Thursday, August 9, 2012

No Second Class Saints

To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons. (Philippians 1:1)
Paul addresses his letter to “all the saints in Christ Jesus” at Philippi, by which he means every believer in Jesus who is at Philippi. The Greek word for “saint” is hagios, which speaks of what is holy and consecrated, set apart for God. In this case, it is about being set apart by God, as His own. They are holy because they are in Jesus the Messiah, who is holy — set apart and anointed by God . Through their faith in the Lord Jesus, God sees them as in Jesus, every one of them. There are no levels of distinction in this, no division of saints into First Class, Second Class, etc. All who belong to God through faith in Jesus the Messiah are equal before God.

Yet Paul does recognize that there are various roles among the saints, so he addresses those among the saints who are bishops and deacons. These are positions of oversight and service. The Greek word for “bishop” is episkopos and is often translated as “overseer,” one who watches over.

When we speak of the church at Philippi, or anywhere else for that matter, we are not talking about a building but a people. In the early days, the church did not meet in public structures but in private homes. The church at Philippi probably first met in Lydia’s home. As more people came to faith in Jesus the Messiah and the church grew, there would be additional homes for them to meet together in for worship. Overseers would be established to direct the affairs of the church. In his letters to Timothy and Titus, Paul lists the qualifications for those who would watch over the house churches (1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9).

The Greek word for “deacon” is diakonos . Like doulos, “bondservant,” it speaks of one who serves. The distinction is that doulos refers to one’s relationship to his master while diakonos speaks in regard to the work or service one performs. As with the qualifications of overseer, Paul also lists the qualities of a good deacon (1 Timothy 3:8-13).

It is unusual that Paul includes specific greetings to the overseers and deacons in his opening — he does not do that in any of his other letters to the churches. Some have suggested that Paul’s earlier letters were to churches not yet developed enough as to require overseers and deacons, while the church at Philippi was now established. But that hardly seems likely, since deacons were introduced fairly early in the church at Jerusalem (Acts 6:1-7), and Paul recognized overseers of the church at Ephesus (Acts 20:28), which was after the church at Philippi was established.

Perhaps the reason Paul especially greets the overseers and deacons here is the same reason he identifies himself as a doulos. Though the church at Philippi was well established by now, it was not without problems. There was some tension and a lack of humility among some of the believers, and this may have included overseers and deacons. The example of Jesus the doulos in Philippians 2 would then be a word intended for all the saints, including the leaders.

Focus Questions
  1. Do you think of holiness as more about what one does, or about what one is?
  2. How does one become holy?
  3. If there is equality among all believers in Jesus, where does pride come from and how does it come in?



There is Always Joy!
There is Always Joy!
Paul’s Letters to the Jesus Believers at Philippi
Bite-Size Studies Through the Book of Philippians
by Jeff Doles

Preview with Amazon’s “Look Inside.”

Available in paperback and Kindle (Amazon), epub (Google and iTunes) and PDF.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Paul the Doulos


Today — finally! — we begin in Paul’s letter to the Jesus believers at Philippi.
Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:1)
About a dozen years have passed since Paul and Timothy, along with Silas and Luke, first came to Philippi. On that visit, Paul and Silas ended up in jail just before they left. Now Paul is under arrest again, probably house arrest in Rome, as described by Luke in Acts 28:23-31. He is under guard and awaiting trial, but he does have some limited freedom to receive visitors and teach them about Jesus the Messiah and the kingdom of God.

Timothy is with him, at least nearby, and Paul includes him in the greeting. Paul would like to send Timothy to them, that he may find out more particularly how they are doing (Philippians 2:19), but he cannot at this time. Indeed, Paul would like to come himself but, of course, he cannot. This letter will have to suffice for the time being.

Paul does not identify himself as apostle, as he does in so many of his other letters, but as a doulos, a “bondservant” of Jesus the Messiah. The believers at Philippi certainly know Paul as apostle — he is their apostle, the one who came and established them in the faith. But what they need to understand more than that is that he is a servant — a bond slave! — to the Lord Jesus.

Paul writes to them for many reasons, each important in its own way. But there is one matter in particular in which they need the example of the Lord Jesus. There has been a lack of humility, and Paul will address that in what we know as Chapter 2 (Paul’s original letter, of course, was not divided into chapters and verses). There he will exhort them to allow the mind of the Messiah to be at work in them, the mind of the one who humbled Himself and became a doulos, a bondservant for the sake of others (Philippians 2:5-8).

So Paul identifies himself and Timothy as “bondservants of Jesus Christ.”

Focus Questions
  1. What sort of authority do you suppose an apostle has?
  2. What sort of authority do you suppose a bondservant has?
  3. What sort of authority do you suppose Jesus, the Lord who became a bondservant for our sake, has?



There is Always Joy!
There is Always Joy!
Paul’s Letters to the Jesus Believers at Philippi
Bite-Size Studies Through the Book of Philippians
by Jeff Doles

Preview with Amazon’s “Look Inside.”

Available in paperback and Kindle (Amazon), epub (Google and iTunes) and PDF.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Out of the Abundance of Joy


One last bit of backstory before we get into Paul’s letter to the Jesus followers at Philippi.
Moreover, brethren, we make known to you the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia: that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality. For I bear witness that according to their ability, yes, and beyond their ability, they were freely willing, imploring us with much urgency that we would receive the gift and the fellowship of the ministering to the saints. And not only as we had hoped, but they first gave themselves to the Lord, and then to us by the will of God. (2 Corinthians 8:1-5)
Earlier we saw how Paul received a course correction by the Holy Spirit. It was a dream of Macedonia, a vision of a man of that region who stood before him and pleaded, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” Paul and his team set sail for that region and began preaching the good news about King Jesus at Philippi, then on to Thessalonica and Berea. Though there was resistance to the message of the gospel in all those places, and persecutions, those who came to the Lord Jesus there were very excited about following Him. So going to Macedonia at that time proved to be very fruitful for the gospel.

Now, about six years later, Paul was taking up a collection for the followers of Jesus who were at Jerusalem, and in economic need. It would be a show of solidarity between the churches that were composed mostly of Gentile believers to the church at Jerusalem, which was mostly Jewish believers.

In 2 Corinthians 8-9, Paul encourages the Jesus believers at Corinth to give bountifully in this undertaking. He begins with the example of the churches in Macedonia, who did not have an abundance of material resources. Quite the opposite, they had very little. “Deep poverty,” Paul calls it. On top of that, they were being severely persecuted for following King Jesus.

But there was one thing they did have in abundance, and that was joy. They loved the Lord Jesus and what He was doing in their lives and in the world, and they wanted to be part of blessing the saints at Jerusalem. Their joy and excitement would let them do no less.

