back to index2019-05-08: Wed Bible Study Lesson 15
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Heavenly Father, we pray for your blessing over this time. 00:00:09.200 |
We ask that you would search our hearts and the things that we've gleaned and shared already 00:00:15.420 |
would make a deeper impression in our hearts, Lord God, to understand your grace and the 00:00:20.800 |
people that you have chosen to bring the gospel to us. 00:00:26.920 |
Help us, Lord God, to be physically awake, to be able to listen and to digest the things 00:00:36.200 |
So, we're looking at the last passage for the book of Colossians. 00:00:43.560 |
So, I have questions on the bottom, which I'm going to review with you before I finish. 00:00:50.760 |
So next week, just kind of, you know, just follow the directions and try to answer as 00:00:56.360 |
But today we're going to be finishing up the book of Colossians. 00:01:00.000 |
It's probably weird that we're taking a whole Bible study that's just to study the last 00:01:05.560 |
three verses or three, four verses just filled with names. 00:01:10.080 |
But again, typically when we go through these names, we don't really dig too deep because 00:01:14.080 |
you just think, well, just Paul's saying bye. 00:01:16.220 |
But these names are on there for a purpose, right? 00:01:19.040 |
And so the reason why we're taking, you know, taking some time to go through these names 00:01:23.740 |
by step by step is because we see what the early church was like when you see the testimonies 00:01:31.580 |
And so these are things that typically that when you mention Titchicus or Archippus or 00:01:35.880 |
Nymphus, you know, you mentioned that, that that doesn't even come up in Bible trivia, 00:01:41.000 |
Most people don't know these names, but they are people's names on the Bible for a reason. 00:01:46.520 |
So today I broadly divided the section that we're looking at into two parts. 00:01:52.880 |
And the two main parts is insight that we gained from this, what the early church was 00:02:00.440 |
And then the second part is the writing and spreading of the New Testament letters. 00:02:06.060 |
Writing and spreading of the New Testament letters. 00:02:07.560 |
So we get some insight through this last part of Colossae, what the early church was like. 00:02:12.920 |
So the first thing, the church that he mentioned, the Laodicean church. 00:02:18.160 |
Again, we want to jump into it more specifically, but Laodicea is one of the churches that are 00:02:25.440 |
mentioned in the seven churches in the book of Revelation, right? 00:02:29.360 |
Well Colossae is the very next city right underneath that. 00:02:36.680 |
So Paul addresses the Laodicean brothers, but the Laodicean, if you remember, what was 00:02:52.560 |
Because they said, you say you are rich and I have become wealthy. 00:02:58.020 |
And then, and then Jesus basically turns that around, but in actuality you're really poor 00:03:03.840 |
And he turns the table around and says, your self-reliance has actually made you dull to 00:03:09.800 |
And then, so the indictment against them was lukewarmness. 00:03:12.260 |
So Laodicean church was considered a very wealthy church and Colossae was right underneath 00:03:22.680 |
So again, the lot of activity was taking place right around that area. 00:03:30.120 |
What was the primary thing that was going on? 00:03:38.320 |
So in Asia minor, there was a lot of activity. 00:03:41.540 |
There was a, what was the, one of the main things that was going on in this area that 00:03:56.980 |
The Judaizers were having a huge impact in this area. 00:04:02.340 |
And so Paul was very concerned about Laodicea, Galatia. 00:04:06.040 |
In fact, when he writes Galatia, he says the same thing, to make sure that you spread this 00:04:23.420 |
The churches were usually a small in number and met in people's homes until the early 00:04:27.700 |
third century, meaning they were house churches. 00:04:31.140 |
So even if they had big homes, they wouldn't have been able to fit hundreds of people. 00:04:36.320 |
So most churches that Paul is referring to is probably house churches that may have fit, 00:04:47.280 |
Most average homes at that time probably only could fit about 10 to 15, right? 00:04:52.280 |
Kinda like the churches in India, if you go to the villages, they'll say, "We have three 00:04:55.960 |
churches in this area," and they're probably only talking about 30 people, 10 in each home, 00:05:02.720 |
And so when the churches are written, most of these letters are written to a very small 00:05:09.440 |
