Daily Liturgy and Scripture

If you are going to claim Christ is greater than all the pagan gods, then the most powerful argument is the resurrection. Paul cuts straight to that point. That’s not his only stop, though, because the resurrection was not a cosmic magic trick to show that Jesus could whip all the false gods. It was certainly a showing of his power, but it was also meant to draw men to him. Without both these side...

If Ephesus was a place of many gods, Paul didn’t waste his time disputing all of them. Instead, he cuts to the chase: Christ is the supreme, the one under whom all things are brought together. This saves a lot of debate. You can believe in lesser gods if you want, but why waste your time? Paul knew the true ruler of the universe, and wasn’t wasting time with any others.

Ephesus was a church in Asia that was very much Roman, situated in a large city that had lots of competition from pagan religions. Paul gets started by getting ahead of all of that: he establishes God’s plan from the beginning. Certainly Christ’s life and death was not just a cosmic tragedy, the unforeseen death of God’s Son. It had purpose, and in Christ’s becoming man, we become heirs with him....

It was Roman law that an escaped slave be returned to their master, so Paul was definitely doing something exceptional by asking his friend Philemon to bypass that right. Especially because the escaped slave was now a Christian, this was an opportunity for these brothers in Christ to show how followers of Christ truly did follow a different way than that of their contemporaries.

As the letter to the Colossians wraps up, Paul once again makes us mindful of the bond in Christ carried by the early church. The names he mentions include traveling missionaries, local members, and people who had come to them. It’s kind of refreshing. In a time where churches in the same town often have some old feud that prevents them from speaking to one another, we can remember that the we are...

If we are servants of Christ, our allegiance stays with him. This also means that we mirror the attitude and approach of Christ regardless of our circumstances. Paul extends this to both family and slave relationships in this passage (and it is unlikely that he supported slavery, that’s not the point of the verse), a model that the relationship we have with Christ impact all other relationships.

Paul gives the gist of what it is like to enter the process of becoming a disciple: “Know your creator, and be like him.” This is our lifelong challenge, because certainly we will never become completely like him until we reach perfection in the hereafter. But this shouldn’t discourage us, as God wishes us only to put ourselves in his hands and allow the work of the Spirit to be done.

Paul comes back to the language of his Pharisee years to once again explain our union with Christ. (If you think the Old Testament has no connection to the New, Paul would disagree!) Now he talks about the physical bond that the men of Abraham’s line had, a historical legacy of bonding to a promise made to them by their Creator. The Creator still forges a bond, but the flesh that was broken is his...

Colossians was a church facing spiritual competition. The ancient world was often decorated with a myriad of gods, so the believers in that region may have just stacked Jesus up among them. Paul wants to steer them away from that direction. Jesus isn’t one more idol for your shelf, he’s not that easily contained. He is supreme, and you need not live apart from him any more.

Almost nothing is known of the apostle known as Bartholomew. This is kind of nice, really. We get the drama of Peter and Thomas, James and John. But not Bartholomew. He sort of slides through scripture unnoticed. I think this is actually good news for us. You don’t have to be the boisterous water-walker that Peter was, and you don’t have to have your own session with the crucified Christ like Thom...

What is the secret of living with everything or nothing? Christ, who supplies all our needs. That’s easy when you have everything, but much more difficult on the other end. Paul already emptied himself of titles and notoriety in the name of Christ, and now he declares that material goods are equally useless when compared to his riches in Christ. How else could he make such a statement? Only when o...

Paul’s “press on” section of this passage is often used to emphasize the importance of not giving up as a Christian. Be careful not to lean too far into that idea, though. Paul isn’t in any way encouraging us to pat ourselves on the back. In fact, he’s pushing hard the other way. Everything is “garbage” compared to what Christ has done for us, and that includes Paul’s very impressive list of accol...

The ways in which the early church was connected are almost impossible for us to process. Paul, who clearly considers himself a pastor of this church, hasn’t been with them. People are moving back and forth, going and coming, as if they were neighbors. People who have been gone are being sent back, and Paul’s prize pupil is in the process of being sent to them. This is what it looks like when the...

To learn to be humble and love one another, there is always no better example than Jesus himself. Paul, of course, realizes this. Even for this church that he addresses that he loves so much, he finds the need to remind them (and early in his letter) that loving one another should be the business of their section of the Kingdom.

If is often thought (and seems clear from verse 13) that Paul is writing Philippians from prison. When he says, “the privilege of suffering,” he knows what he’s talking about. But the suffering isn’t the point. We don’t become Christians because we love pain. Instead, suffering together brings us closer in community and closer to Christ, who also suffered. We shouldn’t seek pain out— it’s going to...

Paul’s next letter is a bit different that Romans. Ephesus is a church he knows well. They’re partners and supporters of his ministry, and his love for them is evident in these opening lines, The warmth that he expresses is like that of beloved family members who understand and love you, and indeed this is just what Ephesus was for Paul.

As Paul closes one of his greatest letters, it’s refreshing to end on a note that feels like a reunion. Paul hadn’t founded the church in Rome and was trying his best to visit, but he did know several people in the area. In the last chapter, he calls them by name. (Even his secretary gets a mention!) This is an important principle. Theology is important, and is orthodoxy. But people are also impor...

Paul isn’t content simply to give the Roman church an idea of their own identity, happening in their own city. As he starts to close down his letter, he also gives them a sense for how they fit into the bigger picture of the Church. Including them in his travel plans, he also gives them an idea of what other churches are doing for the poor in Jerusalem, no doubt to get them thinking about followin...

Today we remember the death of Mary, which in Christian tradition (John of Damascus) holds that she was taken up bodily, similar to the prophet Elijah. Whether or not that’s the way God did it (and God could certainly do it that way), it’s another reminder that what God did in Jesus, he did in regular people. He didn’t sent a band of angels to walk the earth, he sent a man that was born of a woman...

We’re almost to the end of Romans, and Paul is bringing the pieces together fully. Certainly, he anticipated some questions like, “if being Jewish isn’t enough, what about being Jewish even matters?” Especially the talk of foods and worship days enter the discussion here, because there are differences between Christian and traditional practice in those areas. Enter the presence of grace in the chu...

Paul has laid out what this combined community of Jews and Gentiles looks like, how they live together, and their identity in Christ. Now he gets practical. They also aren’t to desert their local community. They are still subject to leaders and rulers. This was probably a good step to make sure that early Christians didn’t think they had to establish a new place and separate themselves from nonbel...

Having laid the groundwork for who makes up the members of God's Kingdom, Saul now moves to describing how that community lives together. It starts with Christ, it always does. We are formed in Christ, and the Spirit renews our minds. Only when we're living in the Spirit together will we be part of a community that's authentically different. The Spirit also brings the gifts we share, and the bond...

Paul has laid out that Israel isn’t automatically saved because of their heritage, but the Gentiles now have salvation available without becoming Jews. Now he wants to bring the two together. Using the metaphor of the tree, he shows how the Jews were the original plan, but now the Gentiles are also included. It is one Kingdom, not two. What God started with the nation of Israel is now for all nati...

Paul continues to mourn the state of Israel as being supplanted as the people of God. If the birthright isn’t the key to the Kingdom, what is? It is always Christ. God’s message has been there from the start, woven through the prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures. Now that Jesus came, it all makes sense in light of his life, death, and resurrection.

Paul is obviously working out some of his own struggle with the Jews not automatically being part of the Kingdom inaugurated by Christ. No wonder. The Pharisee life had defined who he was, and meeting Christ left him in a real identity crisis. He’s working that out here, really trying to keep the good news out front: no, you’re not automatically in because you’re Abraham’s child. But you can still...