So they begged Paul to receive their offering — apparently Paul was reluctant about accepting such a gift from those who were in great need of it themselves. But they would not take no for an answer, so Paul relented. And what they gave was far beyond what Paul expected. Out of the abundance of their joy, they dug down deep and brought up an amazing wealth of generosity, giving with open hands.

The secret to the joy of their generosity was that they “first gave themselves to the Lord, and then to us by the will of God.” Jesus taught us to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matthew 6:33). When we give ourselves to the Lord, we are freed up to give to others, knowing that the Lord will take care of us. That’s what happened with the Macedonian believers. First, they gave themselves to the Lord, then they gave themselves to assist Paul however the Lord led them.

This was the grace of God that was bestowed on them, the grace of giving generously and without reserve. And it came forth out of their abundant joy in King Jesus.

Focus Questions
  1. Can you imagine this kind of joyful, sacrificial giving apart from the grace of God?
  2. Do you suppose that this grace was just for the believers at Macedonia, or does God have this same grace available for all His people?
  3. How do grace and faith and love and joy work together here?



There is Always Joy!
There is Always Joy!
Paul’s Letters to the Jesus Believers at Philippi
Bite-Size Studies Through the Book of Philippians
by Jeff Doles

Preview with Amazon’s “Look Inside.”

Available in paperback and Kindle (Amazon), epub (Google and iTunes) and PDF.

Monday, August 6, 2012

Paul’s Ministry Team at Philippi


We should probably take a moment to identify who was part of Paul’s ministry team at Philippi. Paul was never a one-man show.

  • Paul. His conversion story, the original “Damascus Road Experience,” is told in Acts 9, and again in Acts 22 and 26, how he encountered the risen Lord Jesus. He comes to prominence in the last half of the book of Acts, where his ministry shifts more and more from the Jews to the Gentiles. We will learn a bit more about his biography when we get to Philippians 3.
  • Silas. We first meet Silas in Acts 15, when the apostles and elders of the church at Jerusalem sent him and Judas Barsabbas, both of them prophets, to Antioch along with Paul and Barnabas. He ended up in itinerant ministry with Paul when Barnabas took John Mark and departed to Cyprus. He is also known as Silvanus (of which, Silas is probably a shortened form) and is mentioned by that name in Paul’s letter to the believers at Corinth (2 Corinthians 1:19) and Thessalonica (1 Thessalonians 1:2; 2 Thessalonians 1:1). He also ministered with Peter and served as the amanuensis (secretary) for the book of First Peter.
  • Timothy. When Paul and Silas came to Derbe and Lystra, “a certain disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a certain Jewish woman who believed, but his father was Greek. He was well spoken of by the brethren who were at Lystra and Derbe” (Acts 16:1-2). Paul was apparently impressed with the young man, because he decided to bring him with them on their mission. Paul mentions him in many of his letters. In Romans 16:21, Paul calls him, “my fellow worker;” in 1 Corinthians 4:17, “my beloved and faithful son in the Lord;” and in 1 Thessalonians 3:2 “our brother and minister of God, and our fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ.” And of course, Paul’s final letters were to Timothy, to encourage and instruct him in pastoral matters. Paul calls him, “a true son in the faith” (1 Timothy 1:2).
  • Luke. Luke was a Gentile who came to faith in Jesus the Messiah. He is mentioned only a few times by name. Paul calls him, “Luke the beloved physician” (Colossians 4:14). In Philemon 24, he is identified as a “fellow laborer.” And yet, what we know of Paul’s ministry, we know from Luke. He is the author of the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. Luke apparently became a member of Paul’s team at Troas. We know this because the pronouns in the narrative shift from “they” (in Act 16:8) to “we” (in Acts 16:11). When Paul, Silas and Timothy moved on from Philippi to Thessalonica, the pronoun shifts back to “they” (Acts 17:1), indicating that Luke stayed behind to help with the new church at Philippi.



There is Always Joy!
There is Always Joy!
Paul’s Letters to the Jesus Believers at Philippi
Bite-Size Studies Through the Book of Philippians
by Jeff Doles

Preview with Amazon’s “Look Inside.”

Available in paperback and Kindle (Amazon), epub (Google and iTunes) and PDF.

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Phil the Jailer


Okay, so his name wasn’t really Phil. We don’t actually know what his name was, and though his story has often been told, he has always been referred to simply as The Philippian Jailer. But I like “Phil,” for short. Phil was likely a Roman soldier who retired to Philippi, a prominent Roman colony in Macedonia, and was made “keeper of the prison.” He was the warden. The jailer.

When Paul and Silas had been stripped and beaten for preaching about King Jesus the Messiah and for casting a demonic spirit out of a slave girl and destroying the profit potential for her masters, the magistrates threw them into prison, giving Phil strict orders to “keep them securely” (Acts 16:23). So Phil took them into the deepest part of the prison, where they were placed in stocks.

He went to sleep that night secure in the knowledge that his prisoners would have no chance of escape. But a little after midnight, he was awakened by a tremendous shaking. An earthquake (v. 26).

Phil dashed down to see what had happened (his house was probably joined next to the prison). When he got there he saw that all the doors had been shaken open and the chains busted loose. Surely all the prisoners had gotten away, including Paul and Silas. That would not just be a career ender — there would be severe penalties to follow. Severe. So, like a good Roman soldier, Phil thought to do the “honorable” thing, the least distasteful thing. He drew out his sword and was about to end his life with it (v. 27).

“Do yourself no harm,” a voice from the dark called out, “for we are all here” (v. 28). Phil called for a light, went in and saw Paul and Silas — his two most important prisoners. They did not run, after all. They did not even try.

Earlier that day, the slave girl with the python spirit had identified them as those who proclaimed “the way of salvation” (Acts 16:17). Phil would have known of this since it was what got them thrown into his prison in the first place. And he most likely heard some of the things they were singing and preaching in their dungeon cell — the good news that Jesus the Messiah and the kingdom of God had come into the world. Now he connected the dots and realized that they had something he desperately wanted. So he went for it. He led them out of the dungeon and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (v. 30). It was a direct question, a “big picture” question: How do I get in on this King and this kingdom you’ve been announcing?

“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, and your household” they said (v. 31). A direct question deserves a direct answer. It would need some unpacking, of course, so Phil brought Paul and Silas into his house, where they spoke “the word of the Lord” to him and his whole household (v. 32).

