Okay, all right, so today's Bible study, because it's an overview study, I'm going to just kind of give you an outline and just a brief overview of what we studied and our goal, and then we'll give you plenty of time with your small group, and then obviously we'll have snacks afterwards.

So today is the last Bible study, and afterwards we're going to have a little bit over a two-month break. Pastor Mark, did you have an announcement for today? Okay, before we get into the small group. Okay, let me pray first, and we'll jump in. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the grace of allowing us to have Bible study with our small groups.

We pray that the study of Colossians would have caused us to have a deeper understanding of who you are and Christ and what he has done. And I pray that our review study will cause the things that we've learned, Lord God, to be embedded much deeper in our conscience and our hearts.

And we ask, Lord, that you give us openness, and that even in a time of break, Lord God, I pray that your name may be honored and there will be greater fellowship and interaction with your word. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Okay, so as I've mentioned at the beginning of the study, that our goal here is not to simply go over Colossians, but to get you to learn to study the Bible on your own, right?

So if you've gone through the study of Colossians and you haven't been in the habit of jumping to the word of God yourself, then we've missed the whole point, okay? So obviously I prefer you here than not here, but again, our goal was to get you into the Bible yourself so that you can interact with the word of God.

So you don't just come to the Bible study and say, "Well, tell me what it says," so that you can actually see if what I'm saying is true or not true, right? At some point, you should take something that I said and say, "Huh, I don't know if I see that in the text." Right?

If you've been studying carefully, you should at some point, I'm not talking about today, I'm not talking about every week, but know enough about it so that you can look at it and say, "Yeah, you know, I'm not sure how that came about," or at least to be able to ask good questions, okay?

So I'm going to go over, again, the review of it. Can you put that on the side? Okay. So two texts that I'm looking at is 1 Timothy 4:16, where Paul tells Timothy, "Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching. Persevere in these things, for as you do this, you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you." Okay, so that's 1 Timothy.

Second Timothy 2, 14, "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth." So in both texts, the pastoral texts, the primary theme that Paul is trying to teach Timothy is to make sure that he handles the word of God accurately.

Second Timothy, he says that, and in conclusion of his letter, he says, "Preach it in season and out of season." Don't stray from the word of God. Whether they accept it or don't accept it, whether people come or don't come, whether you feel like it's bearing fruit or don't bear fruit, God has ordained the teaching and hearing of the word of God to bear fruit.

So again, this is not something unique to Berean community church. Every church doesn't have the option to say, "Our church is going to be on missions. Our emphasis is going to be about community. Our emphasis is going to be about the lost." No church has the right to pick and choose what the church is going to be about.

Jesus Christ is the head of the church. So who determines what the church is? Who determines what the church needs to emphasize? Christ does. So the reason why we emphasize the word of God is because these are the words of Christ. So if we do not diligently give ourselves to the word of God, we can easily pick and choose what we want, all right, and emphasize things that we want, de-emphasize things that we don't want, but in the end, we're not following what Christ says.

So the reason why we have such a high emphasis on God's word from the pulpit and from your life is because we can easily be deceived in the church because you are active and spend a lot of time in Christianity that you can easily be deceived to think that I'm following Christ because I happen to be in the Christian circle.

And so we want to make sure that that's not the case, that individually and collectively we're following Christ. And the only way to do that is to hear his voice from his word. There's three principles of observation that we talked about in the beginning. There's observation, interpretation, and application, right?

And all three has to take place. If you do not give yourself to study of the Bible, what you end up doing is reading and applying and oftentimes the application is completely off. And if you hear of bad doctrines, usually it's because they've read something without understanding it and applied it to church or applied it to their lives, right?

So the first thing is observation. Observation is asking simple questions, who, what, where, why, when, and how. So there's not a lot of digging, right? If you just read it, you know who wrote it. If you just read it, right, even if you read three chapters a day, you'll be able to know who wrote it, right?

What did they write? Who did they write to? It doesn't require a lot of digging. So that's the first part, right? Better than just applying, but observation alone is not good enough because you can also misapply certain things. You understand what I'm saying? Okay. Hello? Yeah, you guys look like you just got off of 10 hours of work.

All right. So I get it. You guys are tired. Okay. So observation. Okay. From observation, you have to go to interpretation. What is interpretation? Asking good questions, right? You have to ask questions. Well, Paul wrote it, right? Who did he write it to? Why did he write it? Why does he say it this way?

Why does this introduction start this way? Why does the ending end this way? What does he mean by this? And asking good questions, which leads to interpretation. And only when you have done the observation and interpretation can you jump into application. And application is just as essential. If you do the observation, interpretation without application, there's no point in study.

