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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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| Archived Manna: | |
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. Tuesday, August 19, 2025
Today's Passage : Today's Passage:The Trumpet Will Sound BibleVerse:1 Thessalonians 4:15-18 (DP Bible) "This we tell you as the Word of the Lord, that when the Lord comes, we the living who have been left behind to await Him, will certainly not go ahead of those who have fallen asleep. The Lord Himself, with a great cry in the voice of an archangel and the trumpet of God, will descend from Heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise up first. Then those of us who remain, still alive, will be taken up into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, together with them; and thus we will be with the Lord forever. So, comfort one another in this knowledge. " Message:
Some critics of Christianity, especially the grotesque atheist “professors of religion” in universities, claim that Paul knew nothing about the life or teachings of Jesus and had a theology divorced from, and often contradictory to, the teachings of Christ. We will, during the course of studying Paul’s epistles, examine this issue closely. And we will start today: For here, in the very first letter Paul wrote, we see evidence to the contrary. Somehow, the details Paul gives of the Second Coming in 1 Thessalonians are remarkably consistent with the words of Christ, which were reported independently by Matthew some years later.
As one can see immediately from comparing Matthew 24 and 1 Thess. 4, Paul and Christ are talking (somehow) about the same event. They seem to share the same knowledge of how the Second Coming will occur. They are discussing different topics, but the incidental information given by Paul in this letter is either a remarkable coincidence in its overlap with Matthew, or else it is evidence of Paul’s direct spiritual revelation. (The Gospel of Matthew had not yet been written.)
Paul, by Giotto
Paul, by Giotto
Paul received information first-hand, from Christ Himself. Christ’s “direct revelation” to Paul is recounted by Luke in Acts 9 and throughout Paul’s epistles. The words of Paul are the words of Christ, albeit in Paul’s voice. In speaking of the Pauline Epistles, we use the term “inspired,” which means written by God directly, through a prophet. In the broadest sense—understanding that the Greek word gospel means “good news”—Paul’s writings could be described as gospel. (And this is how he refers to his preaching: read the first few verses of Galatians. )
Paul’s focus is on an issue that is not addressed in the Gospels we have — specific facts about how the dead and living will be raised—so his overlap with Matthew is incidental. His purpose is to give comfort to the Thessalonians about God’s love for those who had died. As discussed yesterday, when Paul and his companions were run out of Macedonia, the young Thessalonian Christians were left without any writings or a knowledgeable teacher to answer their questions or give them guidance. Because they expected Christ to return any day, and sweep them up while they were alive, they became most concerned about those who died. This section of 1 Thessalonians informed them and comforted them about their salvation if they died before the Second Coming.
Paul’s words live on today. One might take this completely literally, or give some room for metaphorical understanding of an event we cannot grasp, such as whether there will be actual trumpets or instead a great sound similar to a trumpet.
But it is critical to Christian faith that we draw strict limits on understanding any Biblical passage as metaphorical. The Greek philosophers understood the accounts of their gods as metaphor and myth; and much of modern theology has headed for the same spiritual dead end.
Not Paul! His writings gave us the literal Word of God, which is at its basis concrete truth, not metaphor and certainly not myth. If any part of the Bible seems foolish, it is because it is supposed to: we receive our salvation by faith, not logic. As Paul will write later:
“‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.”
(1 Corinthians 1:18-24)
Meditation : “I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.” Prayer : I pray that I may be blessed every step of my path this day by the great God of light. May your sun shine upon me; as the moon moves the tide, may your Spirit move my emotions with every grace and magic; may my heart sing with the voice of your angels and my hearth be warm; and may this and every blessed day You have given me be filled with joy. Amen. |
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