Christ's Law

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● Col 3:22-25 . . Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not
only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and
reverence for The Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working
for The Lord, not for men

Some Christians tend to forget that they live in a fishbowl wherein nothing escapes
God's notice.

● 1Pet 1:13-17 . . Prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope
fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient
children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.
But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: Be
holy, because I am holy. Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work
impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear.

NOTE: I have yet to discover anything in the Bible either forbidding or condemning
slavery per se. I have discovered places in the Bible related to the treatment of slaves,
but that's been pretty much it thus far.
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● Col 4:1 . . Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you
know that you also have a Master in heaven.

The master in heaven is providential. In other words: Christian masters have a
sacred obligation to house their slaves in decent accommodations, clothe them with
adequate garments, and nourish them with good food too because slave masters
are a father to the souls in their house; they depend on him to care for them;
there's no one else; and according to Gen 1:27 and Matt 12:11-12, people deserve
to be treated better than an animal.

Whether the above rule should be taken to apply in normal labor relations can be
disputed, but in my judicious estimation; Christian employers really ought to pay
their workers a living wage-- augmented with timely adjustments for inflation -
rather than just paying them the least they can in order to keep profits up and
overhead down. (Just saying)
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● Col 4:2 . . Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.

The Greek word translated "devote" means to persevere; viz: not give up and/or
lose interest.

"And he spoke a parable unto them to this end: that people ought always to pray,
and not lose heart." (Luke 18:1)

For many of us, prayer is a last resort; a grasping at straws because we simply
have nowhere else to turn. We wish for success with prayer, while not really
expecting it because we already know from plenty of experience that prayer too
often leads into a cul-de-sac of perplexity and discouragement; so then, what's the
use? In other words: prayer is very difficult for some Christians because it's often
so futile.

Why doesn't God respond? And if He's not going to respond, then why keep on
making a fool of ourselves trying to get through to an imaginary playmate when all
the while its phone is off the hook?

It was this very issue that led Mother Teresa of Calcutta to question whether there
really is a God out there. During virtually her entire five decades in India, Teresa
felt not the slightest glimmer of The Lord's presence and suffered a good deal of
anxiety wondering why Christ abandoned her.

In one of Teresa's private letters, penned to a Father Picachy, Teresa complained:
"I am told God loves me; and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is
so great that nothing touches my soul."

In yet another letter, Teresa complained: "When I try to raise my thoughts to
Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like
sharp knives and hurt my very soul. How painful is this unknown pain-- I have no
faith."

If the most pious nun the 20th century ever produced found heaven's phone lines
dead for virtually five decades, then why should John Que and Jane Doe pew
warmer persist with prayer? Well; primarily because it's commanded. I would
suppose that's reason enough for most. I mean; were God to ask us to throw a
baseball at the Moon every so often; wouldn't we comply just to please Him, even
knowing we couldn't possibly hit it?
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● Col 4:3-4 . . And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so
that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I
may proclaim it clearly, as I should.

Proclaiming the mystery of Christ clearly as one should means to avoid
sophisticated intellectualism. (1Cor 2:1-5)

For example: when physicist Stephen Hawking set out to write his fabulously
popular book "A Brief History Of Time" he determined to make an effort to speak of
complicated cosmological concepts for a layman's ears. Well; he succeeded, and
consequently just about anybody with an average IQ and the ability to read can
pick up Stephen's book and get something out of it.

When the Bible is taught with too many uncommon words, the result isn't much
different than speaking in a foreign language. So to avoid a language barrier, I
suggest keeping one's presentation colloquial, i.e. informal.

● 1Cor 14:19 . . In the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct
others than ten thousand words in a tongue.
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● Col 4:5 . . Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every
opportunity.

Christian wisdom should consist of Christian moral values, Christian conduct, and
Christian character.

I once heard a story about a well-meaning sidewalk evangelist who was handing
out Gospel tracts. A man came by and asked the side-walker what he was doing.
The side-walker handed the man a tract and said: Here, read this. Well, the man
was illiterate. So he told the side-walker: I can't read your tract, so I'll just watch
your tracks.

In other words; don't just talk the talk; walk the walk too-- live it because for some
people, your life speaks volumes.
_
 
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● Col 4:6 . . Let your speech be always full of grace, seasoned with salt

Grace can be defined as kind, courteous, gentle, patient, lenient, inclined to good
will, generous, charitable, altruistic, compassionate, sympathetic, thoughtful,
cordial, affable, genial, sociable, cheerful, warm, sensitive, hospitable, considerate,
and tactful.

It seems to me from the language and grammar of Matt 5:13, Mark 9:50, and Luke
14:34 that the primary purpose of salt is to enhance flavor and make otherwise
naturally insipid and/or bad-tasting things palatable, viz: salt can be thought of as
diplomacy; roughly defined as conversation that makes an effort to maintain peace
rather than provoke conflict and/or annoy people and make them uncomfortable.
_
 
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● Col 4:16 . . After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the
church of the Laodiceans; and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea.