All it does is puff you up and say, "I know the Bible." It's actually more dangerous to study the Bible without application because it causes us to think that we're closer to God when we're not. So those are three principles, observation, interpretation, application. In the observation, you ask questions, who, what, why, when, or how.

Take small chunks at a time. How many of you are reading through the Bible? Maybe I shouldn't ask that. Raise your hand if you're reading through the Bible a chunk at a time. Maybe it's one chapter or three chapters at a time. Okay, so a good chunk of you are reading through that.

So when you're reading that much of the scripture, you're not going to do a lot of interpretation. It's important to have a broad view of the Bible. Many people don't know the broad view of the Bible, so that's where a lot of bad interpretation comes from. But having an overview of the study is not enough for you to make accurate application.

So this part of it in observing, you want to make sure that you're taking small chunks, one chapter, two chapter, three chapter, or small chunks at a time. The following, you want to ask in observation, what's the background? Who are the people involved? What are emphasized words, repeated words?

The tense, past, present, or future? What tense is being used? Is it a statement or a command? Is God just saying this is what it is or is he telling us to do something? What genre is it? Is it an epistle? Is it a wisdom literature? Is it poetry?

Why is it important for us to know which genre it is for interpretation? This is very, very important. Okay, poetry is not literal. What are some dangers you get into if you don't distinguish the genres? Misapplication, yes. Are the narratives meant to be copied? I had a roommate who wanted to evangelize at Cal State Fullerton when we were in college.

And so in order to conquer Cal State Fullerton, he ran around it seven times. And then at the end of seven times, he blew a trumpet. And the spiritual walls, the barriers that keep from evangelism is going to fall down, right? Is that a good application? No. So the narrative, if you take a narrative and apply it, like I actually read a story of a lady a long time ago who was going up to the prayer mountain and there was a heavy rain that came and it blocked her path to go to the prayer mountain.

It's like God really wants me to go. So she thought, well, Peter walked on the water by faith. I'm going to trust in God and walk in the water. She ended up drowning. So this is a story that I read when I was younger. So I mean, bad, bad application, right?

So if you apply certain things to a narrative, which was never meant to be copied, that's where, again, bad application comes from. Somebody will read a certain text about David and Goliath and how he sharpened his skills to defeat Goliath and how we need to sharpen our skills. And is the point of the story that David practiced throwing stones and that's why he was able to conquer the Goliath?

So therefore, we need to really be faithful in practicing our skill? Is that the point of the story? No. A mighty God can use a scrawny man to kill a huge giant, right? The story is about God and his power, right? But a lot of bad interpretation comes from when you misapply your interpretation to the wrong genre, okay?

Here's another thing that people get into trouble a lot. Is it descriptive or prescriptive? What's the difference between that? Descriptive, again, it's just another way of saying it's just telling us it happened, right? Prescriptive is a command. And there's a lot of people get into problems like, let's say, being filled with the Holy Spirit, right?

They'll take Acts chapter 2, they prayed heavily to God and the Holy Spirit came and anointing they spoke in tongues. So therefore, when we pray, we need to receive tongues. Is that a good application? No. Is that descriptive or prescriptive? Descriptive, because it's just telling us what happened. It's not commanding us that this is normal.

You understand what I'm saying? So in interpretation, if you do not know the genre, or you don't understand, or you misapply it, then that's where very, very bad interpretation comes from, right? So that's one of the big things I find all the time. Is it descriptive? Is it prescriptive?

And a lot of times people will say certain things and say, "Well, I have the Bible," and they'll open up a narrative part of the Bible and say, "This is where I got it," right? The narratives are descriptive, not prescriptive, okay? Purpose, words such as "for," "so," "then," right?

Those are words that we need to highlight because it's connecting thoughts, right? And these are all part of observation. Interpretation. What is the historical context? What is the cultural context, right? What is the context of rest of Scripture? What is the context of the immediate letter? So I say over and over again, what is one of the most important things that you need to learn in interpreting?

Context, context, context, right? What does "bomb" mean? In one context, it means something completely different in another context, right? Like I can't think of anything. Huh? Food? Okay, the bomb, okay? Right, so it could mean good. It can be something explosive. You know what I'm talking about. My mind is going blank.

There's a bunch of these things, right? So you have to understand the historical context. Don't read the Scripture and assume that's what it means. You have to ask, "What does that mean?" Even simple things, right? So even the heart. We read, "God says something about the heart." I mentioned this so many times, you should know, that the heart in the Bible doesn't necessarily refer to emotion like the way we do, right?

