Tag: unity
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Text Driven Tuesday: Ephesians 1
The Apostle, Paul, wrote Ephesians from prison in AD 60-62 to the saints. While the letter certainly made it to Ephesus, it may have simply been written “to the saints,” because “at Ephesus” is missing from three important early manuscripts. The tone of Ephesians is more generic than Paul’s other letters. The letter is about…
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Ephesians 1; Text Driven Tuesday
The Apostle, Paul, wrote Ephesians from prison in AD 60-62 to the saints. While the letter certainly made it to Ephesus, it may have simply been written “to the saints,” because “at Ephesus” is missing from three important early manuscripts. The tone of Ephesians is more generic than Paul’s other letters. The letter is about…
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It’s Been A While, But I’m Finally in a Healthy Frame of Mind
Hurt is hard. I realized in the last month that it has been more than a year since I have done any serious writing. I had given up on ministry and started my own business because, frankly, I was done being hurt. At the beginning of 2023, a friend of mine (a couple, actually) told…
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Daily Devotional: Ephesians 2:17-22
Paul quotes Isaiah 57:19, in which He declares peace to all peoples of the earth—those near to Him and those far from Him as proof that God is the God of all people, not only the Jews. He is building one spiritual nation for Himself, not two. Through Christ, both Jew and Gentile have their…
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Why I Determine to Know Nothing
Paul’s goal is to encourage the church at Corinth toward unity through maturity in the knowledge of Christ (1:10). He explicitly mentioned the wisdom of the world as a source of conflict in the Corinthian church (1:22-23). Today, there is much worldly wisdom in our society and in the church that leads to great division.…
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Christian Unity
Paul has introduced his letter and revealed the faithfulness of God as the foundational doctrine behind his first letter to the church at Corinth. Today, we see the overall exhortation of his letter. The whole letter concerns Christian unity and agreement. Every verse that follows verse 10 is part of the exhortation that the church…
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What is Church Membership? Part 2
Over a six-month period in our Family Meetings at Grace, we will be following the outline of Thom Rainer’s I Am a Church Member. We want to discover, or rediscover, what it means to be a healthy part of a healthy local church because, in a wretched world, it’s easy to forget or lose sight…
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Dear Voters
Dear friends, The election is now over and I am at a loss for many words. I am not at a loss because of any political party or because the candidate who won, won. I am not offended because ‘progress’ might be threatened, and I am not in distress because of some of the remarks of…
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Flood
This week at camp, we talked each evening about part of what it means to trust God. We talked about having courage and we talked about God’s healing power. We likened the relationship with God we sometimes settle with to a bird bath when God desires an ocean for us. Tonight, as we have come…