Bible Study with Dr. Thomas Constable

Chapter 3 opens with a sharp warning against 'the dogs, the evil workers, the false circumcision' (3:2) — Paul's vivid language for the Judaizing teachers who were insisting that Gentile believers must be circumcised and observe Torah. Constable notes that 'dogs' was a term Jews applied to Gentiles; Paul reverses it, applying it to those Jews whose gospel is no gospel. His counter-claim is radical...

Chapter 2 closes with character sketches of two men Paul commends as embodiments of the Christ-like humility he has just described. Timothy is Paul's closest associate and most trusted envoy: Paul can think of no one 'of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare' (2:20), and the contrast with others who 'seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus' (2:21) sugges...

Philippians 2:5-11, the 'Christ hymn' (carmen Christi), is one of the most theologically significant passages in the New Testament and one of the most debated. Constable identifies its function in the letter as paraenetic (ethical): the humility Christ demonstrated in the incarnation and cross is the pattern for the humility Paul is asking the Philippians to practice with one another. The theologi...

The transition from Paul's personal circumstances to the congregation's conduct begins with what Constable identifies as the letter's foundational exhortation: 'Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ' (1:27). The Greek word translated 'conduct yourselves' (politeuesthe) is the citizenship verb — 'live as citizens worthy of the gospel.' In a city that was obsessively pro...

Chapter 1:12-26 is Paul's account of his own circumstances written with a deliberate purpose: to demonstrate that the gospel's progress does not depend on favorable conditions. His imprisonment, far from hindering the word, has advanced it — the whole Praetorian Guard knows he is imprisoned 'for Christ' (1:13), and most of the brothers in Rome have been emboldened to speak the word more fearlessly...

The prayer of 1:9-11 is one of the most theologically precise intercessory prayers in Paul's letters. He prays that the Philippians' love 'may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment' (1:9) — a construction Constable finds significant: love without knowledge becomes sentimental and undiscerning; the goal is love that grows in its capacity to distinguish what genuinely matt...

Philippians was written by Paul from prison — almost certainly Rome, around A.D. 61-62 — to the church he planted in Philippi during his second missionary journey, the first church he established on European soil. Constable notes that Philippi was a Roman colony whose citizens were intensely proud of their Roman status, which makes Paul's counter-claim in 3:20 — 'our citizenship is in heaven' — a...

The final chapter of Acts covers Paul's winter on Malta (28:1-10), the final voyage to Rome (28:11-16), his encounters with Jewish leaders in Rome (28:17-29), and the open-ended summary of his two-year house arrest ministry (28:30-31). Malta (28:1-10) provides two final miracles to authenticate Paul's apostolic status. The viper episode (28:3-6): Paul is gathering wood and a viper fastens on his h...

Acts 27 is one of the most vivid sea voyage narratives in ancient literature — a detailed account of a voyage, storm, and shipwreck that Luke himself experienced as a participant ('we' passages throughout). The chapter is also one of the most theologically instructive in Acts for the believer facing catastrophic circumstances. The voyage from Caesarea begins normally enough (27:1-8) with Paul acco...

Paul's speech before Herod Agrippa II (26:1-29) is the third account of his conversion in Acts and the most explicitly apologetic — aimed at a Jewish audience that knew 'all customs and questions among the Jews' (26:3). The speech's structure is autobiographical: his life as a Pharisee (26:4-8), his persecution of the church (26:9-11), his Damascus road encounter (26:12-18), and his subsequent mis...

Chapter 25 opens a new phase of Paul's imprisonment when Festus replaces Felix as governor. Within three days of arriving in Caesarea, Festus goes up to Jerusalem where the high priest and Jewish leaders immediately press their case against Paul (25:1-3), requesting he be transferred to Jerusalem — 'planning an ambush to kill him on the way' (25:3). Festus declines to transfer Paul but offers the...

This combined session covers Acts 23's conspiracy against Paul and his transfer to Caesarea, followed by the full account of Paul's trial before Felix in Acts 24. The conspiracy (23:12-22) involves more than forty Jewish men binding themselves under an oath not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul — requesting a pretext audience with the commander to arrange an ambush. Paul's nephew hears of...