What does it mean to “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ”? It is not merely giving intellectual assent to a proposition, it is a call to believe on a person. What does it mean to believe on this person? It means we are entrust ourselves to Him — all of who we are entrusted to all of who He is. Who, then, is this person to whom we are called to entrust ourselves? The Lord Jesus Christ — and every part of that reveals who He is.
  • He is Lord. That is, He is God, the Son. He has been “declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness” (Romans 1:4 NASB).
  • He is Savior. The name “Jesus” literally means “Savior.” That is why the angel of the Lord spoke to Joseph, concerning Mary, “She will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).
  • He is God’s Anointed King. “Christ” is the Greek equivalent for the Hebrew word “Messiah.” Both literally mean “Anointed.” We see the significance of this in Psalm 2, where God speaks of His Son as the one He has anointed to be King over Israel and all the nations.
To believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, then, is to entrust ourselves to Him as God and Savior and King. The promise for this is that “you will be saved.” King Jesus the Messiah came into the world to deliver His people, Israel, reconcile us all to the Father and put things right in the world. We enter into that by receiving Him, entrusting ourselves to Him.

“You will be saved,” they said, “and your household.” This promise of salvation is not just for some elite group or certain kinds of people. It is offered to everyone — Jew or Gentile, male or female, rich or poor, slave or free, old or young. So there they were, Paul and Silas, telling everyone in the Jailer household about King Jesus.

Then Phil took them out by the water, where he washed all their wounds from the beating they had received the day before. That must have got them talking about baptism because the next thing that happened was that Paul and Silas baptized Phil and his family in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (v. 33). Phil brought them into his home and gave them some food, “and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household” (v. 34).

Phil rejoiced. The Greek word is agalliao, which literally means to “jump for joy.” Hours earlier, he was ready to kill himself, but now he was full of joy — wild, exuberant joy. As we go on to study Paul’s letter to the Jesus believers at Philippi, we will see that joy is a common theme. With Jesus, there is always joy.

So Phil the Jailer and his household joined Lydia the Seller of Purple and her household, and possibly several prisoners and the slave girl who was delivered from a demonic spirit, to become the first fellowship of King Jesus followers at Philippi and in Macedonia.

Focus Questions
  1. Paul added, “and your household.” He did not do that with Lydia, though her whole household came to the Lord. So why did he add it here?
  2. At what point in this progression of events do you think Phil began to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?
  3. How do you suppose Phil’s life changed after this? In his home? In his work? In his city?



There is Always Joy!
There is Always Joy!
Paul’s Letters to the Jesus Believers at Philippi
Bite-Size Studies Through the Book of Philippians
by Jeff Doles

Preview with Amazon’s “Look Inside.”

Available in paperback and Kindle (Amazon), epub (Google and iTunes) and PDF.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

The Blessed Sheep and the Cursed Goats

I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. (Genesis 12:2-3)
There is something interesting I realized about this promise that God made to Abraham. It is eschatological. That is, it speaks of the judgment that is to come at the end of the age. When God says to Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you,” that is judgment talk. And it will be based on how the world treats Abraham and his seed. God’s purpose in all this is that all the families of the earth should be blessed.

Understanding this as eschatology, now I can see how it will be fulfilled when King Jesus comes again. He told us about it in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats:
When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.”

Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, “Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?” And the King will answer and say to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.”

Then He will also say to those on the left hand, “Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.”

Then they also will answer Him, saying, “Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?” Then He will answer them, saying, “Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.” And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:31-46)
This is a passage that has often been misunderstood. With the very best of intentions, of course, but misunderstood nonetheless. It has been supposed that Jesus is teaching us to be kind to the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned in general. As if they are the “brethren” of Jesus merely by virtue of the fact that they are hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick or in prison.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for taking care of the poor, the needy and the stranger. And the Scriptures repeatedly teach us to do what we can for them. But that is not what this parable is about. It is talking specifically about the “brethren” of Jesus. So, who are these “brethren”? Well, Jesus has already identified them for us, as we can see in an earlier portion of Matthew’s Gospel:

While He was still talking to the multitudes, behold, His mother and brothers stood outside, seeking to speak with Him. Then one said to Him, “Look, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak with You.”
But He answered and said to the one who told Him, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:46-50)
Those Jesus identifies as his brothers (and sisters and mother) are those who do the will of God the Father. And what is that will? Jesus said, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent” (John 6:29). All those who receive Jesus are his disciples. At a certain point in His ministry, Jesus sent out the Twelve to preach the good news about the kingdom of God.
He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me. He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward. And he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward. (Matthew 10:40-42)
Receiving Jesus’ disciples and the message of the gospel was the same thing as receiving Jesus Himself. Rejecting His disciples and message of the gospel the same as rejecting Jesus Himself.

At the end of Matthew, Jesus commissioned the disciples to go into the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them everything that Jesus Himself taught. This commission extends to all who have become His disciples ever since. These are the brothers and sisters of Jesus, the seed of Abraham. Those who bless them, who believe the good news, will be blessed, and they will inherit the kingdom of God and enter into eternal life. Those who reject them, who reject the gospel, will be subject to chastisement in the age to come.

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

In the Jailhouse Now


Continuing the back story to Paul’s letter to the Jesus followers at Philippi.

Well, it had been a long day for Paul and Silas, what with preaching the gospel, casting out a python spirit, being hauled before the magistrates because of that, then stripped naked, severely beaten, placed in stocks and thrown into the dungeon (Acts 16:16-24). But it was not quite over yet.

“But at midnight …,” Luke continues, and what follows is not what we would have expected, “… Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God” (v. 25). The Greek word for “pray” here is proseuchomai, turning toward (pros) God in prayer (about which, see The Towardness of Prayer). They were pressing into God, in intense prayer and praise and fellowship.

You can tell what is going on in a person’s heart by listening to the words that come out of their mouth, especially in pressure situations. I’m sure you will agree that Paul and Silas were under intense pressure, but it only pressed them deeper into God and they threw themselves into worship. Luke adds, “And the prisoners were listening to them.” They did not just hear, they were listening, intently. They had great interest in what Paul and Silas were praying and singing, perhaps wondering how they even had the presence of mind and peace of heart to be able to do that.

Suddenly, there was a great earthquake that shook the foundations of the prison. It may have been a natural event but the timing was supernatural. All the doors sprang open and the prisoners were all loosed from their chains (v. 26). John Chrysostom, in one of his ancient homilies on the book Acts, commented on this scene. “This let us also do, and we shall open for ourselves — not a prison, but — heaven. If we pray, we shall be able even to open heaven” (NPNF, First Series, Vol. 11, Homily 36).

