Philippians Bible Study - Introduction

Philippians is a great letter from Paul. For centuries Christians have considered letter to be one of the “gems” of the Bible. Much of this is because it is such a short book of the Bible, but seems to have a very heavy concentration of “good stuff” for the Christian life. It is a very practical letter that is easily applied to our own lives, but yet still rich in theological truth. There are just a few things we need to understand about this letter in order to really understand what Paul is writing about.

The Place

Philippians was written to a people that Paul was very fond of. In Acts 16:9, you will find the account of Paul having a vision about a “Man of Macedonia” calling for him to come to Macedonia. This is a critical point in the missionary journey of Paul. He has had great success and has wanted to expand his ministry into Asia, but God had a different plan and the door was shut. While seeking what would be next in his ministry he has this vision. This vision is important to us because the city of Philippi was evangelized because of this vision.

The City of Philippi is located in present-day Greece. This city enjoyed the privilege of being a colony of Rome. This gave the city all of the rights of the Roman Empire; it was in fact considered an extension of Rome itself. The people would be considered Roman citizens; they were exempt from the taxes that you would have to pay if you were living in areas of Rome. This is one of the reasons that we find political tones in this letter. Paul talks about “Higher Citizenship” and other political matters, we will look at these more when we dig into the text.

Philippi was not a large city, population was between 10 and 15 thousand, far smaller than other cities that Paul wrote letters to. It was a mixed city, with about 40% of the population being Romans who moved to Philippi after it became a colony and 60% Greeks. If you wandered around the city you would find Greek gods like Zeus and Roman ones like Diana worshipped, but you would not likely find many Jewish followers. When Paul came to Philippi, he and his partners really had their work cut out for them. But, God was in it and Paul had much success in the region.

The Ministry

Paul loved the people of Philippi, and they have partnered with him for the advancement of his ministry. Today, many missionaries will send letters to the churches and people that are supporting their ministry. We see the same thing in this letter. Paul, the missionary, is writing to the people who are supporting him. He refers to them as “Partners in the Gospel” (1:5). God has blessing the ministry of Paul, through the giving and the prayers of the church at Philippi.

Now, when you read through this letter you would think that Paul has a great and peaceful ministry in Philippi, without conflict. But very much the opposite is true. Paul made some enemies in the city, as we read in Acts.

Acts 16:16-24 (NIV)
Paul and Silas in Prison


16 Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. 17 She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” 18 She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.


19 When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. 20 They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar 21 by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.”
22 The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. 23 After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. 24 When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
It may seem odd to begin a study on the Letter to the Philippians by looking at a passage of scripture from the Book of Acts. But, for us to really understand the love that Paul had for the people of Philippi, we have to see what he overcame. Most people if they encountered this kind of resistance would move on. Paul has just been beaten and thrown in jail by the people of the city. They were enraged, that Paul would bring his “Jewish” practices into their community and ruin the livelihood of this slave owner by casting out the demons that allowed this girl to perform fortune-telling.

It really doesn’t seem like the people of Philippi were all that ready for the Gospel of Jesus Christ at this point. And yet a great ministry was born in this city. Even though Paul and Silas were beaten and jailed, they didn’t give up. They knew that God had called them to this city, that God had chosen them to evangelize them. A little bit of bruises and blood was not going to stop them. I don’t know about you, but if I were beaten and jailed for the cause of Christ in a city, I think I would do as Jesus said and “dust off my sandals” as I left. But, Paul sticks with it and from this city a church is born and Paul gains the partners that he needed in his missionary journey.

Back in the Swing of Things

A lot has happened in the past two months since my last post on GospelScoop.  I have accepted a new pastorate and moved my family.  So now that we are settled in, I hope to be able to share what God is laying on my heart with you all again.  In the coming days the devotions and Bible Studies should resume!

Blessings,

Pastor Kris

Happy Thanksgiving from GospelScoop

Psalm 69:30 I will praise the name of God with song, And shall magnify Him with thanksgiving.

In the United States, Today is Thanksgiving, a day which we give thanks for everything that we have been blessed with over the past year.  God has truly blessed each of us, with family, friends, and His love.  Today as we go about our day spending time with family, eating way to much food , and giving thanks.  We should never forget how God has blessed us.  If there is anyone worthy of our thanks it is the God and Creator of this universe, who has paid the ultimate price, sacrificing Himself, that we may have life.  Today, let us not get trapped in the commercialization of the season, but realize why we celebrate this day on forth Thursday of November each year. 

Let us give thanks today and everyday!

Jude Bible Study - Part 3 - Living Like Animals 1:8-10

In today's section of the book of Jude we see just how passionate Jude is about telling the Christians of his time that they were not living the life the God had wanted for them and that Jesus had sacrificed his life to give them. The early Christians, as we discussed earlier, where starting to be led astray by false teachers. In verse 8, Jude begins to tell us what these false teachers were doing:

8. Likewise also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries. (NKJV)

Sound familiar? The Message Bible makes this a little easier to understand it reads

8. This is exactly the same program of these latest infiltrators: dirty sex, rule and rulers thrown out, glory dragged in the mud.(The Message)

Now does that sound familar? Does that not sound like many in leadership in churches today? Leaders, who much like in Jude's time, are leading the followers of Christ astray.

9.Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!"
10. But these speak evil of whatever they do not know; and whatever they know naturally, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves

Michael is probably brought in to show the contrast between the dirty leaders and a pure angel who speaks only good. Remember Daniel called Michael the "Great Prince" and as the head angel he is one who is truly in authority. Jude then goes on to speak of the Fallen Angel Lucifer who was in a disagreement with Michael over the body of Moses. Instead of fighting the devil all Michael did was speak the words "The Lord Rebuke you!" and it was done. We have the power over the devil and all it takes is speaking the name of Jesus for him to scurry off like a dog with his tail between his legs.
In verse 10, we read that these false teachers were talking about all sorts of things that they didn't know anything about. Do you know anyone like that? But, instead the live like animals, like beast, and because of this they are corrupt.