The cities of Colossae and Laodicea weren't all that far from each other so it was
convenient for them to share information.

Paul's instructions have little application today except to point out that the epistles
are meant to be curriculum in every Christian assembly; not just special Christian
churches and/or denominations.

* Ironically, the Christians at Laodicea are immortalized in the New Testament as
examples of a church very nearly gone off the rails. (Rev 3:14-22)
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● 1Thess 4:1-2 . . Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord
Jesus, that, as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and
please God (just as you actually do walk), that you may excel still more. For you
know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.

The commandments instituted in the apostle Paul's letters are given to the Lord's
followers for the purpose of taking the guess work out of walking and pleasing God;
viz: nobody should expect to excel in Christ's commandments when they don't even
know what they are.

"Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I
speak this to your shame." (1Cor 15:34)
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● 1Thess 4:3-5 . . It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should
avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a
way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not
know God;

The Greek word translated "sanctified" speaks of purity, i.e. clean living.

Some folk, not quite understanding the nature of the Spirit birth about which John
wrote in John 1:12-13 and about which Christ spoke in John 3:3-8, have been led
to believe that born-again Christians are supposed to be free of their libido and
their romantic impulses. Well, obviously not, or why else would it be God's will to
control them?

"and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him."
(1Thess 4:7)

"this matter" refers not only to fornication, but also to adultery.

"Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will
judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral." (Heb 13:4)

Christians commit adultery with Christians? Haw! Does that even need to be
answered? Of course they do; and it goes on all the time, even among church
officers; who by all rights should be setting the example for the rank and file.

My wife was once friends with the wife of a counselor in a very big church in a large
California city. She confided with my wife (on the QT of course) that it was amazing
the number of church officers and their wives involved in affairs.
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● 1Thess 4:6b-8 . . God has called us to be holy, not to live impure lives. Anyone
who refuses to live by these rules is not disobeying human rules but is rejecting
God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

Why "gives" the Spirit instead of gave? Well; although Christ's believing followers
are all equally endowed with the Spirit (1Cor 6:19, Eph 1:13) its benefits are doled.

His holy Spirit is depicted as a source of living water.

"On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice: If
anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the
scripture has said: streams of living water will flow from within him. By this he
meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive." (John
7:37-39)

When Christ's followers go rogue, and allow human nature to dominate their lives
instead of complying with Christ's commandments; the water is withheld.
Consequently it's possible for them to dry up. (Rom 8:5-13)
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● Gen 1:26-27 . .Then God said: Let us make man in our image, in our likeness,
and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the
livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

Nobody in their right mind would entrust all life on earth to an amoral beast; which
is exactly what mankind would've been had God not created them like Himself, i.e.
industrious beings with a sense of responsibility.

NOTE: The introduction of the plural pronouns "us" and "our" into the narrative at
this point has given rise to some interesting speculation regarding the identities of
the antecedents.

Deut 6:4 says God is a singularity. But until the 'us" and the "our" of Gen 1:26 and
Gen 3:22 are positively identified; we must insist that God wears more than one
hat; and thus far those hats have been Himself (Gen 1:1) His spirit (Gen 1:2) and
His voice (Gen 1:3).

* God's voice is notable because John 1:1-3 tells of a divine being involved in the
work of creation called The Word; translated from a Greek noun that primarily
refers to speech.

The Hebrew word for "rule" basically means to tread down, i.e. subjugate;
specifically: to crumble off. In other words: the Earth was intended as a warehouse
of resources, and Man was intended to make use of them rather than just roaming
the Earth as a tourist and/or a glorified gardener.

I saw a pretty interesting bumper sticker some time ago that went like this:

We Are Not Above The Earth;
We Are of the Earth.

Well . . I respect Native America's cultural sentiment underlying that statement;
and must admit that I agree with it to a certain extent. But the creator decreed that
though Man is of the earth; he is very definitely above it too, and has the God
given authority to subjugate every living thing on the planet. According to Heb 2:5
8, humanity is on track to dominate even more.

"It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are
speaking. But there is a place where someone has testified: What is man that you
are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little
lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor and put everything
under his feet."

. . . In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him.
Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him. But we see Jesus, who was
made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he
suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

* My initial reaction, upon hearing for the first time that Christ was returning some
day to rule the world, was anxiety. I instinctively knew a face to face with him
would not go well because I had a lot to answer for.
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● 1Thess 4:11a . . Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life,

I highly recommend avoiding political activism like the plague. Demonstrations,
protests, marches, and the like are not what I call a quiet life; and they sometimes
result in violence and civil disobedience; which are really bad things for Christ's
believing followers. (cf. 2Tim 2:4)

● 1Thess 4:11b . . and tend your own business.

Getting one's self involved with stuff that doesn't pertain to you whilst neglecting
your obligations. commitments, and responsibilities is irresponsible.

