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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness Gal 5:22 |
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Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Wednesday, March 4, 2020
Today's Passage : Today's Passage :Honor Such Men Bible Verse :Philippians 2:19-30 "Ihope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know Timothy’s proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel. I hope therefore to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me, and I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also. I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need, for he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill. Indeed he was ill, near to death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. I am the more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious. So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men, for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me." Message:
The passage is not primarily intended for posterity. It is a more practical, personal message about who might and might not travel to Philippi to serve the people there. But Paul gives us a glimpse of two types of Christian leaders; and we see, today and throughout Christian history, examples of both.
There is no mention of Epaphroditus anywhere else. How many thousands of people, male and female, does he represent? A man who had given, literally, his entire life to the service of Christ, without hope of extra gain beyond his own salvation—and in fact, with great loss of his comforts on earth, including his own life. Paul tells the people of Philippi, and us, to honor such people. Timothy is another, but Timothy we see again and again in Paul’s epistles.
And so, we should honor Epaphroditus and all like him. Perhaps we should remember him on All Saints Day, while we nibble on leftover Halloween candy. I cannot help but recall one of the greatest poems of the English Language, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray. “Full many a flow’r is born to blush unseen,/ And waste its sweetness on the desert air.” (If you have never taken the time and trouble to read it, it is not terribly long, and well worth the half hour or so it takes to decipher the 18th century poetic language. Gray’s Elegy.
tender mercy
I rarely say this, but sometimes the word “men” in the Bible refer to a gender of person, and sometimes it simply means “people.” Greek (and English, before @ 1980) used the masculine pronoun to refer to both male humans and to people without regard to gender. We are expected to know which from the context. Here, there is no hint of gender, and many translations today will read “honor such people.”
On the downside, we have far too often seen the men Paul compares unfavorably to Timothy and Epaphroditus. “For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.” The word “all” seems to indicate that there were a large number of such persons — ostensible Christian leaders who sought their own interests rather than the interests of those they served.
They are still with us, and the damage they do to Christian life is enormous. Even worse, such clergymen urge their followers to look after their own interests. Churches are rife with the worship of worldly power in the form politics (liberal and conservative), lust, money, anger, war; one can find every sort of sin imaginable not simply tolerated, but promoted. The Bible is our anchor, our stalwart, in preventing ourselves from believing lies told from the pulpit.
Meditation : Prayer : Now, oh Lord, I pray that you may lift up the light of your countenance upon me, and give me peace; in my going out and in my coming in; in my sitting down and my rising up; in my work and in my play; in my joy and in my sorrow, in my laughter and in my tears; until that day comes which is without dawn and without dark.......Amen |
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