Be With Me: 7 Minutes of Biblical Wonder

The LAST THING Paul ever says to the Ephesian Elders is WORK HARD. And he KNOWS this is his last chance.  It must be important.  Yes, it is important to others, but it is also important to YOURSELF.  That is, it is a ministry to yourself.  He calls it so. Most of you will be heading to work today.  Know that the Lord just loves it.  He invented it.  He wants you to do it with all your might.  Paul...

Paul separates the two halves of an elder's spiritual life and then puts them back together.  ½ = pay attention to yourselves. ½= pay attention to the church of God. Regarding yourself, be alert. Remember the teachings of 3 years.  Remember the admonishments (the NO's!) Remember God, His Word, and His people.  Treasure the intimacy of Him (the Be With Me part). Regarding your job in the...

Could Paul be guilty of not doing his specific job in the church? Yup.  In his goodbye to the elders of Ephesus, he assesses this responsibility.  He states he is "INNOCENT of the blood".  Conversely, he could be  GUILTY OF THE BLOOD of the church. And so could I. There is no such thing as Christianity apart from the people of God.  And every individual is powered and gifted by the Holy...

Does becoming a Christian make all your problems go away?  I once heard someone say that.  This is not Paul's experience, and it likely will not be ours either.  His experience is: one of  VIOLENCE...so be urgent one of LOSS...so be ready one of RISK...so be alert but one of His PRESENCE...so be NEAR.  Take heart. He wins.  In the end, He wins.  Meantime, gird your loins for a spot of trouble...

Watch as Paul makes decisions amidst the "cooperative sovereignty" of the newly launched Holy Spirit.  He is in a HURRY to get to Jerusalem for Pentecost, which is "Christmas Day for the Holy Spirit". On one hand he is 'constrained by the Holy Spirit' and on the other, he is deciding, acting, and GETTING BUSY with urgency.  If we could jolt the modern church one way o...

A guy named LUCKY dies and is raised from the dead.  He is listing to Paul after midnight.  He is sitting by the 3rd story window. He falls asleep. The power of sleep doesn't care if it is the great Paul speaking. Lucky falls out the window to his death. If Lucky is a believer, maybe Paul does him a disservice by yanking him back from paradise. If you are the one to demonstrate the exciting p...

If you have been a Christian for more than a month, I'll ask: WHO ARE YOUR PEOPLE?  Where are your MEN?  Where are your WOMEN?  Where are your spiritual KIDS? Today's passage is a lesson in geography that yields its treasures in PEOPLE. Paul goes traveling in the least convenient, least direct route.  Why? Because of the people he wanted to see along the way.  Because of the people he wa...

The "cancel culture" of Ephesus is eventually silenced, corrected, and AT RISK themselves. Meantime, there is capture, confusion, mis-worship and even misinterpretation of a meteorite.   They are warned to "do nothing rash" after hours and hours of doing a bunch of rash things.  The point is, they probably should have been a bit more careful with their thoughts from the outset....

Acts is appropriately named, as it has a lot of ACTION.  Today, we see theology, friendship and a riot.  My favorite today is that the senior officials of the Roman Emperor worship cult WERE FRIENDS OF PAUL. They protect him during the riot The so-called-goddess Artemis is being deposed from her position of worship.   Her attributes are NOT TRUE Her temple is NOT REAL Her reputation is NOT DESERVE...

The Temple to Artemis in Ephesus WAS one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World.  That is, for most people, seeing that temple was THE MOST SPECTACULAR thing they saw in their entire lifetime.  Today you can hardly even find its' ruins, and a single, reconstructed, mismatched column stands as the remains.  What happened? We have two choices:  either Artemis is true, and every single person on...

The exact moment, decisions, and even the type of decision making is discussed in two books of the bible by two authors.  Luke writes about Paul's plans in the book of Acts.  Paul writes about the same plans in the book of 1 Corinthians.  Paul is in Ephesus, where he writes to the Corinthian church hoping to come after he visits The Roman provence of Macedonia first. They write of the same un...

Jose Ortega Y Gasset said, "Life is a series of collisions with the future." Therefore, "Living is a constant process of deciding what we are going to do." We see that exact process in Paul as he DECIDES what to do next until he is COMPELLED at the end of his life.  He resolves in the Spirit to go to Macedonia, then to Corinth, then back to Jerusalem and then (under compulsion)...

