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Philippians 4:8

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  • #16
    Originally posted by Scrawly View Post
    Sounds like a noble adventure! Check this out, I think you'll benefit from it:

    https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-...philippians-48
    Thanks. I've scanned it over and will come back again.
    "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings." Hosea 6:6

    "Theology can be an intellectual entertainment." Metropolitan Anthony Bloom

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    • #17
      It may seem redundant to advise believers to think about things that are pleasant, good and holy, but who is the teaching addressed to?

      Let's clarify what the context is.

      The Kingdom of God has only few entrants, those who leave the world and follow Christ in gathering and those have negotiated terms of peace with God, who make friends with the former through unrighteous mammon.

      The majority of believers fall into the second group. The epistles are written to advise this group how to live.

      A quick study of how our environment affects us and our walk with God will help in understanding Paul's teaching. Those who left Egypt knew how it functioned: serving her resulted in food, shelter and safety from war, but with freedom curtailed. In the desert, freedom did not seem so attractive, and possession of the Promised Land seemed distant and hard. Dissatisfaction set in. Was it warranted? Given that God had taken them out of captivity with supernatural strength, one would think they needed to keep that in mind when they murmured. Be that as it may, rebellion has its fallout. When the spies entered Canaan, they saw giants. They panicked and failed, resulting in not entering possession of the Land, dying in the desert instead.

      Those under twenty one knew little about Egypt and its workings, even less that their elders, who did not even know how to handle gold and other precious goods, surrendering it willingly towards building the Tabernacle. The young people were less prone to murmuring, and when their turn came to hear the call to possess the Land, they only encountered a frightened enemy in Jericho, some of whom actually helped in the victory of the believers.

      The lesson is that those born in believing families have less to lay down, since they have not been under the influence and control of the world. So when God calls, they have less oppression and are able to hear and obey more easily. Secondary lesson: shield your children from the influence and control of the world, they will not murmur, and God will ease their entry into the Kingdom.

      From this we can see that the epistles are written to those who have not been born into believing families and who have not heard the call, the full undertanding of the Gospel. They have left the influence and control of the world, are drinking from the Rock in the church, and now they must try to avoid being left to die in the wilderness. By abandoning the lure of their former lives, substituting it with keeping the treasures of heaven in sight.

      These teachings, then, are the application of the teachings found in the Gospels. Remember the Gospels were written after the pastoral letters, to record the basis for the teachings of the pastorals.


      Today some of the impact of those teaching have been lost. Some effort to retain the meanings of those teachings were made through forming traditions, although those traditions sometimes remain without the lessons they were meant to convey being preserved having mostly disappeared in Eastern and Roman Orthodox practices.
      Last edited by footwasher; 12-22-2014, 01:14 AM.

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