This partial recording focuses on Acts 23:11 — the night vision in which the Lord stood at Paul's side and said, 'Take courage; for as you have solemnly witnessed to My cause at Jerusalem, so you must witness at Rome also.' Constable frames this divine encouragement in the context of Paul's psychological and physical condition at this point in his captivity: he has been seized in the temple, beate...

Paul's arrest (21:27-40) is the fulfillment of every warning received on the journey to Jerusalem — and it unfolds with the speed and violence that had been predicted. Near the end of the seven days of the Nazirite vow, Jews from Asia (who had opposed Paul in Ephesus and elsewhere) see him in the temple and seize him, calling out to the crowd: 'Men of Israel, come to our aid! This is the man who p...

Chapter 21 narrates Paul's arrival in Jerusalem — each stop on the journey bringing increasingly urgent warnings about what awaits him there, and Paul's increasingly resolute determination to proceed. The sea journey from Miletus to Tyre (21:1-6) includes seven days with the disciples in Tyre, who 'kept telling Paul through the Spirit not to set foot in Jerusalem' (21:4). Constable notes the tensi...

The farewell address to the Ephesian elders at Miletus (20:17-38) is Paul's only speech in Acts directed to believers rather than unbelievers — and it is the most personally revealing of all his Acts discourses. Constable identifies it as Paul's pastoral and missiological testament, a summary of his three years in Ephesus and his apostolic ministry philosophy. The autobiographical section (20:18-2...

Chapter 20 narrates Paul's final journey toward Jerusalem — a journey marked by a growing sense of destiny and finality that Constable identifies as parallel to Jesus's final journey to Jerusalem in Luke's Gospel. The journey through Macedonia and Greece (20:1-6) includes a stay of three months in Greece (Corinth) during which, Constable believes, Paul wrote Romans. The conspiracy against Paul by...

The Demetrius riot (19:21-41) is the climax of the Ephesian narrative — the economic and religious establishment's resistance to the gospel's social impact. Demetrius is a silversmith who makes silver shrines of Artemis and 'provided no little business for the craftsmen' (19:24). His assembly of the craftsmen is a masterpiece of economic and religious manipulation: 'You see and hear that not only...

Chapter 19 records the most extended and fruitful city mission in Acts — Paul's two to three years in Ephesus, the capital of the Roman province of Asia and home of the Artemis temple (one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world). The opening episode (19:1-7) — twelve disciples who knew only the baptism of John — is the companion passage to the Apollos episode. These men had received an incomple...

The second half of chapter 18 covers Paul's transitional journey from Corinth back to Antioch and the introduction of Apollos — a figure whose significance for the Corinthian church is impossible to overstate. Paul's departure from Corinth includes a Nazirite vow (18:18) — Constable treats this as evidence that Paul maintained Jewish practices personally while insisting they were not required for...

Corinth (18:1-17) becomes Paul's most sustained city mission in the second journey — eighteen months in a city that would become the most complex and challenging of all his churches. The providential provision of Aquila and Priscilla (18:2-3) is immediate: Jews who had come from Rome because of Claudius's expulsion edict (c. A.D. 49, recorded by Suetonius), they are tentmakers by trade, and Paul '...

Chapter 17 covers three dramatically different responses to the gospel in three different cities — providing a study in the range of reception patterns from hostile rejection to eager receptivity to philosophical curiosity. Thessalonica (17:1-9): Paul follows his standard pattern (synagogue on three successive Sabbaths, reasoning from the Scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that 'it was nec...

The Philippian earthquake and jailer conversion (16:25-40) is one of the most dramatically narrated episodes in Acts — a midnight prison earthquake becoming the occasion for a Roman jailer's conversion. At midnight Paul and Silas are 'praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them' (16:25). Constable draws the pastoral power: praying and singing in stocks at m...

The slave girl episode (16:16-24) introduces the economic dimension of the gospel's conflict with the existing social order. A slave girl possessed by 'a spirit of divination' (literally: a Pythonic spirit, associated with the oracle at Delphi) follows Paul and his companions, crying out 'These men are bond-servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation' (16:17). Co...

Chapter 16 opens the Macedonian mission — the definitive crossing into Europe — prepared by two character introductions and a vision. Timothy (16:1-3) is introduced at Lystra — the city where Paul was stoned on the first journey. The community's report of Timothy ('well spoken of by the brethren who were in Lystra and Iconium,' 16:2) is the same commendation pattern as for the Seven in chapter 6....