The prison warden (a.k.a., the Philippians Jailer) woke up and saw all the doors hanging wide open, and he supposed that the prisoners had all fled. It seemed to him to be the worst night of his life, for he was responsible to see that the prisoners received their due punishments and, failing that, he would be punished in their place. With all the prisoners escaped, his future did not look at all bright, so he drew out his sword and was just about to kill himself (v. 27). But Paul called out to him just in time and said, “Do yourself no harm, for we are all here” (v. 28).

Now, it would be easy at this point to go on and talk about Paul’s encounter with the Philippian Jailer and what happened from there. That was my original intention in this section (and that I will do in the next section). But something in Luke’s report caught my eye and I think it deserves a little bit of our attention.

As miraculous as the timing of the earthquake was that shook them all free, here is something I think might be an even greater miracle: None of the prisoners left. The doors were open, the chains were off — and nobody bolted. “We are all here,” Paul said. Amazing.

Why did they not leave when they had the chance? I think it was because of all they had just witnessed. They heard Paul and Silas, in stocks and deep in prison, singing and praising King Jesus and the power of God — and it preached to them. Then they saw the miraculous power of God shake open the cell doors and break them free from all their chains. Now, instead of running, they wanted to see what God would do next, and I don’t think they were disappointed.

We don’t know what happened after this. Again, Luke does not say and Church history appears to be silent. But it is no real stretch to suppose that some of them became followers of King Jesus, and perhaps when (or if) they were released, they joined together with the others at Philippi who came to know and rejoice in the Lord.

Focus Questions
  1. Suppose you had been in that prison that night, what would you think if you heard Paul and Silas loudly singing and praising God?
  2. When the earthquake happened, opening the doors and loosing the chains, would you have connected it to what Paul and Silas were singing about?
  3. If you the chance to run at that moment, would you have fled? Why or why not?



There is Always Joy!
There is Always Joy!
Paul’s Letters to the Jesus Believers at Philippi
Bite-Size Studies Through the Book of Philippians
by Jeff Doles

Preview with Amazon’s “Look Inside.”

Available in paperback and Kindle (Amazon), epub (Google and iTunes) and PDF.

Friday, July 27, 2012

The Python Lady


Looking at the “back story” of Paul’s letter to the Jesus followers at Philippi, we recently met Lydia, the “Seller of Purple.” Now let’s meet the Python Lady. We do not know her name. All we know is that she had a spirit of divination. Luke tells the story.
Now it happened, as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.” And this she did for many days.

But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And he came out that very hour. But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities. (Acts 16:16-19)
Now, the reason I call her the Python Lady is because of the Greek word for “divination,” which is … python. According to The Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Bauer, Arndt and Gingrich), python referred to “the serpent or dragon that guarded the Delphic oracle; it lived at the foot of Mt. Parnassus, and was slain by Apollo. Later the word came to designate a spirit of divination, then also a ventriloquist, who was believed to have such a spirit dwelling in his (or her) belly.” This woman was not a ventriloquist as we think of today, but she was being used as a mouthpiece by the demonic spirit that somehow had possession of her.

This young girl followed Paul and his team (which included Silas, Timothy and Luke) around and the demonic spirit in her “cried out” (the Greek word means to croak, like a raven, to scream or shriek): “These men are the servants of the Most High God.” It is unclear what this spirit hoped to gain in that. Various answers have been proposed.
  • Perhaps it was to give the impression that Paul and Silas were somehow associated with this spirit, so to blunt their effectiveness.
  • Perhaps it was to somehow gain favor with them by affirming them, so that they would not cast out this demonic spirit.
  • Perhaps, recognizing that they were from God, it was to gain status as one who identified them and what they were doing.
After a number of days, Paul had finally had enough of it. He turned and cast out the spirit in the name of Jesus the Messiah. It is important to note that Paul’s problem was not with the young slave woman but with that spirit that possessed her. For she was not just enslaved by her human masters, who sought to exploit her unusual ability for their own profit, she was enslaved by the evil entity that invaded her being. In expelling the demonic spirit, Paul set this young woman free. But her masters were not happy about this.
But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities. And they brought them to the magistrates, and said, “These men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city; and they teach customs which are not lawful for us, being Romans, to receive or observe.” (Acts 16:19-21)
Paul commanded the demon to “come out” (Greek, exerchomai) and it “came out” (exerchomai). The girls masters realized that, with that, their expectation of profiting from her “was gone” (exerchomai) — literally, that it, too, had come out of her. So, instead of rejoicing that this young woman had been freed from demonic oppression, they forcefully seized Paul and Silas, hauled them before the city authorities and lodged their complaint.

The crowd that had gathered rose up together against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered Paul and Silas to be stripped and beaten. After being severely scourged (let it be sufficient here to note that this was not a sight for the squeamish), they were put into stocks and thrown into the dungeon. (We will look at happened with them next when we continue our “back story.”)

But what about the young slave woman who was now delivered from demonic oppression? Luke does not say and Church history does not really tell us. But having now been set free by the power of King Jesus, perhaps she became a follower of Jesus, just as Lydia and her household had done.

Focus Questions
  1. Though specifically led to Macedonia by the Holy Spirit, Paul and associates were beginning to face strong opposition. Should that be surprising?
  2. Luke does not tell us the name of this young woman. Why do you suppose that is?
  3. At this point, what would you imagine the prospects would be for a healthy, vital and joyful Church being formed at Philippi?



There is Always Joy!
There is Always Joy!
Paul’s Letters to the Jesus Believers at Philippi
Bite-Size Studies Through the Book of Philippians
by Jeff Doles

Preview with Amazon’s “Look Inside.”

Available in paperback and Kindle (Amazon), epub (Google and iTunes) and PDF.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Marriage According to Jesus


Some people say that Jesus did not say anything about “gay marriage.” In a way, that is true — He did not recognize any such a thing as “gay marriage,” so He did not mention it. But in another way, what Jesus did say about marriage is very important in regard to that issue. It leaves no room for marriage between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman.
But from the beginning of the creation, God “made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate. (Mark 10:6-9)
According to Jesus, marriage is between a male and a female, a man and his wife, joined together by God. That’s how it was from the beginning. Jesus did not change that in His day and He left us no option to change it in ours.

Dan Cathy, president of Chick-fil-a, started a firestorm when he affirmed in a recent interview that marriage is between a man and a woman. “We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that,” he said.

Protests, insults, slurs and charges of bigotry have rained down on the company since. The city of Boston, MA has told the restaurant chain that it is no longer welcome to open up locations in that city.

In response, supporters of the chain and the stand it has taken are planning a “Chick-fil-a Appreciation Day” for Wednesday, August 1. That sounds like a good day to go in and have a chicken sandwich and some waffle fries, or in my case, chicken strips and a salad. Come Wednesday, I will be heading over to my local Chick-fil-a store around lunch time to enjoy a nice meal.

