Union Church

Listen along as Bill Berve walks us through Paul's second letter to Timothy.

Notes//Quotes:

2 Timothy 3:12-17 - Larry and Jorgen reading

“Timothy was deposed to fear rather than to lead. Greatness was being forced upon him much like Moses and Jeremiah and many others before and after him, but he was exceedingly reluctant to accept it."

"I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well. 6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, 7 for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control." 2 Timothy 1:5-6

"You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, 2 and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men,[a] who will be able to teach others also. 3 Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4 No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him." 2 Timothy 2:1-4

"While it may be difficult to judge how “successful” you are at being "strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus," there are at least three things whose absence in your life makes it clear that you are not doing so. First, there will be very little prayer in your life. Second, there will be very little risk-taking to speak the gospel and plenty of caving in when you are given opportunities to speak or defend the gospel. Third, there will be very little peace and plenty of anxiety in your life — a sure sign that you are failing to trust God."

"Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. 15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. 16 But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, 17 and their talk will spread like gangrene."

"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." 2Timothy 3:16-17 

"For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing." 2 Timothy 4:6-8

"Do your best to come to me soon. 10 For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. 11 Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. 12 Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus. 13 When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments." 2 Timothy 4:9-13

Today we enter the pastoral epistles in our journey through Scripture.

Notes/Quotes:

1 Timothy - Christine Reading 3:14-16

“As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus…” (1 Tim. 1:3a.)

"...remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, 4 nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith." (1 Tim. 1:3b-4)

"3 If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, 4 he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, 5 and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.”

“Countless times I have heard Christians say, ‘Why do I need to study doctrine or theology when all I need to know is Jesus?’ My immediate reply is this: ‘Who is Jesus?’ As soon as we begin to answer that question, we are involved in doctrine and theology. No Christian can avoid theology. Every Christian is a theologian. Perhaps not a theologian in the technical or professional sense, but a theologian nevertheless. The issue for Christians is not whether we are going to be theologians but whether we are going to be good theologians or bad ones.  A good theologian is one who is instructed by God.” (R.C. Sproul)

John Calvin on sound doctrine:

Part 2: Sound doctrine is that by which the life is framed and transformed to the fear of God, and the practice of obedience. Walking according to the law of God.

The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

“14 I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, 15 if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.” (1 Tim. 3:14 & 15)

“It has been right before our eyes in the Bible all along. Scores of references to “brothers and sisters,” to God as our Father, to Jesus as both our Bridegroom and Elder Brother, to the essential loving unity of God’s family, and to the household environment of holiness, spiritual nurture and safety. Paul taught Timothy “how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God.” (1 Tim. 3:15). He told the Ephesians, “You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household” (Eph. 2:19)….Pastor and writer Mark Buchanan affirms this: “Jesus is not ashamed to be called our brother. The Father gives us the Spirit of adoption through whom we cry, ‘Abba!’ Jesus asks who his mother and brother and sisters are, and answers they are those who do the Father’s will. From the cross Jesus says to the disciple John and his mother Mary, ‘Behold your son; behold your mother.’ And he says that our loyalty to him must transcend biological attachments.”

Listen along as we continue our journey through the Bible.

Notes//Quotes:

1 Thess 1:2-10 - Denise

“The resurrection was indeed a miraculous display of God’s power, but we should not see it as a suspension of the natural order of the world. Rather it was the beginning of the restoration of the natural order of the world, the world as God intended it to be…The resurrection means not merely that Christians have a hope for the future but that they have a hope that comes from the future. The Bible’s startling message is that when Jesus rose, he brought the future kingdom of God into the present.” - Tim Keller

“The implications of this are significant. If we over stress the “already” of the kingdom to the exclusion of the “not yet,” we will expect quick solutions to problems and we will be dismayed by suffering and tragedy. But we can likewise over stress the “not yet” of the kingdom to the exclusion of the “already.” We can be too pessimistic about personal change. We can withdraw from engaging the world, too afraid of being “polluted” by it. - Tim Keller

1 Thess 3:11-13, 

 1 Thess 4:1-12

1 Thess 5:14-24

Matthew 5:13-16, 

Handles for hope and holiness 

Listen along as we continue our time working through the story of Scripture.