I think this rule may be intended to regulate meddling too; which in my opinion is a
very annoying habit practiced by people who honestly believe they know how to live
your life better than you. Well; maybe they do; but if there is one thing I and quite
a few others really despise it's unsolicited counseling.
_
 

● 1Thess 4:11c-12 . . Work with your own hands, just as we instructed you, so that
your daily life may win the respect of outsiders; and so that you will not be
dependent on anybody.

In times of economic stress-- e.g. the 2008 Wall Street collapse, downsizing, wage
reductions, corporations expatriating for tax advantages and/or outsourcing and
moving their manufacturing offshore to take advantage of cheap labor and skimpy
government controls, and the covid-19 virus chaos --a pretty large percentage of
America's employable Christians were, and have been, out of work not because
they were lazy free-loaders; but because their opportunities for full time work with
decent wages and benefits evaporated.

So tread lightly when services like unemployment benefits, SNAP, and TANF, etc,
come up in conversations. Innocent people's feeling might get hurt if you become
too critical of those kinds of relief systems. And don't ever assume that you are
immune to poverty. It can happen to anyone; even overnight and then you'll be
looking around for assistance; maybe even from the very agencies that you at one
time thought were below you.
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● 1Thess 4:18 . . Encourage each other with these words.

Below are the words to which Paul referred.

● 1Thess 4:13-17 . . Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who
fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that
Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those
who have fallen asleep in him. According to The Lord's own word, we tell you that
we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of The Lord, will certainly not
precede those who have fallen asleep.

. . . For The Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with
the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ
will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up
together with them in the clouds to meet The Lord in the air. And so we will be with
The Lord forever.

In other words: "the rest of men" have no way of knowing for sure whether their
dead will ever be seen again, i.e. non Christians lack anticipation, which really ought
to be a commonalty among Christ's believing followers.

● John 14:2-3 . . In my Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I
would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a
place for you, I will come again, and receive you to myself; that where I am, there
you may be also.
_
 
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● 1Thess 5:5-6 . . We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us
not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled.

Christians walk a strange path. On the one hand they have to be ready to leave this
Earth and face Christ on a moment's notice, while on the other hand ready for a
long stay, i.e. live like there's no tomorrow, and yet live like there are years to
come.

Those two dissimilar expectations balance each other so that we don't live to
extremes in either direction: always keeping in mind that as we came into this
world empty-handed we will leave it empty-handed. So be prepared to suffer the
loss of every personal item in your possession that you hold dear; along with every
project, every pastime, and every endeavor. (1Tim 6:7)
_
 
The law of love in the Bible is the commandment to love one another. This commandment is found in several verses in the Bible, including Romans 13:8-10, which states that "Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”".

Another example is John 13:34, where Jesus commands his disciples to love one another as he has loved them.
 
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● 1Thess 5:8 . . Since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled, putting on
faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.

There's likely any number of explanations for "the day" and probably all are useful.
However, we can narrow them all down to just saying that we who belong to the
day are alive to God as opposed to when we were at one time darkness and dead to
God.

When someone is dead to you, then you're saying that they are someone with
whom you do not care to associate; and as far as you're concerned they don't even
exist.

"Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let
sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the
parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves
to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of
your body to him as instruments of righteousness." (Rom 6:11-14)

According to Rom 8:23-25 the "hope" of salvation regards another body.

"We ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait
eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we
were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already
has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."

This hope isn't a wishing hope, nor is it a hope-for-the-best hope, nor a cross-your
fingers hope. The Greek word is elpis (el-pece') which means to anticipate with
pleasure and confident expectation.

Anticipation is way different than wishful thinking. When a daddy loads up the car
with wife and kids for a day at Six Flags, his family is no longer wishing he'd take
them there. No, they're in the car and on the way. They no longer wish, but are
now looking forward to having a day of great fun, food, and excitement. That's elpis
hope; and when people have it, they have peace of mind as regards their afterlife
prospects.

* When I was young and strong, the resurrection wasn't very meaningful. But now
in my 80's, and breaking down from cancer and old age; I have a very different outlook.
_
 
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● 1Thess 5:11 . . Therefore encourage one another, and build each other up, just
as in fact you are doing.

Building up is just the opposite of tearing down. Christians in Galatia were busy
doing the latter.

"But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed one
of another." (Gal 5:15)

Biting and devouring one another describes cannibals and carnivorous beasts.
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● 1Thess 5:12-13a . . Now we ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard
among you, who are over you in The Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the
highest regard in love because of their work.

I would say that if the officers in your church are just too impossible for you to
respect then it's time to abandon ship. Don't mutiny though because mutiny is just
as much a sin as heresy. The rank and file aren't called to reform church officers;
but to cooperate with them. (Heb 13:17)

If they can't cooperate with them; then I sincerely believe the rank and file should
leave and find a church where they can because Christ isn't pleased with grudging
cooperation; rather, with whole-hearted cooperation. (cf. Mark 12:30)
_
 

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