Anybody who wants to protest or cast slurs and insults at Chick-fil-a might as well do the same to Jesus. Because their view on marriage is the one Jesus taught.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Confidence in Prayer

Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him. (1 John 5:14-15)
When we do not have confidence that God answers our prayers (in the Bible, to “hear” is to answer), we will not be very inclined to pray. A lot of Christians pray with little confidence and little expectation that they will receive the answer they need. Instead, they salt their prayers with “if it be thy will.”

That’s well and good for prayers of consecration, when you’re looking for direction and committing your way to the Lord. But the apostle John is talking here about petitioning prayer, and that is about praying “according to His will.” Now, he is not speaking of the will of God as some mysterious thing that God plays close to the chest and about which we cannot know but must continually guess. That leads to a sort of fatalism, and “if it be Thy will” becomes an escape clause when our prayers are not answered — “Oh, well, I guess that just wasn’t God’s will.”

But John is speaking of the will of God as something that we can know. Indeed, the Scriptures are full of the will of God. He makes it known at every turn — through His words, His deeds, His promises.

So, for example, when we go to the Lord about a particular need, we do not have to add, “If it be Thy will,” because God has already revealed His will about that: “My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). When we add “if it be Thy will” where God has already revealed His will, we are not standing in faith but in doubt. Faith comes claiming the promise.

When we know and understand the will of God, and we pray according to it, in agreement with it, claiming and confessing it, we can pray with confidence, knowing that God will hear and give us the answer we seek. And when we have confidence that God answers our prayers, we will be going to Him regularly about everything.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Gospel and Kingdom Fulfillment


The more I read the Bible, the more I see what a rich tapestry it is, intricately woven together into a grand design from beginning to end. I see this in the Gospel According to Luke, even from the very first verse, where Luke lays out his purpose. “Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us …” (Luke 1:1). It is there in the word “fulfilled.” What he writes is about fulfillment. It is an indication that what we have here is not a brand new story but the continuation, leading to completion, of an old, old story, one that God began with the creation of the heavens and the earth. What is fulfilled is the trajectory of that story, and all the promises God made concerning the Messiah who would come to rule and reign and set everything right in the world.
  • We find this echoed when the angel of the Lord comes to the aged Zechariah and announces that he and his wife Elizabeth (also old, and barren) would have a son. This son (John the Baptist) would turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, that he would, in the words of Malachi, “turn the hearts of the fathers to the children” (Luke 1:16-17, quoting Malachi 4:6).
  • We see it again when the angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she would bring forth a Son who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and His name would be Jesus (which means “Yahweh saves”). He would sit on the throne of King David, to whom He was heir. “And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:33).
  • We hear it in the song Mary sang, magnifying the Lord because He had now come to rescue His people and set things right in the world, in fulfillment of the promises He made to Abraham and the fathers of Israel” (Luke 1:46-56).
  • We hear it again in the song Zechariah sang over his newborn son, John, about how the Lord had remembered His covenant promises to Abraham and the fathers of Israel (Luke 1:68-79).
  • We hear it in the song the angels sang when they announced the good news to the shepherds, about the birth of the Savior, the Messiah, the Lord, in the city of King David. The time of God’s messianic peace was at hand (Luke 2:10-14).
  • We hear it once more in the song Simeon sang as he held the infant Jesus in his arms. His eyes were now beholding the salvation which God had prepared for all peoples. God’s promise was beginning to be fulfilled, right before his eyes (Luke 2:29-35).
  • We see it in Anna, a prophetess who was standing nearby at the time. She had long been looking for “redemption in Jerusalem,” and now here He was in their midst (Luke 2:36-38).
  • We see it again in the witness of John the Baptist, who came in fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy about the voice crying in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the LORD” (Luke 3:4-6, quoting from Isaiah 40). This Messiah, soon to come, would baptize with the Holy Spirit and also with fire (Luke 3:16-17). He would gather in the “wheat” (the just) and burn the “chaff” (the wicked). All this in fulfillment of major prophetic themes and promises in the Old Testament.
  • We see it when Jesus was baptized of John (Luke 3:21-22). The Holy Spirit descended upon Him and the voice of the Father said, “You are My beloved son; in You I am well pleased.” This echoes the messianic passage in Isaiah 42:1, “Behold! My Servant whom I uphold, My Elect One in whom My soul delights! I have put My Spirit upon Him.”
  • We read it in the genealogy Luke gives, where he traces the lineage of Jesus all the way back through King David, all the way back through Abraham, all the way back to Adam, and from Adam to God (Luke 3:23-38).
  • We see it when, after His baptism, Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness, where He was tested by the devil. “If You are the Son of God …” came the taunts, and the offer of all the kingdoms of the world — on the devil’s terms. But Jesus the Messiah would fulfill God’s promise only in God’s way (Luke 4:1-13).
This brings us to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. He returned from the wilderness “in the power of the Spirit” and began preaching in the synagogues of Galilee and the surrounding regions (Luke 4:14). Mark’s account puts it this way: After the temptation in the wilderness, John was put in prison, and “Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel!” (Mark 1:14-15). Matthew’s account shows Jesus, after the temptation, coming to Galilee with the message, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). A fuller explanation is given in Matthew 5, in what we call the Sermon on the Mount (I like to call it The Sermon of Heaven on Earth, which is what the kingdom of God is about). It begins, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3).

Luke, however, chose to use a different moment to highlight Jesus’ announcement of the kingdom. After the temptation, when Jesus began preaching in Galilee and the regions, He came to Nazareth, his home town. On the Sabbath day, He went into the synagogue, where He was invited to give a Scripture lesson. They handed Him the scroll of Isaiah, which He opened up to the portion we know as Isaiah 61 (there were no chapter and verse divisions in those days):
The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
(Luke 4:18-19, quoting Isaiah 61:1-2)
It was a passage about the messianic age and the one anointed with the Spirit of God. It was about good news for the poor, healing the broken, freeing the captive and oppressed. It was about the time of God’s favor, of God’s kingdom coming into the world, with God’s anointed King establishing righteousness (that is, setting everything right).

Jesus closed the scroll, handed it to the attendant and sat down — the sign that He was about to give the lesson. All eyes were on Him as He began to teach:
Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.
This was a stunning announcement, and from one of their own, the son of Joseph the carpenter. Jesus knew that many of them would not be willing to accept it, because it did not come in the way and the form they wanted. But He also knew that, though many in Israel would reject it, many Gentiles would gladly welcome it. And that morning, He told the congregation as much. This infuriated them and they wanted to throw him over the cliff — literally.