Notes//Quotes:

Colossians 1:15-23 - Jon Reading

“In the past, it was common to refer to the problem as the “Colossian heresy.” That term is misleading because it anachronistically assumes that there were widely accepted criteria for judging orthodoxy in the time of Paul. It also assumes that the opponents are Christians who are corrupting the Colossians’ faith. Arnold uses the word “syncretism” to avoid prejudging the teaching as “bad, heretical, or unorthodox.” Paul, however, calls it a “philosophy” (2:8). Putting this term in quotation marks prevents us from understanding it as a logical system of truths and principles and allows it to apply to a religious way of life. What this “philosophy” was and how it threatened the congregation has occupied scholars’ attention for some time and no consensus has been reached. To identify the “philosophy” we have only meager snippets in a short but clearly polemical section (2:8, 16–23). The problem is compounded because this section is the most unclear passage in the letter. Many interpreters look outside the text for some evidence in Paul’s environment that will help stitch all the allusions in the letter together into a coherent pattern. It is like looking for a needle in a haystack, however. What is worse, the diverging conjectures reveal that scholars are looking in quite different haystacks for this magic needle. When one examines all the conflicting proposals by scholars who muster impressive primary evidence to buttress their arguments, the conflicting accounts resemble the story of blind men trying to describe an elephant when they are touching different parts of the animal. This does not mean that if we piece together all the different proposals, we will have our answer. The evidence is confusing and enigmatic.” 

1. It is a “hollow and deceptive philosophy” (2:8).

      We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.

Gif Laughing Baby

3 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. 5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. 12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. 

“When Christians do not live with a deep sense of gratitude for what God has done for them in Christ, they will become engulfed in anxieties and will be tempted to look for security in something other than Christ. Paul repeatedly urged the Colossians to be thankful for the victory already won for them by Christ’s cross and resurrection. Salvation can be found only in Christ, and Christians do not need something else or something more. The cross brings redemption, the forgiveness of sin, and triumph over all the powers that would oppress human life. Every believer is made complete when placed under the complete claim of Christ, and all the spiritual ills of our world find their only cure in him."

Elaine dancing gif: https://media.giphy.com/media/3o7TKstUpSOgEXNzKE/giphy.gif

Listen along as we learn about the place of Philippi, the prayer of Paul and how we are to press God's providence into our lives.

Notes/Quotes:

Philippians 1:3-11 - Larry and Jorgen

Philippians 1:3-11

(memes) - 1,2,3

Acts 16:16-24

Philippians 2:1-11

Philippians 4:4-7 -

“To be cynical is to be distant. While offering a false intimacy of being "in the know," cynicism actually destroys intimacy. It leads to a creeping bitterness that can deaden and even destroy the spirit...A praying life is just the opposite. It engages evil. The psalmist was in God's face, hoping, dreaming, asking. Prayer is feisty. Cynicism, on the other hand, merely critiques. It is passive, cocooning itself from the passions of the great cosmic battle we are engaged in. It is without hope.” Paul Miller

Listen along as Mike Gaston teaches through Ephesians.

Galatians 5:16-26

Acts 15:6-11

Gospel math

“Paul was against the legalism of the Judaizers because it usurped the work of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit and forced all converts to become Jews. It was not what was done that rankled Paul; it was why these things were done that produced his quick reaction. The system is one of “addition by subtraction”— adding to the gospel by subtracting the sufficiency of Christ and the Spirit.” - Scot Mcknight

Galatians 1:6-9

Galatians 3:23-29

Galatians 5:1

“Freedom of choice without limits has become almost sacred. Philosophers call this “negative freedom”—freedom from constraints—which they contrast with “positive freedom,” the freedom to pursue some good aim. Absolute negative freedom becomes the chief moral good, so that “the only sin which is not tolerated is intolerance.” Tim Keller 

