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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

  • Stuck in our Sin

    Stuck in our Sin

    Isaiah 63:16-17  For you are our Father,
    though Abraham does not know us,
    and Israel does not acknowledge us;
    you, O LORD, are our Father,
    our Redeemer from of old is your name.

    O LORD, why do you make us wander from your ways
    and harden our heart, so that we fear you not?
    Return for the sake of your servants,
    the tribes of your heritage.

    Matthew 12:  He said to them, “Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 Of how much more value is a man than a sheep!

    • Are you a lost sheep of the Lord?
    • Stuck in the mud, are you… and think no one cares?
    • Been a while since you have found your self in fellowship and worship with other believers?

    God our Father welcomes the ‘prodigal son.” (Do you recall, beloved lost sheep?)

    Jesus our Lord and Redeemer leaves the ninety-nine of the fold to rescue the lost one. (…That angels might rejoice. Do you recall?)

    James 4 (ESV)

    Warning Against Worldliness

    4 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions[a] are at war within you?[b]

    2 You desire and do not have, so you murder.

    You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.

    You do not have, because you do not ask.

    3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

    4 You adulterous people![c] Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?

    Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

    5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 6 But he gives more grace.

    Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

    7 Submit yourselves therefore to God.

    Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

    8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

    Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

    9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

    10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

    Therefor be humble before the Cross. Bow down an worship your Redeemer.

    Be NOT like a proud goat on his own hill,

    But like a humble sheep,

    Faithful to the call of the Shepherd.

  • What’s the DIFFERENCE between Christians & non-Christians?

    What’s the DIFFERENCE between Christians & non-Christians?

    So as not to reinvent the wheel or simply understate what others have taught previously, I share with you the Christian witness of a wonderful background history of context, culture, and some geography of Paul’s Letters to the Thessalonians as HOMEWORK for a Bible Study I will be teaching, God willing, next Sunday, 9:15 a.m. at Bender’s Mennonite Church.  Please pray also for me.

    The following is for benefit of ALL believers. Please SHARE YOUR COMMENTS.

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    What’s the DIFFERENCE between Christians & non-Christians?

    This is essentially the question by residents of every city and every town to first century Christians as they preached the Gospel.

    “What makes YOU different from US?

    How do you answer this question in your town for your 21st century non-Christian neighbors and unsaved relatives?

    Do you get it right?  Do you TELL them how DIFFERENT you are from them?  Do you suppose that this DIFFERENCE sounds like “Good News” to unbelievers?

    Many Letters of the New Testament make much mention of ‘Jews and Gentiles,’ from the language and cultures of the first century.  What we fail to realize of this distinction is an important one of Holiness that requires separation to God from the evil and sin of the world.

    • The Jew was separated to the Holiness of God.
    • The Gentile was not yet adopted for separation to the Holiness of God. Gentile is a term meaning Nations or Ethic Peoples other than Jews.
    • The Gospel, consistent throughout ALL Letters to the first century church, is Good News:

    “The Perfect Sacrifice of Christ Jesus on the Cross is for ALL Peoples – Jew and Gentile.

     +

    So in a nutshell, what was the first century Christian answer?  Essentially:

    There is NO difference between me (a follower of Christ Jesus) and you (an unbeliever).

    You may read of it in great detail in Paul’s Letter to the Romans; or you may read succinct summary in Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians; OR you may study your Old Testament and the History of the first century Church as detailed by Luke in The Acts of the Apostles.

    With some homework and study of the background leading up to the Letters to the Churches, God will reveal much more than the former and current relevance of all Scripture, including the Good News of these New Testament Letters.

    The familiar New Testament story of witness is that a Jew from Judea, with Jerusalem as home of their God, travels to a town.

    Take for example, Thessaloniki, Macedonia on the Aegean Sea, with local gentiles (Greeks) of their own traditions and culture.  Thessalonians (as they are called) are ruled by the same empire (country) Rome, on the Tyrrhenian Sea, on the Italia peninsula across the Adriatic Sea from Macedonia, with power over all the lands of the Mediterranean.

    (The embedded PowerPoint Slideshow by Cooper Church of Christ in Cooper, Texas, US is our homework.)

    Thessalonica of Macedonia

    For 21st century readers of Thessalonians: Consider the hostile environment of the Roman Empire as compared to our current environment in all the world, hostile to Jesus Christ.

    • Jews who had dispersed into the Nations (Gentiles) tended to act as if they were morally better than their native hosts.
    • ALL Gentiles had in common a civil authority and local culture inclined toward godlessness, unless some rule of god could help maintain the political power of local, state, national, and international rule.

    (Of course, 21st century governments are so much different in their attitudes toward religion and God.  Right?)

    These first century Christians acted different from other “religious” people.

    HOW ARE CHRISTIANS DIFFERENT?

    WHY would a non-believer WANT to accept our GOOD NEWS?

    Learn a lesson from the first century evangelists.

    We are ALL the same WITHOUT Christ.  Yet ALL believers of every NATION are equal in CHRIST OUR LORD.

  • Atheist or worshiper?

    Atheist or worshiper?

    What is the difference between YOU and an atheist?

    We can talk about Jesus Christ to some, but does He really make a difference in your life?

    Do you worship Jesus as LORD on Sunday?

    Do you cherish your relationships with other Christians?

    And other than that mere hour on Sunday, do YOU look at life any different than the worldly who do NOT believe in God?

    For the atheist – by Roger Harned

    Your matter doesn’t matter.

    Never mind your mind.

    My soul sees who God has made.

    Your soul touches mine.

    Hebrews 10: 

    23 Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.

    24 Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.

    25 And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.

    26 Dear friends, if we deliberately continue sinning after we have received knowledge of the truth, there is no longer any sacrifice that will cover these sins.

    Psalm 95:6-7

    Come, let us worship and bow down.
    Let us kneel before the LORD our maker,

    for he is our God.
    We are the people he watches over,
    the flock under his care.
    If only you would listen to his voice today!

    My soul seeks your soul, dear brother, dear sister in our Lord Christ Jesus.

    Let us gather together in thankfulness.

    See you Sunday, my fellow saints, as we gather as His church.