But He somehow passed through their midst unscathed, and He went to other towns to preach the message. “I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, because for this purpose I have been sent” (Luke 4:43).

There is fulfillment all the way through. But we will stop here for now.

Monday, July 23, 2012

Have You Met Lydia?


There is an old song that goes, “Lydia, oh Lydia! Say, have you met Lydia? Lydia the Tattooed Lady.” Okay, so post this is not about that Lydia. It’s about Lydia the “Seller of Purple.”
Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. (Acts 16:14)
Paul and associates, concluding from a dream Paul had that the Spirit of God was leading them to minister the gospel in Macedonia, came to Philippi and settled there for a little while. On the Sabbath, as was his habit, Paul and team went to speak with the Jews about Jesus, whom God had anointed to be King.

However, there was no synagogue at Philippi. Apparently there were not enough Jewish men to form one (Jewish law required a minyan, a quorum of ten Jewish males). But there was a group of Jewish woman who regularly met to pray, at a place outside the city and down by the riverside. So Paul went and spoke with them about King Jesus.

One woman was very prominent in that gathering, a well-to-do woman named Lydia. She was from Thyatira, which was in the region called Lydia (in what is now western Turkey), in Asia Minor. She was a “seller of purple.” The Greek word for this is a technical term that referred to a guild that produced and sold richly dyed cloths. They were, shall we say, “comfortable.”

Another thing we should note about her is that, although she was praying Jewish prayers with the Jewish women, she herself was not Jewish. Luke says she “worshipped God,” which was a way of saying that she was a proselyte. Though a Gentile, she revered the God of Israel. So here she was with the others, and she heard the good news Paul was preaching about Messiah.

In his letter to the believers at Rome, Paul said that “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). And that is what happened here. The word of God came and opened Lydia’s heart to embrace the message of Jesus the Messiah. God initiated, she responded and the grace of God bore its fruit in her life.
And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” So she persuaded us. (Acts 16:15)
She turned to the Lord, believed and was baptized, which is the pattern we find consistently throughout the book of Acts. It was the natural progression, and Luke speaks of it in passing: “when she and her household were baptized.” Oh, and not only was Lydia herself baptized but so were those of her household who were with her that day. Her faith became a source of influence for them and they believed also and were baptized. Church tradition says that Lydia was baptized by Silas, with assistance from a deacon on the team (see the image at top).

Lydia was so grateful, she invited Paul and his associates to come and stay at her home, “if you judge me to be faithful to the Lord.” The sense of “if” here is “since. Having baptized her, it was obvious that they did indeed consider her faith in the Lord to be real. So they went and enjoyed the hospitality of her house — she simply would not take no for an answer!

There is one more thing that is significant about this encounter. Remember that Paul had originally intended to go to Asia Minor with the gospel, until he was redirected by the Holy Spirit to come to Macedonia instead. And now here at Philippi, in Macedonia, the first one to come to the Lord was a woman from Asia Minor. She is regarded in Church history as the first convert to Christianity in Europe.

Focus Questions
  1. How was the grace of God evident in Lydia’s life?
  2. How do you suppose God opened her heart to consider the message about Messiah?
  3. How was faith evident in Lydia’s life?




There is Always Joy!
There is Always Joy!
Paul’s Letters to the Jesus Believers at Philippi
Bite-Size Studies Through the Book of Philippians
by Jeff Doles

Preview with Amazon’s “Look Inside.”

Available in paperback and Kindle (Amazon), epub (Google and iTunes) and PDF.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Dynamics of the Kingdom of God


Christians often speak of the kingdom of God as something that we bring in or advance in the world. But the New Testament uses different language to speak of the dynamics of the kingdom. First, it is God’s kingdom. It comes from and belongs to Him. It comes into the world as a matter of God’s grace and the initiative is always His. Our part is to respond to it in faith. Let’s examine some of the dynamics.
  • The kingdom of God has come. Mark tells us that Jesus came preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God: “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:14-15). In saying, “The time is fulfilled,” He was announcing that the wait was over. “The kingdom of God is at hand,” means that it has now come into the world. The proper response is to turn to God and believe the good news about His kingdom, and God’s Anointed King, Jesus.
  • We seek the kingdom of God. Jesus said, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matthew 6:33). The Greek word for “seek” does not speak of a casual activity but of an intense and focused one. The kingdom of God has come and we are to make it our priority in everything. In one of His parables, Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it” (Matthew 13:45-46). Seeking the kingdom of God is about our purpose and priority.
  • The kingdom of God is anticipated yet unexpected. Jesus said, “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matthew 12:28). The idea of the Greek word phthano is that what was previously anticipated has now come. Ironically, though, for those who are unprepared for it, the kingdom comes suddenly and unexpectedly. So the J. B. Phillips translation puts it this way: “But if I am expelling devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has swept over you unawares!” On the other hand, there are some who, though they do not expect the kingdom, are ready to receive it. In another of His parables, Jesus said, “the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Matthew 13:44). The man was not looking for it, but coming upon it, he recognized its value and gave everything for it.
  • The kingdom of God is given to us. Jesus said, “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). It is an inheritance we receive from the Father. When Jesus returns to judge the nations, He will say to those at His right hand, who received His brothers and sisters and the message of the gospel, “Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34).
  • We receive the kingdom of God. “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear” (Hebrews 12:28). The Greek word for “receiving” is paralambano, from para, what is near, and lambano, to take hold. Receiving the kingdom means taking it unto ourselves. It is not passive but active. The kingdom is given to us, but we respond to it by taking hold of it.
  • The kingdom of God is forcefully advancing. Jesus said, “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing and forceful men lay hold of it” (Matthew 11:12 NIV). There is a parallel passage in Luke: “The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached [Greek, euaggelizo, ‘gospeled’], and everyone is pressing into it” (Luke 16:16). The kingdom of God continues to press into the world, and those ready to receive the good news about it are pressing into it.
  • We proclaim the kingdom. The end of the book of Acts finds Paul under house arrest in Rome, but still continuing his ministry there. “Then Paul dwelt two whole years in his own rented house, and received all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no one forbidding him” (Acts 28:30-31). The word for “preach” here means to announce or proclaim. In the Great Commission, Jesus announced that all authority has been given to Him in heaven and on earth. Then He sent out His disciples to announce the good news to all the world and make disciples of all nations.
The kingdom of God has come into the world because of God’s grace and initiative. It is His kingdom but is given to us as an inheritance. The nature of the kingdom is that it starts small, like a seed, but increases until it pervades everything. Our part is to believe the good news of the kingdom and turn to the King, to take hold of the kingdom, seek the rule and reign of God in everything and proclaim it wherever we go.

