January 2015

Colossians 1:12-14: The De-Churched Should Expect a Transfer

Leave a Comment / Church, Colossians, The Church in Exile / By /

We move on to the extension of Paul’s prayer, which in essence is a plea for knowledge of God’s will and the strength to carry it out. What follows is a riff (that goes through verse 23) on how that knowledge, wisdom, understanding, and strength was made available to us and by whom: 11May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully 12giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. […]

Colossians 1:12-14: The De-Churched Should Expect a Transfer Read More »

Colossians 1:11–12a: A Prayer for Strength and Endurance for the Journey

Leave a Comment / Church, Colossians, Spiritual Disciplines, The Church in Exile / By /

11May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully 12giving thanks to the Father, . . . Paul’s prayer for the good folks at the Colossae church continues with a run-on sentence we are unpacking phrase by phrase. Just a little textual note here: Early New Testament manuscripts carry few punctuation marks, so sometimes we can’t really tell where one sentence ends and another begins. I have personally seen the Codex Sinaiticus at the British Museum; not only is there no punctuation

Colossians 1:11–12a: A Prayer for Strength and Endurance for the Journey Read More »

Colossians 1:9b-10: Knowing in Order to Act Wisely

Leave a Comment / Church, Colossians, Spiritual Disciplines, The Church in Exile / By /

9. . . asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. Today in our continuing study of Paul’s letter to the Colossians, we are tarrying a bit around verses 1:9-10 in order to unpack one of the apostle’s cascading sentences. Yesterday I mentioned that the church so easily falls into a pattern that yields bitterness and stagnates growth. This

Colossians 1:9b-10: Knowing in Order to Act Wisely Read More »

Colossians 1:9-11: A Productive Prayer for the Sojourner

Leave a Comment / Church, Colossians, Current Events, PCUSA / By /

9. . . asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. Parents encourage their emerging adult children with “You’ll know what to do,” but those young adults never grow old enough to know precisely what course to take any given moment. I have been a legal adult now for 43.5 years, and sometimes I still feel like I’m a

Colossians 1:9-11: A Productive Prayer for the Sojourner Read More »

Colossians 1:9–14: A Prayer Everyone Needs

4 Comments / Church, Colossians, Sermon on the Mount, Spiritual Disciplines, The Church in Exile / By /

9For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. 11May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully 12giving thanks to the Father, who has

Colossians 1:9–14: A Prayer Everyone Needs Read More »

Colossians 1:3-8: The Gospel Finds Us

Leave a Comment / Church, Colossians / By /

3In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 4for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel 6that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God.

Colossians 1:3-8: The Gospel Finds Us Read More »

A Letter from a Sojourner to Sojourners

1 Comment / Church, Colossians / By /

Today we begin our Bible study on a book of the Bible near and dear to my heart. I confess that Colossians is one of my favorite letters because I learned it from Dallas Willard, who required me and my Doctor of Ministry class to memorize its entire chapter 3 in two weeks time. So while we organize ourselves and get the hang of studying Scripture together, as a spiritual discipline of sojourners, I decided to start in a familiar and warm place. Why I Picked Bible Study as the Means for Healing of Sojourners Assuming that you have been

A Letter from a Sojourner to Sojourners Read More »

A New Dietary Discipline for Sojourners

1 Comment / Church, PCUSA / By /

There are lots of reasons why Christian believers stop going to church. Sin may be at the root of some migration out of fellowship, but people may simply feel they no longer belong or they have sustained an injury of spirit that makes it impossible to stay. My goal here is not to cast blame or to be judgmental, but to find out what is true and see if there is anything we together can do to help. It does not seem a stretch to assert that most people want to feel at home somewhere. A sense of belonging is

A New Dietary Discipline for Sojourners Read More »

When Church Has Betrayed You

3 Comments / Church, The Church in Exile, The Pastoral Call / By /

My studies of “the missional church” in the last seven years have heightened my awareness of those the church-growth movement used to call the unchurched. Sixty years ago, the people in this category were less likely to have ever gone to church to be exposed to the basic claims of the Christian gospel. They were probably in the minority in post WWII American culture, which in the 1950s was seeing the filling and exponential growth of church congregations nationwide. Consequently, attention to the unchurched was largely a ministry of evangelism. During this era, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Campus Crusade for Christ

When Church Has Betrayed You Read More »

Welcome to the New Year, from the Valley

1 Comment / PCUSA, Personal, The Church in Exile / By /

My family and I made an excursion to Death Valley National Park this week. Home to the lowest elevation spot in the Western Hemisphere—Badwater Basin—Death Valley in the summer is unbearably hot and dry (routinely 120° during the day, “cooling down” to 100° at night). We chose the wiser course and journeyed down during the last week of December. Theoretically, the average temperature in December is 65°, but during our stay the temperatures hovered in the mid-50s during the day, going down to the mid-30s at night. The wind howled, blowing sand and dust everywhere. We came home two days

Welcome to the New Year, from the Valley Read More »

Scroll to Top