“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…