Friday, July 20, 2012

Defining the Gospel of the Kingdom


Someone asked me what “the gospel of the kingdom of God” is. Here is a brief answer.

To see what the gospel of the kingdom of God is, let’s look where the Gospel of Mark tells us that Jesus came preaching it (Mark 1:14). We find it in the very next verse, where Jesus said, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). The promises of God and the expectations of the prophets in the Old Testament were all about the coming age of God’s kingdom. When Jesus said, “The time is fulfilled,” He was announcing that the wait is over. When He said, “The kingdom of God is at hand,” He was saying that it was now coming into the world.

The kingdom of God is the rule and reign of God. It is the will of God being done earth as it is in heaven, just as Jesus taught us to pray (Matthew 6:10). Jesus preached and taught about the kingdom, what it is about, what it looks like, and He even manifested the kingdom itself through healing diseases, expelling demons and through the other miracles He performed — they revealed the power of God and the kingdom of God.

The end result of the kingdom will be that all things in heaven and on earth will be gathered together into one in Jesus, God’s anointed King (Ephesians 1:10). And all things in heaven and on earth will be reconciled to God by King Jesus, having made peace through the blood of the Cross (Colossians 1:20).

We are not yet at that point, and the kingdom has not yet come in all its fullness. That will not happen until King Jesus returns. But it has already begun. We are presently living in between the times of the beginning of the kingdom and its complete fulfillment. As the apostle John said, “The darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining” (1 John 2:8).

Now, within the good news of the kingdom of God, God has provided a plan of salvation by which we can enter into the kingdom and have eternal life (which is the life of the age to come, that is, the life of the kingdom of God). We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus, God's Anointed King. We enter into the kingdom of God by being “born again” through faith in King Jesus (John 3:3). But the plan of salvation is only part of the gospel. The gospel is bigger than whether you and I go to heaven when we die, it is as big as the kingdom of God. Eternal life is not just about the age to come, it is about this life as well, because the age to come, the age of God's kingdom, has already broken through into this present age.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

A Dream of Macedonia


Today I am beginning new series, a study through the book of Philippians, Paul’s letters to Jesus believers at Philippi. But first, a little back story.

Open up just about any Bible to the back pages and you will find a section of maps, usually in full color plates. Almost always, you will find one titled something about “Paul’s Missionary Journeys.” Look in the upper left section of that map and there is Italy. To the right you will find Macedonia, and below that, Greece. A little further right, you will see the regions of Galatia and Phyrgia.

Phrygia and Galatia are where the apostle Paul and his mission team had been ministering, about AD 50, and they desired to go on into the western region of Asia Minor. But the Holy Spirit would not let them. So they skirted around to the west until they came to Mysia, to the north. They had thought to cross eastward from there over to Bithynia, but again, the Holy Spirit stopped them. So they continued westward to Troas.

At Troas, Paul had a dream, a vision in the night. In this vision, he saw a man of Macedonia who begged him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” That settled the matter for Paul and his ministry associates. Since the Holy Spirit would not let them minister in Asia or Bithynia, and now Paul had this vision calling them to something that had not been on their itinerary, they concluded that the Lord was calling to them to go to Macedonia and preach the good news about King Jesus there. So they set sail from Troas to the small Greek island of Samothrace. The next day, they landed at Neapolis, and from there came to Philippi, about ten miles inland.

All of this is in Acts 16:6-12, a transitional passage of how the Lord interrupted Paul’s plans and directed his way for a very significant change of course. Some very important times of ministry lay ahead for Paul and his team at Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, Corinth and Ephesus. However, we will be focusing on what happened at Philippi.

Focus Questions
  1. How to you suppose the Holy Spirit might have kept Paul and his associates from going on to Asia and Bithynia?
  2. How did those prior actions of the Holy Spirit give greater significance to Paul’s dream?
  3. Do you think God still leads us in this way today?



There is Always Joy!
There is Always Joy!
Paul’s Letters to the Jesus Believers at Philippi
Bite-Size Studies Through the Book of Philippians
by Jeff Doles

Preview with Amazon’s “Look Inside.”

Available in paperback and Kindle (Amazon), epub (Google and iTunes) and PDF.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Fresh and Flourishing and Full of Energy


Just saw a little thing on Facebook, perhaps you’ve seen it, too: A sign that breaks down the stages of life into three categories:

  • Teen Age: Have Time + Energy … but No Money
  • Working Age: Have Money + Energy … but No Time
  • Old Age: Have Time + Money … but No Energy
This was said in jest, of course, but even in jest it can have a powerful influence on the way one thinks. We start talking it, we start thinking it, we start believing it … and we might well end up receiving it. My mouth, my mind, my heart and my life were created for better things than that. And I have better things to confess and look forward to when I get old:
Bless the LORD, O my soul …
Who satisfies your mouth with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
(Psalm 103:5)
My wife and I have added this to our table grace at meal times: “You satisfy our desires with good things and renew our youth like the eagle’s. (The other day, Suz asked if I had noticed that my hair is getting darker. Maybe. Sometimes it does look that way to me.)

We are both in our fifties — we call it “middle age,” because we expect to live a long time. But one day when we reach “old age” (maybe when we are about 90 or so), we are looking forward to good things because of the goodness of the LORD.
The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree,
He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
Those who are planted in the house of the LORD
Shall flourish in the courts of our God.
They shall still bear fruit in old age;
They shall be fresh and flourishing,
To declare that the LORD is upright;
He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.
(Psalm 92:12-15)
Instead of saying that we will have no energy when we are old, this is our confession*:
The LORD satisfies our desires with good things and renews our youth like the eagle’s. We will still bear fruit in old age. We will be fresh and flourishing in His courts, and full of energy to declare that our lives our built on Him, and He is right in all He does.



Personal Confessions from the Psalms
Personal Confessions from the Psalms
Prayers and Affirmations for a Life of Faith, Happiness and Awe in God
by Jeff Doles

Preview with Amazon’s “Look Inside.”

Available in paperback and Kindle (Amazon), epub (Google and iTunes) and PDF.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

The Priority of His Presence

Therefore do not worry, saying “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear … But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. (Matthew 6:31, 33)

Jesus spoke these words in His “Sermon on the Mount” (which I like to call “The Sermon of Heaven on Earth”). But they are reminiscent of the words spoken by Haggai the prophet to the governmental and religious leaders of Judah. Judah was the southern portion of the divided kingdom of Israel. After years of exile in Babylonian captivity, they were finally allowed to return to their homeland (though still under foreign rule).

