Scholar

Church Ruled by Christ: Colossians 3:14

Posted by on Jul 12, 2011 in Missionary, Scholar | 0 comments

[ESV] Colossians 3:14. And above all these put on love, which binds every­thing together in per­fect harmony. Following the exter­nal appli­ca­tion, a supreme exhor­ta­tion was pre­sented with, “And above all these put on love, which binds every­thing together in per­fect har­mony. “ Above the applied five qual­i­ties, one is to ‘put on love’. The phrase “above all” indi­cates that love is the “crown­ing grace” of the new self in Christ, a grace to be put on “in addi­tion to” (as indi­cated by the dative prepo­si­tion ejpiv). The love used in the Greek...

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Church Ruled by Christ: Colossians 3:13

Posted by on Jul 11, 2011 in Missionary, Scholar | 0 comments

[ESV] Colossians 3:13. bear­ing with one another and, if one has a com­plaint against another, for­giv­ing each other; as the Lord has for­given you, so you also must forgive. Paul fol­lowed the exhor­ta­tion by an exter­nal appli­ca­tion of the five inter­nal qual­i­ties to one’s life in rela­tion to oth­ers: “bear­ing with one another and, if one has a com­plaint against another, for­giv­ing each other; as the Lord has for­given you, so you also must for­give.” In putting on the five qual­i­ties of verse twelve, the Christian is to “endure patiently”, and...

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Church Ruled by Christ: Colossians 3:12

Posted by on Jul 10, 2011 in Missionary, Scholar | 0 comments

The first four verses of the pas­sage are focused on the inter­nal sur­ren­der to Christ’s Lordship while direct­ing Christians towards exter­nal applications. [ESV] Colossians 3:12. Put on then, as God’s cho­sen ones, holy and beloved, com­pas­sion­ate hearts, kind­ness, humil­ity, meek­ness, and patience, The pas­sage begins in verse twelve with an exhor­ta­tion to “[p]ut on then, as God’s cho­sen ones, holy and beloved, com­pas­sion­ate hearts, kind­ness, humil­ity, meek­ness, and patience”. The verb Endysasthe, or ‘to put on’, con­tains two...

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Church Ruled by Christ: Biblical Context

Posted by on Jul 9, 2011 in Missionary, Scholar | 0 comments

The Scriptures do not con­sist of com­pletely inde­pen­dent pas­sages. The Bible incor­po­rates many pas­sages on a wide vari­ety of themes, top­ics, and issues, and none of the pas­sages stands in fun­da­men­tal con­flict with the oth­ers. Exegesis neces­si­tates con­tex­tual analy­sis for max­i­mum under­stand­ing and applicability. Pauline Epistles Paul com­mu­ni­cated with Christian churches through­out his near world. He trav­elled exten­sively to spread the gospel of Christ. The epis­tle to the Colossians was prob­a­bly writ­ten dur­ing Paul’s Roman...

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Church Ruled by Christ: Historical Context

Posted by on Jul 8, 2011 in Missionary, Scholar | 0 comments

Sound bib­li­cal exe­ge­sis requires an under­stand­ing of the his­tor­i­cal con­text rel­e­vant to the stud­ied pas­sage. Thorough analy­sis involves study of the his­tory of the text itself, in terms of its author and date of orig­i­na­tion, and of the socio-economic and reli­gious cul­ture and spe­cific cir­cum­stances of the peo­ple con­nected to the text. Authorship and Dating Colossians was writ­ten by Paul. The author­ship of Colossians has been the sub­ject of debate due to its appar­ent shift in the­o­log­i­cal focus and intro­duc­tion of...

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Church Ruled by Christ: Introduction

Posted by on Jul 8, 2011 in Missionary, Scholar | 0 comments

Over the next sev­eral days I’ll be post­ing an exeget­i­cal study of Colossians 3:12–17. I’ll address the his­tor­i­cal and bib­li­cal con­texts of the pas­sage, but the focus will be on the word/grammar study of the verses. Sooner or later I’ll work the essay into a more laid-back devotional. Why study this pas­sage? Christians strug­gle with the process of matur­ing in Christ while fac­ing prob­lems within the church and the local com­mu­nity. Individuals expe­ri­ence a vari­ety of inter­nal and exter­nal pres­sures. Fellow Christians grate on one another...

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