Category: Epistles – Is his letter to our church?

Epistles ἐπιστολή or Letters

I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read to all the holy brethren.

Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians 

FEATURED SERIES

JUNE 2024 – 2025 —

1 CORINTHIANS 

First letter after ACTS of the Apostles:

Epistle of Paul to the Romans Church

Letters – Is he writing to me?
The short answer: YES.

In their epistles or 1st century church letters the Apostles and other men sent out by Jesus build up the saints [small – ‘s’] or members of local first century churches.

A Disciple or other witness of JESUS would write it. Messengers then delivered these church letters to many isolated worshipers.

Followers of Jesus Christ receive these letters as a major encouragement to their personal faith. Then leaders read them to worshipers of their church.

Although the Epistles 0r Letters to the Church were originally written to churches of the first century,

Romans through Jude will seem like letters to your 21st century church.

  • What do Peter, Paul, John and others tell us we must do?
  • Is he talking about an issue in your 21st c. church as well?
  • How does the writer’s advice, warning, or encouragement to the 1st c. believers apply to you as well
  • Is the writer of this letter talking about something you need to address in your 21st century ‘christian’ life?

Contemporary Application of the Letters (Epistles)

Most New Testament writers take on specific issues confronting faithful followers of Jesus Christ. These same issues continue to confront believers until the Lord’s coming again in these last days.

Certainly Christ our Lord will come again to those God has chosen for eternal life.

Believers currently suffer more than most of you who know Christ in your local church can imagine.

In other lands Christians continue to suffer by the hand of the ungodly.
Go into all the world

A 21st century Common Era church can see and hear nearly any atrocity of man or artificial imagination of sinful man’s mind, yet ‘christians‘ dare not speak of any absolute truth of the Lord God or talk of JESUS CHRIST.

Will YOU comment on Scripture and share the Gospel?

I invite you to read the inspired word of Scripture written in these LETTTERS TO THE CHURCH.

YES, He IS writing to YOU.

Beloved brother or sister in Christ Jesus,

Will you read this ‘CHURCH LETTER’ and talk of JSUS through your comment, sharing and email to me about this ‘Letter to you?”

Roger@talkofJesus.com

  • .. because the days are evil

    .. because the days are evil

    What will it take to convince a world of universal appeasement of all enemies of God that these last days are in action and in deed: evil?

    destruction in Kyiv - Ash Wednesday in the year of our Lord 2022
    KYIV UKRAINE – ASH WEDNESDAY AD 2022

    A Caution about Evil for Christians

    Therefore watch carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise; redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

    Ephesians 5:15-16 HNV
    • What’s the Good News in this (if any)?
    • Do you know the next line of this caution to a Church witnessing to a world which surrounds the Gospel of Christ Jesus with works of darkness?
    Click here for Ephesians 15-17 in: NKJV, PHILLIPS English Paraphrase, German, Greek & Russian
    
    
    
    By Bettina Menzel Marcus GableMarcus Gable The Ukraine war is heading into its fourth week.
    In Mariupol, it is feared that the number of victims could rise to as many as 20,000. The news ticker.

    Wars & rumors of wars

    And Jesus began to say to them, “See to it that no one misleads you.

    Gospel of Mark 13:5 NASB20
    destruction temple ad70

    MARK 13:

    NKJV [EngliUpdated Gdańsk Biblesh]; Ukrainian Bible; Nádej pre kazdého; Russian Synodal Version

    Syria

    “Many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He!’ and they will mislead many.

    “When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; those things must take place; but that is not yet the end.

    statue by UN man beating sword into plowshare

    “For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom;

    there will be earthquakes in various places;

    there will also be famines.

    These things are only the beginning of birth pains.

    Gospel of Mark 13:5-8 – Caution of the One Messiah of God, Jesus

    Beat your plowshares into swords,
    And your pruning hooks into spears;
    Let the weak man say, “I am a warrior.” – Joel 3:10
  • Be Kind to One Another before..

    Be Kind to One Another before..

    teaching children to pray and be kind to one another

    “Be kind to each other before you must say,

    ‘I’m Sorry.’