Work on the restoration of the temple at Jerusalem began, but then stalled for about 15 years because of Persian politics. In that time, the Jews apparently were content to do without it. They had their lives to lead and personal concerns to attend to. They had gotten used to the way things were under the Babylonian system, thinking the way the Gentiles think. And the house of the LORD went neglected.

But the temple of God was never about a building, it was about a presence — the Presence. It was God’s dwelling place among His people, His home on earth. It was the place they knew they could always find Him. To be content without the temple was to be content without the presence of God in their lives.
So God spoke to His people by Haggai the prophet: “Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?” (Haggai 1:4). He challenged them to take a good long look at themselves and the shape they were in: “Consider your ways.”
You have sown much, and bring in little;
You eat, but do not have enough;
You drink, but you are not filled with drink;
You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm;
And he who earns wages,
Earns wages to put into a bag with holes.
(Haggai 1:6)
In neglecting God, they were ignoring the source of their provision and prosperity, their sustenance and security. God challenged them again to take a hard look at themselves and then to do something about it. “Consider your ways! Go up to the mountains and bring wood and build the temple, that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified” (vv. 7-8).

This was on the first day of the sixth month. By the twenty-fourth day of the month, work on the house of the LORD resumed. Three months later, the word of the LORD came to them again:
Consider now from this day forward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, from the day that the foundation of the LORD’s temple was laid — consider it: Is the seed still in the barn? As yet the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have not yielded fruit. But from this day I will bless you. (Haggai 2:18-19)
This was not the day things began to change for them — that happened three months earlier, when they decided to make the glory of God their priority. But this was the day the change was confirmed and began to manifest: “From this day I will bless you.”

On this same day, God spoke once more, this time with powerful prophetic force that signaled the time of full and final deliverance for His people.
I will shake heaven and earth.
I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms;
I will destroy the strength of the Gentile kingdoms.
I will overthrow the chariots
And those who ride in them;
The horses and their riders shall come down.
(Haggai 2:21-22)
By the time of Jesus, they were still waiting for this prophecy to be fulfilled, for the kingdom of God to be established on the earth. It is hard for me to imagine that Jesus did not have the word of the LORD through Haggai in mind when He spoke these words in His sermon on the mount:
Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Therefore do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. (Matthew 6:25-33)
The way of the world is to worry about how we will eat, what we will wear, where we will live. It is the mindset of Babylonian captivity. It is a system that is passing away because the kingdom of God has come into the world, in fulfillment of the ancient prophecy.

Our job now is to seek His kingdom (that is, His rule and reign) and His righteousness (that is, His way of doing and setting things right) — the priority of His presence and glory in everything we do. When that becomes our focus we will not have to worry about anything else; God will take care of us. Keep your eyes on King Jesus and follow Him.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

The Word by Which We Understand All Words

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)
The Greek word for “word” is logos. It speaks of meaning and purpose, of logic and reason. The Logos John speaks about is a Person who presents the wisdom of God and is, indeed, God. This Word is identified as the one who “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). He is Jesus the Messiah, the Son of the Father.

This Word is further identified as the Creator: “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made” (John 1:3). When we read in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” it is speaking of the Word, of Jesus. He is the Creator.

John the Baptist gives this testimony concerning Jesus: “For He who God has sent speaks the words of God” (John 3:34). The Word is God and therefore speaks the word of God. Indeed, Jesus is the Word by which we understand all the words of God. John begins his account of the Gospel with the same words that begin the Old Testament, connecting the gospel of Jesus the Messiah with God’s original purpose.

Not only Genesis, but all the Old Testament scriptures speak of Jesus, as He told the Jewish leaders. “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me ... If you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me” (John 5:39, 46).

After His resurrection, Jesus spoke with the Emmaus disciples: “And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:27). These were not merely the merely the particular messianic prophecies scattered throughout, but the whole trajectory and thrust of the Old Testament pointed to the fulfillment of all God’s promises and purposes found in the Messiah, Jesus.

The words of Scripture are ultimately about Jesus. All their meaning is centered on Him and apart from Him we cannot understand their fullness. In Him we have the complete and ultimate revelation of God.
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power … (Hebrews 1:1-3)
Jesus is not only the Word by which we understand the words of God, He is the Word by which we understand all other words. For the world itself comes forth from the Word of God. “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible” (Hebrews 11:3). Heaven and earth were created by the Word, Jesus, and all things are sustained by Him. The reality of the physical realm as well as the spiritual find their meaning and purpose in Him and cannot be fully understood apart from Him.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

The Life of the Resurrection


Eternal life is the life of the age to come. Yesterday we saw that the age to come is the age of the kingdom of God, and eternal life is the life of the kingdom. But there is also another way to speak about the age to come, something else that is an important part of it: The age to come is the age of the resurrection of the righteous. This was the Jewish expectation. It is spoken of in Daniel 12:2, of the time when “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life [zoen aionion in the Septuagint], some to shame and everlasting contempt.”

When Lazarus died, Jesus said to his sister Martha, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha answered, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” She was expressing the Jewish hope about the age to come. Taking up that point of expectation, Jesus responded with a startling revelation about Himself: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me shall never die” (John 11:23-26).

Jesus Himself is the resurrection life of the age to come, and all who believe in Him shall live. But this life does not begin sometime in the future — it begins now. Jesus said,
Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. (John 5:24-25)
“The hour is coming and now is,” He said, when those who hear His voice will live. This is resurrection life at work even in this present time. Even so, there is also another resurrection coming, the resurrection of the body. Jesus went on to say,
Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth — those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation. (John 5:28-29)
We can hear the echo of Daniel 12:2, that some will wake to everlasting life and others to everlasting contempt. However, that hour, the hour for the resurrection of the body from the grave, is coming but is not yet here. Even so, resurrection life, the life of the age to come, is already at work in us. Paul said, “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8:11).

In his letter to the believers at Ephesus, Paul prayed that they might know “what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 1:19-20). Paul went on to say that God has “made us alive together with Christ … and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:5-6). This is not future promise but present reality. It is resurrection life now, the age to come breaking into this present age. In Ephesians 3, Paul wrote that God “is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.” The “power that works in us” in Ephesians 3:20 is the same power mentioned in Ephesians 1:19, the power that raised Jesus from the dead.

Indeed, this resurrection life that we have now (and the coming resurrection of the body) is the resurrection life of the Lord Jesus Himself. He is called the “firstborn from the dead” (Colossians 1:18). Because He lives, we live, partaking of His life. Paul spoke of the “mystery” of “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). This is the reality Paul himself confessed, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith I the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

This is eternal life, the life of the resurrection. It is the life of the risen Jesus and belongs to all those who belong to Him. It begins now and lasts forever.