Our assignment for the next several weeks is the book of Numbers. It is called Numbers because the Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint called it “Arithmoi” after the lists recorded in the first few chapters.  The Latin Vulgate translation picked up on the Greek title and named the book Numeri from which the English translations derived the title of Numbers for the book. The Hebrew Bible’s title for the book is the one I would have kept.  It is “Bemidbar” which translates “in the desert” and is really more descriptive of the content of the book than simply a book of numbers.  It would be…

The Armor of God One of the downsides of Bible study is we get in the habit of making personal applications for what Paul intended for the Church as a whole.  That’s certainly the case here. Paul is not writing for personal devotions but for the entire Church. If we are not clear on that then we reduce what he is saying to purely individual applications.  We will be a mob of armored up individuals instead of the Body that Paul intends. We will be primarily concerned with our own individual equipment instead of seeing that Paul is describing protection for the whole Body.  So, when he says, “Put on…

We’ve come to the fifth commandment this morning. First, God gives the four commandments that focus on the nature of God and our relationship with him. Now we see the fifth commandment that comes directly after that. What is the nature of our relationship with our family? It’s almost as important as our relationship with God. After the fifth commandment will be the description of our behavior within a broader community or tribe but this relationship – family – is central to our lives and the life of our community. That is why it follows immediately after the first set of commandments. There can be no society without strong families…

There are a few times when it helps to start at the end and read back to the beginning.  Did you know that copy editors are trained to read a page backwards? Otherwise, they get caught in the flow of a thought and their mind skips over the errors and fills in the blanks.  This is a good example of starting at the end and working backwards. Paul writes in verse 32 that “this is a profound mystery” and we could have a few responses to that if we started at the beginning and worked our way to the end. “Well, if all of this is a mystery then why…

Normally, we think of chapters as the beginning of something new – a new stage of life, new development or new thought. There is a break, we turn the page and then start the next chapter.  As you probably know, chapters and verses were not added to the Bible until much later than the original writings. A man named Stephen Langton divided the Bible into chapters in the year 1227. Langton was a professor at the University of Paris at the time and later became the Archbishop of Canterbury. Modern verse division for the New Testament was the work of Robert Stephanus, a French printer. He divided the Greek text…

“So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.  They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.  Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.” That’s pretty close to how I hear Republicans and Democrats describe each other today.  There is not much middle ground and it would be pretty easy for any…

It did not take long for the early church to create some basic structure.  Of course, for the Jewish Christians, there was the existing model of the synagogue which was the local organization with different roles for members.  While worship and sacrifice were focused on the Temple in Jerusalem until the destruction of the Temple around the time of Paul’s death, synagogues were local assemblies of believers. “Synagogue” is a Greek word that literally means a gathering of people but also refers to the place of assembly. Although the origin of the synagogue as a Jewish institution is unclear, by the first century they were found in both Palestine and…

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name.  I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” One…

The last several verses of Chapter 1 are soaring.  “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.…

Before looking at the text let’s look at a little of Paul’s relationship with the church at Ephesus. Turn to Acts 19. We can see four things that are special: First, Paul encounters disciples who have received only the baptism of John and never heard of the Holy Spirit.  We’ve talked about this before but it is worth repeating. The baptism of John was the baptism of repentance and was almost a rival for the baptism of the Holy Spirit in the early church.  It was the baptism received by Apollos – the brilliant preacher in Ephesus. We’ve looked at that before and we know that means Apollos and others…