The way that the word "heart" is used in the New Testament context is talking about your soul, your whole being. So similar to your soul, right? So if you don't understand the historical context, then you're going to read that and just apply it, "Oh, don't trust your emotions." Do not lean on your own understanding, don't trust your heart.

It's, "Oh, don't trust your emotions." No, basically it's saying don't trust yourself. It's not just saying don't trust your emotions. Don't trust your intellect either. Our Western culture has a tendency to think, "Don't trust emotion," but our intellect is sanctified. So if we can logically explain what the Bible says, then we're safe.

No, our ability to reason is just as tainted as our ability to feel, right? So that's why the Scripture says, basically saying, "Don't trust your own judgment," to rely on God's Word and the Holy Spirit. Anyway, so you have to, the context, context, context. And then keys to good application.

When you apply the Word of God and you say, "I want to be a better Christian," right? Did you not have that application before you read the Bible? Was that not an application before you studied? Of course it was. So if all you did at the end of it was, "Oh, I should do a better job," you know, it's not bad, right?

That's good. But if your application is not specific, if it is not personal, it is not practical, it is not possible, most likely you're not going to apply it, right? If you leave this room thinking like, "Oh man, I should pray more," right? You're probably not going to pray.

Some of you will. A lot of you will just leave feeling just guilty. And then you didn't actually apply it. So a good application, right, is there an example to follow? Is there a sin to avoid? Is there a promise to claim? Is there a prayer to repeat? Is there a command to obey?

And is there a verse to memorize? And what I apply, is it personal, is it practical, right? If you're going to pray, when are you going to pray? What are you going to pray for? What is it that has inspired you to pray, right? And to make an application so that you can measure that after and say, "This is what I'm applying," right?

So application has to be personal, possible, and practical. Or else you just end up leaving with impressions in your heart that doesn't make any application, right? So if you want to be holy, right, which every Christian ought to be pursuing holiness, what does pursuit of holiness look like in your life?

Instead of just saying, "Man, I should be more holy," right, what does that mean? Does that mean it should affect the things that you watch? If you say no, why not? Does that affect the way, the things that you think, what you listen to, right? So if you don't apply it in a very practical way, you end up thinking you're pursuing holiness, but in reality, really, there is no application of it, right?

So again, application has to be very specific, personal, possible, and practical, okay? Alright, so the rest of the time, I wanted to go over just the text itself in Colossians and just a large overview, right? Remember, we said that the Book of Colossians four chapters divided into two major parts, and what are these two major parts?

Huh? Okay, so chapter one and two is primarily indicative, right? It's about the gospel, it's about the identity of Christ, and then chapter three and four, they are imperatives. They are for, right, they are for you ought to apply what you've been taught in chapter one and two, you ought to apply in chapter three and four, right?

And chapter three and four primarily is put off your old self, put on the new self, right? And then it gets to chapter four where Paul begins to say goodbye, and we see all the different names, right? So that's how the Bible, that's how Colossians is divided. In fact, next time you study a different epistle, I want you to see if you can see that same pattern.

I don't think you'll see it in every letter, but you'll see it in a lot of letters, the same pattern, indicative imperative, indicative imperative, okay? And so once you get that, once you get the broad outline, it's easier to remember, okay? Because you got two chapters, introduction, right? Paul's ministry, identity of Jesus, therefore live up to what you know, right?

Put off the old self, put on the new self, and then goodbye, right? With all these people. That's the broad outline of the book of Colossians, okay? So I want to get into a little bit more detail, and then I'm going to give you the rest of the time to study.

So verse one and two, okay? In the indicative side, basically he opens up with hello, okay? And I'm not going to go into all the interpretation of these passages, but what we do know is that he's writing a letter to the Colossians, to faithful ones, right? He's not writing this letter to rebuke people necessarily, he's writing the letter to protect them, that the faithful people will persevere in their faith.

That's verses one and two. And then verses three to seven, in his introduction, he reviews why he's writing this letter to them, right? And in this text, if you remember, there are three things that stood out. He says there, "Since we heard of your faith in Christ, love which you have for one another, which is based on hope laid out for you in heaven," which summarizes the effects of the gospel in the book of Colossians, to the Colossian church, right?

These three virtues. Every Christian ought to have love, faith, and hope, right? Faith, which is the reason why we have love, right? And hope is the reason why we persevere, right? And every Christian has that in growing capacity. Out of these three, which is the greatest? You learned in Sunday school, right?

Love is the greatest. So watch. In the indicatives, right, you'll see a lot of faith and hope. In the imperatives, you will see a lot of love, okay? You'll see that in Colossians. You'll see that in Ephesians. You'll see that in Romans, right? So faith, based on hope, produces what?