So again, it gives us insight into the early church. 00:05:13.640 |
What happened in third century that brought about the building of buildings? 00:05:27.080 |
Constantine becomes the emperor, and then he supposedly becomes a Christian, and then 00:05:35.600 |
So all of a sudden, they enjoyed peace for the first time. 00:05:38.600 |
So for 300 years, Christians couldn't get organized because they were constantly running 00:05:46.920 |
Part of the reason why there was this turnaround attitude toward Christian was because the 00:05:50.540 |
persecution by a guy named, I think, Diocletian, okay, I'm butchering his name, but there was 00:05:57.320 |
a guy who was before Constantine, the persecution was so intense that the non-Christians started 00:06:06.360 |
And so it was right around that time, he said, "Man, we're really treating these people poorly." 00:06:11.040 |
And then Constantine comes into power and actually rides this overwhelming sympathy 00:06:16.460 |
toward Christians and says that he became a Christian and then allows freedom for Christianity. 00:06:21.280 |
And that's when the churches get organized, that's when the Catholic Church, as we know 00:06:28.240 |
First church assembly happens at that time, and then the church buildings start going 00:06:33.200 |
And then if you look at church history, where all the divisions and the problems actually 00:06:40.080 |
It's for the first time when they enjoyed peace, okay? 00:06:42.400 |
So until then, most of the churches are meeting in people's homes in small, small numbers. 00:06:51.060 |
"Nympha," that he mentions here is probably a wealthy person because they were meeting 00:06:59.380 |
People don't know if it was, it's a he or her, okay? 00:07:05.700 |
Though they were small in number, the churches seemed to have shared information and fellowship 00:07:10.340 |
So these letters were written, and again, these churches knew of each other, and there 00:07:15.840 |
seems to have been interaction that was going on. 00:07:22.400 |
"Archippus," as another man mentioned, was called to fulfill his ministry and not to 00:07:31.940 |
Church tradition says that Archippus became the Bishop of Laodicea and eventually became 00:07:39.000 |
So again, these are just names that are mentioned at the end of the letter, but these were very 00:07:43.200 |
prominent, significant people in the first century. 00:07:48.160 |
So probably in the first and early second century, if you said Archippus, most of the 00:07:58.820 |
And if you're in evangelical community, you would know his name. 00:08:01.680 |
Archippus was probably one of those people that they would have universally known. 00:08:14.400 |
Almost every New Testament letter addresses some issues that they had in the church. 00:08:29.440 |
Archippus' relationship with the Archippus was not perfect. 00:08:40.040 |
They had both problems, the Gnostics and the Judaizers. 00:08:47.120 |
And so typically people say, "We need to have an early New Testament church," or people 00:08:53.560 |
would oftentimes refer to Acts chapter two as the ideal church. 00:08:58.120 |
But if you look at the early church, almost every single church had problems. 00:09:05.660 |
Even though the Holy Spirit was working and apostles were there, these are human beings. 00:09:11.640 |
These are people who used to hate each other, all of a sudden gathering together and worshipping. 00:09:16.000 |
So when the Holy Spirit wasn't prominent, in other words, if they were kind of lax or 00:09:21.760 |
maybe spiritually not sober, their flesh would get in and then they would have problems. 00:09:26.480 |
And so that was one of the big problems in the early church. 00:09:29.200 |
So if you read any letter in the New Testament, I can't think of a single letter that doesn't 00:09:36.560 |
So the fact that the early church was not perfect is universal. 00:09:44.260 |
It wasn't just a bunch of people saying, "We're two or three gathered together, there am I 00:09:49.600 |
A lot of times you hear that in parachurches. 00:09:56.840 |
Archipest was called to fulfill his ministry because he was called to that purpose. 00:10:03.640 |
There was elders, there were deacons, there were qualifications, there were sacraments, 00:10:08.800 |
there were ways to deal with unruly people, how to deal with sin. 00:10:14.520 |
The Book of Corinthians talks about being orderly in the way that they were worshipping 00:10:20.960 |
So the church gathered together, but it wasn't just free for all, did whatever they wanted. 00:10:31.120 |
This is the part that you probably may be a little bit more interested in. 00:10:35.360 |
