Daily Liturgy and Scripture

"Join me in suffering" isn't exactly the best marketing slogan. Can you imagine any church putting that on their sign? Yet that was the thing with which Paul was familiar because of his contention with the powers, and it would remain part of the picture as the young church grew.

"Devote yourselves to do good." That instruction is important enough to be repeated twice in this short passage. For Cretans, who have been more self-absorbed, this may have been a tough discipline. In the Kingdom of Jesus, we follow Jesus and care for each other.

Undermining the Cretan culture and trying to help Titus learn to bring order, Paul turns to the family and interpersonal structures. There's not a lot of deep theology here, but it's immensely practical: to grow a community of Christ, you need a basic agreement to act like a Jesus follower, and this was a foreign concept to the Cretans.

Working in Crete must have been a real challenge. To have the reputation of being liars, brutes, and gluttons works against the ways of Christ, even the ways of the Jewish Law. Paul recommends strong measures, and hopefully Titus is up to the task.

This closing passage of the book gives an idea of the kind of issues the early church might have faced, and how a pastor would have addressed them. Slaves and masters, rich and poor, false teachers and Christ followers. This is the landscape that Timothy was working in, and it was his charge as a young pastor to bring order to the chaos.

Paul outlines to Timothy how those who put their hope in God receive help from the body of Christ, the Church. Not only direct work such as work with widows, but also a voice. In a time of emperors and kings, the Church was establishing a place where rich and poor alike could have power, possible through the shared power of the Spirit.

This chapter gives an insight into the give and take in leadership of the early church. They didn't lord leadership over one another, but they sought to follow Jesus and teach others to do so. The previous chapter about deacons and overseers now leads into this one, where we see a pastor being ordained by the church elders.

Paul needs to do more than cheer Timothy on, he needs to give him good tools with which to build a strong church. Two of those things are help and right belief, and he gives a little guidance for each here. Deacons, overseers, and pastors remain part of the church today.

Paul seems to have a low view of women in this passage, but this letter to Timothy should not be seen as the universal rule. It was certainly specific to Timothy's experience, and elsewhere Paul highly praises women who lead in the church, particularly Phoebe, Tryphena, and Tryphosa in the book of Romans, which was written to a large audience.

Like Philemon, 1 Timothy is a look at the dynamic between two followers of Christ. In Timothy's case, though, Paul is raising him up as a pastor. This means that in addition to the practical side of Christian living that Paul had with Philemon, he is teaching Timothy how to both know sound doctrine and live in such a way that he would be able to see it play out in life.

Reading Philemon is eavesdropping on a conversation between two people who are committed to following Christ and letting that guidance be their true motivation. Paul isn't coercive, he doesn't need to be. It is a conversation of certainly, not in the foundation of their own friendship, but in the shared priorities of the Kingdom of Jesus.

Once again, Paul's incarceration is the method of working God's will: he is allowed to address the Jewish leaders, and this amounts to a few converts. Perhaps Paul was actually relieved to have been in the company of the Romans, since the Jewish leaders tended to respond to him with violence.

A voyage that started as a prison transport has now become an opportunity for Paul to visit growing churches. It's kind of fascinating to watch how this unfolds, since the purpose of jailing Paul was to keep him from doing his work, and now that very establishment is what grows it.

The purpose of Paul's preservation extends to those around him. It is not recorded why Paul needed to get to his final destination, but Church tradition records that this trip did end with Paul's death following his trial. Whatever God was doing, the protection of the Creator of the Universe was ample to preserve all those aboard as Paul guided them along the way God intended, whether they...

"He could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar." Paul seems to be the architect of his own doom? Perhaps it is also that Paul's purpose in front of this high court is to win converts to Jesus even at that level, and this certainly did begin to happen.

A lot of maneuvering is happening with Paul the prisoner, efforts he has made on his own behalf to prolong his life. It says something for the followers of the Law, calling for the head of a man with whom they have disagreement: it is certainly not the way of Jesus.

Think you've seen persecution? Try Paul's brand on for size: held in prison despite valid charges, the victim of powerful political figures who want to flatter one another at his expense, kept from visiting the churches that he loves. And of course, people wanted to murder him. Seems like it would have been easy to turn away from this difficult life and go back to being a Pharisee, but Pau...

Paul swings the momentum of the trial away from the contrived charges that are being brought against him and declares the situation to be what it is: a battle of theologies. Not only is that the truth of the matter, is also makes it uncomfortable for a government official to intervene in the dispute.

Paul seems to be skirting disaster at every turn, and only God knows the reason why his life is being preserved so. Perhaps God is still working in this situation, bringing about things that only God knows. Whatever the case, Paul is finding refuge among the very government that crucified Jesus.

Anyone who thinks Christians should never stir things up might take a moment with this passage where Paul purposely causes an argument between the Pharisees and Sadducees. Of course, living in harmony with others is what we should pursue, but there are also times when the Spirit moves in us like fire, and challenging the powers is no small feat.

Paul appears before a maddening crowd and talks about his own maddening past, persecuting the Church he now serves. He is in Jerusalem, which was once the seat of his fervent belief in the Law, and. now he professes the same passion for Jesus. What a swirl of memories and emotions he must have felt as he stood there talking.

It's interesting that Paul, who was once a strict adherent to the Law, now returns to the ways of the Law in order to answer those who continue to be as he once was. While the Lordship of Christ is absolute, the way we practice should be a matter of consideration. Elsewhere, Paul talks about being all things to all people and this is the exercise of that statement.

Paul seems to have an urgency in his actions now, perhaps driven by the foreboding news from Jerusalem. It's interesting how things like that can propel us forward, giving us a sense of purpose and a deeper passion for our call.

We are accountable to one another in this Kingdom of Jesus. Paul was accountable to bring the Word to his churches, but he was not the center of worship. The influence of the Holy Spirit and the commitment to one another are the things which sustains us, and listening to both the Spirit and one another remain important as we work together.

Ever sat through a sermon so boring that you fell out the window and died? To be fair, it says Paul was talking, not preaching. Still, you have to hand it to Paul: if you kill someone with preaching, the least you can do is raise them back up!