Love. Okay, remember that, right? Because when you study the New Testament, you're going to find a pattern, right? Indicatives are filled with faith. Things have pertained to faith and hope. And then it says, "Therefore," this is how you ought to live, practice of love, okay? So verses 3 to 8 is the beginning of what the gospel is accomplishing in Colossians, right, in his introduction.

Verses 9 through 24, where Paul says, verse 9 through 11, "To have knowledge. For this reason also, since the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and his spiritual wisdom and understanding." And so he repeats this idea of knowledge, right?

"I'm praying for you so that you may continue to grow, continue to practice what you profess to believe," and he says that your knowledge, your wisdom and understanding will continue to grow, okay? So 9 through 11 is a projection of Paul praying for them to have this knowledge. Well, what knowledge does he want them to have, right?

Verses 12 through 24, the knowledge of his son, Jesus Christ. Do you get the flow? Right? So he starts with the introduction, and then he says, "The effects of the gospel, love, faith and hope to the Colossian church," says, "I'm praying for you so that you may have knowledge and wisdom, that you may live the way that God called you to live," and then he actually gets into this knowledge, and which knowledge is he referring to?

Knowledge of his son, Jesus Christ. So look how often he mentions Jesus here. He doesn't use the word Jesus, but I've highlighted, right? He, whom, he, by him, through him, for him, he, him, he, himself, him, himself, him, him, him, he, he, he, him, over and over, right? All through verse 24.

You understand? You see the flow, right? It's almost like Apostle Paul learned how to write a term paper in college, right? And he's like, "You have the thesis, and then you have the sub-point, and then you have to make your point," and that's exactly how he writes. Paul's letters are very organized, right?

And so he says, "Hello, how are you? You know, I heard about your faith, love, faith, and hope. I'm praying for you so that you will continue to know and have wisdom to live continuously, and this is what you need to know about Jesus," right? And that takes us all the way through verse 24.

And then Paul, after he introduces Jesus, he introduces basically himself, right? This is what God called me to do, because why does he introduce himself to the Colossians? He's never been there, right? He's only heard about them through Epaphras and through different people. So partially, he's introducing himself. He's introducing Christ, and he's introducing his ministry, right?

Why does Paul need to introduce himself to this group? This letter is not just a personal letter. This is Scripture that he's writing, right? He's sending it to them so that they can read it, and then they would have authority over their lives, and then they're supposed to take that and then share it with other churches.

So this is not just an average person writing a letter and saying, "Hey, you guys don't know me, but here I am," right? He's introducing what God is doing through him, right, in spreading the gospel and writing Scripture, right? So in verses 25 to chapter 2, verse 5, over and over, and you said, "I was made a minister," right?

"And God bestowed upon me the benefit that I might fully carry out the preaching," right? "We proclaim Him. We may present to every man completely. I labor, striving, mightily working within me," over and over again, right? He's talking about himself and the ministry. "I want to know how much I struggle," right?

"I am absent in the body, but I am with you in spirit," right? So that's Paul introducing his ministry and God's authority through what he's doing, right? So all of this is directly connected to the gospel, right? "Hello, how are you?" The gospel is bearing fruit, love, faith, and hope.

Like the God, "I need you to know more and more of the gospel," and the Jesus of the gospel, right? And how God called me to the gospel, right? So the central theme is what God is doing through the gospel and the main person of the gospel, Jesus Christ, and how Paul is playing a role in spreading of that gospel, okay?

In chapter 2, 6, verse 3 to 4, you can look at all the different words that are used here, and the theme here is union with Christ, right? Union with Christ. What did Jesus accomplish through the preaching of Apostle Paul? I'm going to get into this in my next sermon, not this Sunday, but next Sunday.

But union with Christ is the primary product of the gospel, right? Let me say that again. Union with Christ is the primary fruit of the gospel, and that's what Paul leads us to. So over and over again, he says, "To walk with him, you are built up with him, for in him all the fullness, in him, in him, with him, with him, with him," right?

Through him, with Christ, over and over again, this union with Christ, okay? So I'm going to keep reviewing so that you can have it in your head. Introduction, fruit of the gospel, et kalase, and what fruits are there? Love, faith, and hope. Paul prays that they would have knowledge, and which knowledge is he referring to?

Jesus Christ. And where does Paul fit into this after? Paul was called to preach this Jesus that he just preached to you, right? And then as a result of that, what happens? Union with Christ, with Christ, walk with Christ, built up in Christ, right? That's what the gospel accomplished.