You should be interested in all of it, but this is hopefully a bit more interesting. 00:10:44.120 |
How did we get the letters and how do we have confidence? 00:10:46.480 |
Again, we're not going to be able to get into the inerrancy and how we got the letters and 00:10:52.360 |
But we get a glimpse of how the early church gathered the letters and how it was passed 00:10:58.480 |
The letters were written in small groups of people, but was immediately copied and circulated 00:11:03.320 |
Paul says here that make sure that you get this and then you share this letter with other 00:11:09.840 |
So right off the bat, even though the letter was addressed to Colossae, there was an understanding 00:11:14.880 |
that the content of this letter was meant to be applied universally. 00:11:23.760 |
It wasn't just a personal letter to Colossae, only dealing with Colossae, right off the 00:11:28.440 |
It came to them authoritative, not only to Colossae, but to all the churches. 00:11:40.940 |
It was meant right off the bat for them to be receiving it from the apostles from God. 00:11:50.900 |
Though the letters were written to specific churches, the content was meant to be consumed 00:11:55.620 |
It was circulated to the churches and it was consumed universally. 00:12:03.020 |
The Bible was not accessible to most people, so they were dependent on letters being read 00:12:08.460 |
So again, if you go to India, many of the people are illiterate. 00:12:12.540 |
And so because of that, there's a lot of gatherings where there's a lot of singing and there's 00:12:16.580 |
a lot of memorizing and a lot of teaching going on because they don't have Bibles for 00:12:23.840 |
But on top of that, at this particular period of time, people did not have access to the 00:12:30.820 |
You'd have to be filthy rich or very high-powered person to have some kind of access to the 00:12:36.780 |
And when Paul says to Timothy to devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, it was 00:12:43.420 |
Literally stand and literally just read verse by verse. 00:12:47.940 |
Because that was the only way that they were able to consume the Bible. 00:12:51.580 |
And that was true in the early church, in this church. 00:12:57.940 |
Paul ends this letter by saying, "I signed this with my own hands to authenticate authority 00:13:06.980 |
In 1 Corinthians and in 2 Thessalonians 3.17. 00:13:11.020 |
Now why do you think he goes out of his way to authenticate this letter and these other 00:13:22.140 |
What's going on in Corinthians and what's going on in 2 Thessalonians and what's going 00:13:28.620 |
on in Colossae that Paul goes out of his way to authenticate that this is from him? 00:13:39.700 |
When in Corinthians we know what's going on, right? 00:13:42.540 |
The church is divided, people are questioning his apostleship, who is this guy? 00:13:48.180 |
So Paul, I can see why Paul would say, "I'm writing this with my own hand." 00:13:52.700 |
So that they can see that it's coming to them authoritatively, the apostles writing it. 00:13:57.140 |
Second Thessalonians, anybody know what's going on in 2 Thessalonians? 00:14:02.020 |
False teachers are going out and saying that Jesus already came. 00:14:05.740 |
Remember he talks about the man of lawlessness? 00:14:09.020 |
And so he gives a whole doctrine of that all these things have to happen before Jesus comes. 00:14:13.300 |
So don't be rattled because some false teacher comes and tells you that the day of the Lord 00:14:20.580 |
So Paul is addressing a very serious issue in the early church where false teaching was 00:14:27.140 |
People were saying that they're apostles and then they're speaking for God. 00:14:32.260 |
That what you're hearing is coming from me, it's my own hands. 00:14:34.860 |
And again with Colossae because of the big issue going on in Asia Minor, right? 00:14:40.140 |
False teachers have penetrated Ephesus to Laodicea, to Colossae, Galatia, and they were 00:14:46.900 |
So Paul had to make sure that they understood that this was coming to them authoritatively. 00:15:00.260 |
It was imperative that the early church be able to distinguish what was and was not authentic. 00:15:06.860 |
In the early church recognized immediately by the Holy Spirit that what Paul was writing 00:15:13.840 |
Peter himself says that in 1st 2nd Peter 3 15 to 16. 00:15:19.380 |
Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation just as also our beloved brother Paul according 00:15:23.100 |
to the wisdom given to him wrote to you as also in all his letters speaking in them of 00:15:28.100 |