Jude Bible Study - Part 2 - The Fate of Godless Man - 1:5-7

Last time, we discussed Jude's warning about the false teachers that were rising up in his time and which continues today. The second part of Jude he reminds us of the wrath toward those who do not follow his commandments.

Jude 1:5-7

5 Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who savedt a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.6 And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire,t serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
(ESV)

Jude wants to remind the church that even though God protected the Israelites and removed them from Egypt he later destroyed most of the same people for not believing. We are not to assume because God has been merciful to us in the past that we are free from his wrath. The only way to be free from all danger. Likewise Jude talks about the angels, who where made pure and in the image of God, who on their own free-will left heaven and became sinners. We are all familiar with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the two cities from the Old Testament which were so sinful and taken to unnatural sexual acts that God had to destroy the city by fire so that its impurity would not spread. We live in a society today that is a lot like those cities, sexual promiscuity is a norm, sin is glorified, and being holy and righteous is ridiculed. That is why we are called to not be part of this world even though we must live in it. We are here in this world so that we may reach the sinners and bring them into the Glory of Christ. It was not that long ago that each of us was a lost and alone sinners, but because of grace we are alive in Jesus and dead to the world. Today reread the book of Jude, but this time use a different version of the bible such as The Message or TNIV both of which are available free to use at http://www.youversion.com

Prayer 101: When I Pray ... I Worship

Psalms 1:1-2

 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. (ESV)

In my last post we talked about praising God being the first step to prayer. This week we are going to dig deeper into what we are doing when we Pray to God. We come to Him thanking Him for the things He has done and thanking Him for the things we believe He will do in the future and that is the heart of praise. But, there is a second part of our prayer and that is worshiping God, we worship God for who He is, not what He has done, or what He is capable of doing, but simply for who He is. He is God, the creator of all and He is worthy of our worship.

We really do serve a God who is worthy of being worshipped. Look at the accounts in the Gospel. Zacchaeus heard that Jesus was coming, but he knew he was to short to be able to see the face of God through the crowd, so what does he do he climbs a tree just to get a glimpse at this one called Jesus. He wanted to see the face of God, and God saw him up in the tree and what happens. Prayer is like that. We are worshiping God to see His face to recognize Him for who He is. How many of us would climb a tree to be able to see the face of Jesus? I would hope we all would, or at least try too! Just as in the story of Zacchaeus, when we worship God and seek to see His face He sees ours. Now here is the hard part, our prayer is to be a form of worship to God. Worship is looking at God in reverence and placing Him above all else. See the problem here? If prayer is a form of worship to God, then that means when we come to prayer we need to put all else beside us and put of focus on Him. We have to put away the distractions of this world and talk to the one who created the world. When we can put our focus truly on Him during our time of prayer, then will we be worshiping. This is a difficult part, we are not a one track mind society, we like to be doing multiple things at the same time to be more "efficient." We like to multi-task and get stuff done. So it is difficult for most of us to have that one track mind during prayer to put all of our focus on God. But, This is exactly what we need to be doing. I want us this week to work on this. Trying praying and focus only on God. Turn the TV off, the Radio off, lock yourself in your prayer closet away from everything else and just seek His face.

Jude Bible Study - Part 1 1:1-4

Jude is a wonderful little book of the New Testament, but is also one that we tend o ignore of fail to see the significance of, I want to take a few days and look through this book, discovering what makes it important. Let's begin at the beginning of the book of Jude.

1. Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept fort Jesus Christ: 2. May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.

Lets look at this introduction to who Jude is, in verse one, he calls himself a servant of Jesus and the brother of James. As many of you may remember James is Jesus' half-brother which would make Jude his half-brother as well. Jude's name is actually Judas, but because the compilers of the early Bibles did not want people to think that this was the Judas who betrayed Jesus, the referred to him instead as Jude. Jude is so respectful to his relationship with his master that he doesn't mention that the one who he serves is also his brother. Because a servant in this time period would think not of themselves, but of their master's will and gives all to the service of the master. This is the same kind of service that we should give to Jesus, our lord and master. Jude then goes on to say who he is writing to, all who are called. The Bible tells us that we are all called, called out of the world and out of sin. Jude is writing this to the early church who has began to be led astray by false teachers.

3. Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints

Jude wants to talk about the salvation that we all share though the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but instead he feels like he must talk about something much more troubling. He is now writing to remind them of the true faith that was given to them. See in the early church there were many false teachers that were popping up, trying to change the direction of the early church. These heritics were trying to take the focus off of Jesus and the teachings of the apostles and instead teach their own false gospel. This is still hapening to this very day, and that is why we can learn so much from what Jude is writing to these early Christians.

4. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Instead of talking about the salvation of Jesus instead, which was the intent of his letter, he must talk about the false teachers who have positioned themselves in the leadership of the early church, much as they still do even today. This entire letter is written to warn the church of attacks they will suffer and to encourage them to be prepared. These attacks are not going to be of the physical warfare, but of spiritual warfare. As Christians we are all defenders of the faith, protectors of the true Gospel. This is not a task we should take lightly! I'm sure after reading the Book of Jude you will be able to think of examples of earthly men who have managed to slide into our churches under the pretense of "Men of God" only to lead the flock astray with their false teachings, and unbiblical doctrine. Today read the full book of Jude in your favorite Bible translation and then come back and we will continue our study of Jude.

All Scripture, unless otherwise noted, is from the New International Version