Because he died for us, covered our sins, now we are united with Christ, right? Okay. And then chapter three is where we get into the imperatives. "Therefore, since you are united with Christ," right? And then chapter three is, "Put off your old self." It doesn't belong with Christ anymore, right?

Your old life may have been perfectly fine when you were just in the flesh, you were worldly. But now that you are united with Christ, right, what you cannot bring to Christ, you can't bring to the temple, you can't have in your life, right? And that's basically what he's saying.

To put off your old self, to put on the new self. So put off the old self. He says anger, wrath, malice, slander, abusive speech from your mouth, to put all the stuff that's from the past off, and then to put on, put on the new self, right? And what is the new self that he wants us to put on?

Heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, put on love, right? So remember what I said? When you're in the indicatives, like faith, right? Knowledge of Jesus, faith, hope that we have because of what he has accomplished. And because we have faith and hope, we have imperative. What's the imperative primarily?

Love, to put on love, okay? That's chapter three. You follow? Okay, I'm going to test you afterwards, how many of you are paying attention. So I want you to, after, and say Colossians, that you say, "Okay, there's two big outlines, chapter one and two, three and four, indicative, right?

Theology, and then practice, application." In the indicative, right? Introduction, right? Fruit, knowledge of Jesus, Paul's ministry, right? And then union with Christ. In the imperatives, because of this union with Christ, put your mind on the things above, put off your old self, put on the new self, right? Which is love, okay?

And then he goes into specifics of what does it mean to put on love in the context of being a wife, a husband, child, father, slave, and masters, okay? That's the imperatives in chapter three, or all the way to chapter four, verse six, okay? Are you getting it? Okay, some of you guys are getting it with your eyes closed.

All right. And then the final greetings, chapter four, seven through 18, okay? And it divides into two parts. The first part, he's saying hello from his companions, right? These are the people who are with him, and then he says, "These people," sends greeting, and then at the tail end of it, he says, "Say hello to these people who are over there." That's how he ends the letter, okay?

All right, let's see if we can do this without looking. Okay, I told you I was going to test you. Let's see if we can do this without testing. Too large, right? Chapter one and two, three and four, indicative, imperative. Let's look at the indicatives. In the indicative, he starts with, "Hello." Fruit.

And what's in the fruit of the gospel? Okay, love, faith, and hope, right? And then he says, "I'm praying for you to have knowledge," and then what does he teach about that? About Christ, primarily. He, him, he, him, through whom, him, him, him, him, he, he, he, right? Everything about Jesus and what he has accomplished and who he is, right?

Christology. And then right after he says that, what does he say? He introduces himself, right? I, I, I, we, we, we, I, I, labor, I labor. I've been called, right? And then as a result of that, what happened? Union with Christ, built up with him, walk with him, right?

So that's the imperative. And as a result of our union with Christ, he says in the imperative, chapter three and four, "Put off," right? That's the larger, right? He says, "Since you have been united with Christ, set your mind to the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God," right?

And he begins with that. Since you are united, put off your old self and put on your new self. And what's the new self that you're supposed to put on? Love, primarily, okay? It doesn't just say love, but you can summarize it basically by love, right? And then we go to chapter four, basically say, "Bye, my friends here says hello, say hello to your friends over there," okay?

The end. You got it? Okay. So just keep that in mind. Keep that in mind, those two things that I said, right? Most of the letters are divided in that way, indicative and imperative, right? And in the indicative, there's an emphasis on what? Faith and hope. In the imperative, the emphasis is on love, okay?

So if you forget everything tonight, at least remember that, okay? So to help you when you study the other texts, okay? So today's discussion is the discussion of what you guys were supposed to prepare for today. Like, what new insights did you gain about God? What new insight did you gain about Jesus and the gospel?

What new insight did you gain about yourself? What new application did you make through the study of this letter? And how faithful were you to the weekly exegesis? So a couple of things that aren't in here is the key verse, right? What is a key verse that you think captures?

So hopefully you guys can take some time to share that. And then if you were to rename, not Colossians, right? If somebody says, "Give me one sentence description of Colossians," okay? Which is in the previous instruction, but I don't have it here, okay? So I'll give you guys some time to discuss that, but let me pray for us, okay?

And then Pastor Mark has an announcement. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. And I thank you for my brothers and sisters that even after a long day of working and various things that we're here each week, Lord God, just diving into your word. I pray that your word would truly come alive, that it would affect our intellect, our heart, our will in every way, Father, that our hungering for you would translate into hungering for your word.

I pray for your blessing over the time of discussion. May it be fruitful unto you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.