these things in which are some things hard to understand which the untaught and unstable 00:15:32.940 |
distort as they do all the rest of scriptures to their own destruction. 00:15:36.740 |
So Peter himself calls Paul's letters scripture, right? 00:15:40.260 |
So you understand, Apostle Peter understood that Paul's letters were coming to them with 00:15:51.340 |
How do you know that the Bible that you have is God's word? 00:15:56.660 |
We're spending all this time digging and studying the word of God, but can you defend why you 00:16:04.580 |
Again when you live in a bubble, you know, in the Christian community, like, well it 00:16:09.500 |
says it and you're supposed to, it's important, but because we don't think, again if we're 00:16:13.860 |
not careful, we don't think critically until you get out to the world and people begin 00:16:17.540 |
to pluck holes in your thoughts, you don't really ask and think about it. 00:16:27.060 |
What is a typical accusation that liberals or non-Christians throw against Christians 00:16:37.620 |
Didn't the church put it together in 380 some AD? 00:16:42.620 |
It was almost 300 some years after it was written, the church got it together. 00:16:48.260 |
How do you know 300 years later that this was what they had? 00:16:54.420 |
Because they didn't authenticate it, the church didn't ordain it until more than 300 years 00:17:06.980 |
We see clearly from the scripture itself that from the moment that they received it, it 00:17:15.700 |
They received it with authority, they shared it with other churches, and it was meant to 00:17:22.220 |
So what happened in the early church is when they got the letter, they most likely copied 00:17:28.060 |
And they probably kept the letter and then they sent that copy to the other church. 00:17:32.500 |
When they read it, they probably sent it on to somebody else. 00:17:36.640 |
And the accumulation of the 27 letters that we have in the New Testament are the 27 letters 00:17:42.140 |
that was authenticated by the church as soon as they received it by the Holy Spirit. 00:17:50.540 |
It was from the very get-go they had a collection of letters. 00:17:53.780 |
And so we have a list of these, a whole collection, a list of these as early as 105 AD. 00:18:02.180 |
So again, we're not going to go through the history of all of this, but we know that right 00:18:06.420 |
off the bat, it wasn't 300 years later, they said, "Well, let's comb through these letters 00:18:10.260 |
that we have and see which one we're going to accept and which ones we're not going to 00:18:14.780 |
So one of the main criterias that they used to determine which was and which was not a 00:18:20.740 |
collection of this canon of the New Testament was, which are the ones that was ordained 00:18:28.740 |
And the 27 letters that we have in the New Testament were those. 00:18:39.820 |
Okay, so the New Testament, again, I'm going to ask you guys for some of the review questions. 00:18:49.300 |
For discussion questions, I'm going to go back to it later on. 00:18:56.860 |
Let's look at the review questions for next week. 00:19:13.580 |
Remember how the book of Colossians is outlined, the large outline? 00:19:20.180 |
Chapter 1 and 2 are the indicatives, and then chapter 3 and 4 are the imperative. 00:19:25.700 |
This is who God is, what he has done, therefore you should do this. 00:19:29.340 |
So within that outline, what are the details? 00:19:31.560 |
So try to say, if I say, "Chapter 2 in Colossians, what is Paul arguing? 00:19:35.580 |
Chapter 3 in Colossians, what is Paul arguing?" 00:19:37.620 |
So try to get a large overview outline of the book of Colossians so that you don't go 00:19:46.900 |
Number two, what are the major themes in each section? 00:19:50.220 |
So in the indicatives, what was the primary thing that he brings up? 00:19:54.460 |
And in the imperatives, what was the primary application? 00:20:00.860 |
What are we to put off and what are we to put on? 00:20:03.820 |
In the indicatives, what aspect of the gospel is emphasized in Colossians? 00:20:10.260 |
So try to get some of that out of your overview. 00:20:17.300 |
What single verse captures a key thought in Colossians? 00:20:21.280 |
If you are able, put it to memory if you can. 00:20:24.620 |
The reason why that helps is, years later when you say Colossians, you're not going 00:20:29.420 |
I'm going to say Archipis and you're going to say, "I remember that name somewhere." 00:20:33.540 |
And you're going to flip through and you're going to find it in Colossians, but you're 00:20:40.180 |
