkly new week. We thank You for bringing us into the new letter of Colossians. We thank You for the journey that we are on. We thank You for one another. And although we don’t see each other we feel each other’s presence and we have…we have become allies we have become brothers and sisters in this journey. And, so, we are thankful for the gift of community, thankful for Your Holy Spirit that binds us together. And, as we move fully into this first full week of this final quarter of the year we pay attention we become aware, we have eyes to see and ears to hear all that You are saying to us and all that You are leading us into. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.
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And that is it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.