The very theme of the kingdom of God, when preached properly and fully, directly challenges yet fulfills the late-modern desire for freedom. We can see in daily life how the disciplines—freedom “losses” like practice and dieting—lead to other kinds of freedom gains. We also see how when employees submit to the leadership of a great CEO or team members to that of a great coach, everyone on the team realizes his potential and everyone thrives. Submitting to the right rules and the right leader can bring all sorts of great freedoms. If we see this to be the case, then how much more liberating will it be to submit to the true king of our souls? All of this supports the famous claim by Jesus that knowing him sets you “free” (John 8:31–36), meaning The ultimate bondage is rebellion against the God who has made us. The despotic master is not Caesar, but shameful self-centeredness, an evil and enslaving devotion to created things at the expense of worship of the Creator.” - Tim Keller

“To see the law by Christ fulfilled, to hear His pardoning voice

Listen along as we continue our journey through the story of scripture.

Notes//Quotes:

2 Corinthians 5:11-21

“They have been ready to believe a whole range of criticisms against him—of being worldly and irresolute (1:17), of moral cowardice in writing instead of coming (1:23), of his lack of inner strength (4:16), of being demoralized and theologically deviant (4:2), of being an imposter (6:8), of being corrupt and exploitative (7:2), of not being a true minister of Christ (10:7), of being weak in speech when present and powerful only by letter, when absent (10:1, 10; 11:6, 21), of being a fool, even mad (11:1, 16, 23), of breaching convention or of craftiness in declining their financial support (11:7; 12:13–16), and of lacking mystical and miraculous credentials of ministry (12:1, 11–12). Throughout this letter Paul is forced to defend his doctrines, his ministry and his character.” - Paul Barnett

“How is it possible to be motivated by the fear of the Lord and the love of Christ? Are not fear and love irreconcilable? It all depends on a proper understanding of fear and love, which, it should be noted, are not opposites. In the Bible ‘fear’ is not cringing terror but holy reverence, and ‘love’ is not romantic feelings but sacrificial care. The two words are consistent and reconcilable. Indeed, the fear of the Lord and awareness of the love of Christ fit perfectly together to provide the true motivation for Christian ministry.” - Paul Barnett

5:16-20

2 Cor 4:7-18

“While other worldviews lead us to sit in the midst of life’s joys, foreseeing the coming sorrows, Christianity empowers its people to sit in the midst of this world’s sorrows, tasting the coming joy. Suffering can refine us rather than destroy us because God himself walks with us in the fire.” - Tim Keller 

2 Cor 8:9 

Our giving is a reflexive response to the grace of God in our lives. It doesn’t come out of our altruism or philanthropy – it comes out of the transforming work of Christ in us. God’s grace is the action; our giving is the reaction. We give because He first gave to us. The greatest passage on giving in all Scripture ends not with “Congratulations for your generosity,” but “Thanks be to God for his indescribably gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15). As thunder follows lightning, giving follows grace. - Randy Alcorn

2 Cor 2:5-11

“Forgiveness is not so much a word spoken, an action performed, or a feeling felt as it is an embodied way of life in an ever-deepening friendship with the Triune God and with others. As such, a Christian account of forgiveness ought not simply or even primarily be focused on the absolution of guilt; rather, it ought to be focused on the reconciliation of brokenness, the restoration of communion—with God, with one another, and with the whole creation.” - L. Gregory Jones

Is. 55:8-9

The natural flow of the fallen human heart is toward reciprocity, tit-for-tat payback, equanimity, balancing of the scales. We are far more intractably law-ish than we realize. There is something healthy and glorious buried in that impulse, or course—made in God’s own image, we desire order and fairness rather than chaos. But that impulse, like every part of us, has been diseased by the ruinous fall into sin. Our capacity to apprehend the heart of God has gone into meltdown. We are left with an impoverished view of how he feels toward his people…So God tells us in plain terms how tiny our natural views of his heart are. His thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are not our ways.”  - Dane Ortlund

2 Corinthians 13:11-14

Listen along as Mike teaches the book of Romans.

Notes/Quotes:

"Time and again in the course of Christian history, it has liberated the minds of men, brought them back

F. F. Bruce

Slide 3

Jared Wilson

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Romans 3:9-12

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Romans 3:21-24

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Romans 3:26

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Romans 5:1, 6-8

Slide 10

Romans 6:12-14