You might remember the large outline, but if you have a key verse, that'll kind of trigger 00:20:49.760 |
So even if you can't memorize it, if you know which verse they are, it'll help you to retain 00:20:54.100 |
some of the stuff that you've already studied. 00:20:58.060 |
What interpretational tools did you glean from this study? 00:21:01.700 |
Again, this is the hermeneutic stuff that we learned. 00:21:04.660 |
Make sure that scripture interprets scripture. 00:21:07.460 |
Make sure that you ask a lot of questions, observations, and what is something that you 00:21:12.420 |
learned that maybe you didn't know how to practice before this study? 00:21:19.140 |
Review all your notes to answer the following questions. 00:21:23.840 |
What new insight did you gain about Jesus and the gospel? 00:21:26.720 |
What new insight did you gain about yourself and what new application did you make through 00:21:31.620 |
So these are questions that you should probably be asking every study at the end, right? 00:21:37.180 |
Because the end goal is not simply to know, but through the book of Colossians, what did 00:21:42.580 |
What did you learn about Jesus and the gospel? 00:21:45.540 |
What did you learn about yourself in light of that? 00:21:48.860 |
And what application did you make in light of all of that? 00:21:52.960 |
So if you miss that, all it'll become is adding knowledge to knowledge to knowledge, okay? 00:21:59.180 |
Because you've missed the whole purpose of the study, okay? 00:22:02.820 |
Studying the Bible ultimately is a pursuit of knowing God. 00:22:07.040 |
And then finally, how faithful were you in doing your weekly exegesis on your own? 00:22:13.120 |
Not just coming to the Bible study and listening to the people. 00:22:22.920 |
Now, if you've never studied the Bible before, I would prefer you coming than not coming, 00:22:32.400 |
Because you'll gain more from coming than not coming. 00:22:35.380 |
But if you really want to improve your walk with God and really be impacted by the things 00:22:41.340 |
that you're studying, you have to get in front of the word by yourself. 00:22:47.080 |
I mean, your understanding, motivation, focus, soberness is directly linked to how much time 00:22:56.860 |
and how much effort you put in to staying sober, right? 00:23:01.960 |
So if you're in the habit of just being there, right, it will be reflected in your soberness. 00:23:10.260 |
And you always wonder, "How come I feel so distant from God?" 00:23:14.040 |
And all your priorities tell you that this is not important. 00:23:17.880 |
So if this is important, then you have to make it important in your time, okay? 00:23:21.220 |
So again, if that was not a regular habit of yours, I strongly, strongly encourage you 00:23:26.120 |
next time when you sign up for Bible study, don't sign up to attend Bible study, but sign 00:23:35.080 |
Okay, let me jump to the discussion questions for today. 00:23:40.840 |
How confident are you that the 66 books of the Bible are the authoritative and inerrant 00:23:47.880 |
Typically, if you ask somebody, right, you're having a discussion and you quote the Bible, 00:23:55.760 |
and you can see in their eyes what kind of authority the Bible has, right? 00:24:02.240 |
I mean, you can say the Bible is authority, it's the word of God, but the proof of the 00:24:07.480 |
authority over their life is when the Bible is quoted, how do you react, right? 00:24:14.040 |
When the Bible is quoted, oh, does that settle the argument? 00:24:18.360 |
Or it's kind of like, "Well, I mean, I know the Bible says that," right? 00:24:23.520 |
Do you believe that this is God's word, right? 00:24:28.240 |
People fantasize if God spoke to me audibly, I would take my faith a lot more seriously, 00:24:33.960 |
If God would just speak to me, well, he's speaking through his word. 00:24:38.400 |
And so if we ignore his word, we are ignoring his voice, right? 00:24:43.240 |
So how confident are you that this is God's word, right? 00:24:53.080 |
I remember my professor in seminary used to say that he used to have to take so much time 00:24:59.640 |
from students who come from secular universities and took religion, religion course, and basically 00:25:05.440 |
they took a whole year of being attacked about where the Bible came from, why you shouldn't 00:25:10.800 |
rely on it, and then he had to go back and re-educate them because they were thrown prejudice 00:25:17.140 |
So much information that we're getting is completely off from prejudiced people who 00:25:23.400 |
So it's important for us to at least be confident. 00:25:28.360 |