    Be kind to one another..

    Some children (it seems) never say ‘I’m SORRY,’ after they do bad things to you. But I know that you do because you are a kind child of God.

    Sound familiar? The parental leading or teacher’s prayer of repentance for your unkind words?

    “Be kind to one another, BEFORE you must repent.”

    A Lenten Short Take on Scripture

    That’s NOT in the Bible, is it?

    No, not in those exact words but this advice to the children of the Lord God resounds throughout the Bible.

    Some of us have been thinking about Lent as a time we should pray for forgiveness for all of our shortcomings — sins of commission and omission — things we have said that we ought not to have said..

    Sins of ours for which JESUS was NAILED TO THE CROSS!

    • Yet wouldn’t we do better to behave a Christ?
    • To act like JESUS in our relationships with others?

    Kindness OR Repentance?

    Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

    Letter of Paul to the Church at EPHESUS 4:32

    We teach this to our children. (And we claim to be children of the living God!)

    חֶסֶד וֶאֱמֶת אַל־יַעַזְבֻךָ קָשְׁרֵם עַל־גַּרְגְּרֹותֶיךָ כָּתְבֵם עַל־לוּחַ לִבֶּךָ׃

    CLICK HERE for translations of ENGLISH BIBLES Mishlei (Proverbs) 3:3 :: Westminster Leningrad Codex (WLC)

    Repentance BEFORE Kindness

    What were your most recent unkind words for which you must repent?

    If our hearts would only have heeded the wise words of Scripture prior to allowing our tongues spew out unkind darts toward another, then our repentance and I’m sorries would not have been so required this day.

    When it is My desire,

    I will discipline them..

    Sow for yourselves, with a view to righteousness;
    Harvest in accordance with kindness.
    Break up your uncultivated ground,
    For it is time to seek the LORD
    Until He comes and rains righteousness on you.

    Hosea 10:10a,12 NASB20

    WHAT’S YOUR SHORT TAKE ON THESE SCRIPTURES ABOUT KINDNESS?

    • What unkind words have brought you to a need to repent?
  • A Brief Glance at Paradise

    A Brief Glance at Paradise

    paradise lost by John Milton

    Where can I Find Paradise?

    We all know the story of Eden as a former place of paradise on earth from where Adam and Eve were evicted by God because of sin. But where can we find paradise in the Bible now that mankind has lost it?

    Today’s short take from Scripture will take us on a brief journey we find in the New Testament.

    The real question of DEATH is ‘What then?’

    We have just witnessed an brief scene of Stephen at the point of his death in Acts 7.

    55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand.

    “Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

    Acts 7:56b NASB – a final witness of Stephen before the Sanhedrin

    Jesus also gives us several glances at life after death in the Gospel. And we could be taken up into John’s vision of heaven in Revelation.

    But today’s Short Take on Paradise comes from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians.

    What is Paradise?

    I know a man in Christ, who fourteen years ago— .. was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak.

    2 Corinthians 12:2a,4 NASB20

    Could this have been at the moment when Jesus met this man on the road from Jerusalem to Damascus? Paul later writes about his own imminent death as if he prefers it!

    What does Paul mean by παράδεισος: Paradise?

    And what’s your short take on this definition?

    παράδεισος :: Strong’s G3857 – paradeisos

    Outline of Biblical Usage

    1. among the Persians a grand enclosure or preserve, hunting ground, park, shady and well watered, in which wild animals, were kept for the hunt; it was enclosed by walls and furnished with towers for the hunters
    2. a garden, pleasure ground
    3. grove, park
    4. the part of Hades which was thought by the later Jews to be the abode of the souls of pious until the resurrection: but some understand this to be a heavenly paradise
    5. the upper regions of the heavens. According to the early church Fathers, the paradise in which our first parents dwelt before the fall still exists, neither on the earth or in the heavens, but above and beyond the world
    6. heaven

    Let’s Talk of Jesus and our possibility in Paradise

    Want to know my opinion from Scripture and experience?

    COMMENT or ask your questions on this post.