The people of Ephesus are playing fast and loose with evil.  La-te-da, how bad could it be? Well, when they are confronted with the manifestation of evil with some of its' powers displayed, the Ephesians sober up quickly.  They realize it is nothing to fool around with! They realize that indeed, they are going to need the BIGGER BOAT of Jesus to fight it. Some of our "Come to Jesus momen...

7 brothers choose to mis-appropriate the name of Jesus.  As in all things, there are consequences for such decisions.  We are instructed in the 10 commandments to not use the name of the Lord in vain.  Rarely do we see such immediate, dramatic results. Generally, the name of Jesus is misused by people who are OUTSIDE the family of God.  That is, they illegitimately use THE NAME to give weight, pow...

Listen 7 minutes and see your podcaster, Apollos, and the Ephesians GET MORE MATURE DAILY.  We start with believers who haven't even HEARD of the Holy Spirit.  It's like they only read the first couple of pages in the New Testament.  Imagine no Trinity, no Last Supper teaching, no explanation about the coming Holy Spirit, no book of Acts and the unleashing of the Spirit! What they need i...

Apollos is such a good speaker and leader that it eventually causes a bit of hero worship in Corinth, "I follow Apollos..." Today, we see, besides his natural gifts of eloquence, boldness, and competency a very admirable quality. He is Competent in the Scriptures. He starts ACCURATELY. But when a more mature man and woman in Ephesus fill in his theology he gets MORE ACCURATE. This is wha...

General Douglas MacArthur left the Philippines in the dark days of 1942 because of the advancing Japanese army vowing, "I shall return".  In 1944, he returned to Leyte Island after the tide of the war turned. Similarly, near the end of second missionary journey, Paul vows to the Ephesus church, "I will return to you if God wills." There is barely a church there, so he leaves Aq...

Paul is no stranger to injustice.  Usually he gets a plate full of it.  In Corinth however, he actually enjoys justice as his case is thrown out before he even has to open his mouth in his defense. The Lord has him settled in Corinth for at least 18 months.   The question for today is how do I make the most of my next (Lord willing)18 months.  What might I devote myself to and KEEP DOING?  What do...

Apparently, the good Lord looks upon our cities with a different set of EYES and TIMING. He says to Paul, "I have many in this city who are my people." When Paul looks around he sees a different picture. He sees something more like, "I don't see, yet, what you see, Lord". The Lord wants a people for His name, for His possession.  He wants to BE WITH people.  This would be...

Paul goes to his furthest point on the "second" Missionary Journey: Corinth.  He stays for 18 months. He's very involved with people, both Jews and Gentiles, as they are melded together into the new church. He gets opposition to his message as well as his person.  All along we find he is involved with his OCCUPATION (tent making) while being OCCUPIED by the WORD.  It is here in Cori...

God exists. In Him we have our being. We are created. In Him we have breath and life.  In Him we have sustenance.  This is not from the Old Testament Bible.  It is from the Paul McCartney of their day. Even the secular poets agree.  They write about it.   If all this is so, as your poets have agreed, then we are a bit beholden to Him.  We are commanded to agree with His view of judgment and repent...

The people of Athens are 'spiritual' people.  All people are spiritual people.  God made all of us that way.  He put "eternity in our hearts." But the athenians have gotten the DIRECTION of their worship wrong and are generally worshiping the wrong thing.  Paul is on a mission to straighten them out by instructing them on some critical characteristics of the God they have been...

When Paul saw the Parthenon, it was already almost 500 years old.  Though it stands now as a generic monument to Greek architecture, its' purpose then was infinitely different.  It was made for WORSHIP.  Great efforts, resources, commitments, money and devotion were actively happening to WORSHIP.   There is only one problem at the parthenon and every other temple (except for the synagogue) th...

Can a civilian person who gives some eager attention to the scriptures actually make sense of them?  The Bereans show us YES. If you do what they do, which is described as NOBLE, the Scriptures will be clear to you. They make an entrance for the Word    BE RECEPTIVE They receive it with enthusiasm                BE EAGER They examine it actively                                 BE CAREFUL They use...

A mob/rabble forms that is so angry at an IDEA, that they attack a BUILDING.  What? They mis-anger so badly that they will take ANY target to vent.  What could cause such passion? That it is NECESSARY for the Christ to SUFFER. The very unpalatable passion of the crucifixion HAS TO HAPPEN.  It is critical to wipe away general sins, and wipe away big sins.  The cross and all the preceding HORRORS ar...