What caused you to come to conclusion that this is God's word, right? 00:25:33.320 |
Because until you come to that conclusion, everything that you're studying is just nice. 00:25:43.880 |
Because I kind of believe it, not believe it. 00:25:45.600 |
So that's really where our struggle really needs to begin. 00:25:49.560 |
If you're not confident about that, then even the Bible, whatever the Bible says, just doesn't 00:25:53.560 |
have the same authority over your life, okay? 00:25:56.720 |
Number two, if what you read in the scriptures contradict your sense of fairness or what 00:26:00.600 |
makes sense, what is your usual way of dealing with those thoughts? 00:26:04.840 |
Does your reason have the final say in what you accept as truth or does the Bible have 00:26:14.760 |
Does the end product of what you believe to be true, is it your sense of fairness? 00:26:20.380 |
Do you judge the Bible to be fair or does the Bible judge us to be fair, right? 00:26:27.640 |
Three, how can you be sure that your interpretation is correct when there seems to be so many 00:26:34.680 |
And I'm talking about within the church, right? 00:26:38.000 |
What are some things God has given the church and to us individually to discern the right 00:26:45.520 |
That's a common objection that I hear from people who don't study the Bible, right? 00:26:52.740 |
Well, how can I study the Bible when there's so many interpretations? 00:26:56.800 |
Well, did you ever study the Bible to see if all the interpretation seems reasonable? 00:27:04.120 |
Majority of the time when people make that objection is because they haven't studied 00:27:09.040 |
If you study the Bible for yourself, you'll see majority of the opinions don't make sense. 00:27:16.440 |
Again, you may look at that and say, "Ah, you sound like, you know, like you got it 00:27:22.200 |
But one of the most interesting things that I found in studying the Bible is that no matter 00:27:28.440 |
what denomination you are, if they study the Bible verse by verse, book by book, chapter 00:27:34.720 |
by chapter, and no matter where they are, I almost always sit down and we have a great 00:27:42.440 |
There's almost a universal agreement on majority of what the Bible says. 00:27:54.480 |
Study the Bible for yourself and then test me. 00:27:58.240 |
Read the Bible carefully, exegete it for yourself, and then listen to what I say. 00:28:07.440 |
Don't say everybody has different opinions so we can't know it. 00:28:10.440 |
You'll be surprised how much of that is smoke screen. 00:28:13.800 |
Study the Bible for yourself and you'll be surprised how united we become. 00:28:20.600 |
There's this like satanic fear that was thrown on the church that if you take the Bible too 00:28:31.720 |
We're divided because we don't know the Bible. 00:28:34.520 |
The more we study the Bible, the more united we become. 00:28:44.960 |
Study it for yourself and then examine what I say. 00:28:51.560 |
What are some other tools that God has given us in the church? 00:28:57.680 |
Fourthly, how often are you in the word of God? 00:29:00.760 |
How does your frequent or infrequent interaction with God, God's word, affect your ability 00:29:07.920 |
Discerning truth is not just about knowledge. 00:29:10.000 |
Discerning truth is also about the condition of your heart. 00:29:15.140 |
So if you're not spiritual, meaning that if your heart is not in the right place, you 00:29:19.420 |
may know the knowledge, but your heart may lead you astray. 00:29:23.940 |
So if you're not regularly being judged, your thoughts and intentions are not being regularly 00:29:31.700 |
Even your opinions, even your thoughts can be tainted. 00:29:35.700 |
So the ability to discern truth is directly linked to studying the word of God and allowing 00:29:44.500 |
So if you think your pursuit of God is reflected in the way you pursue greater knowledge of 00:29:52.660 |
So if you can take some time with your small group as you discuss this, and again, next 00:29:57.020 |
week, please, please, please come prepared for the overview study. 00:30:00.940 |
So let me pray first and then I'll dismiss you to your group. 00:30:12.020 |
Father, help us, Lord God, to know that these are your words, Lord God, your very breath 00:30:19.180 |
that you put in, that it comes to us with authority and that through it that we do not 00:30:24.060 |
read the letters of Paul or for other men, but from you. 00:30:30.500 |
Help us, Lord God, in our discussion to have greater insight, greater conviction, greater 00:30:35.100 |
confidence, Lord God, to know that what we have is from you.