A Profound Mystery
Ephesians 5:22-33
Marriage is a sacred covenant, charged with a sacred mission – to represent Christ and his church.
A Profound Mystery – Ephesians 5:22-33
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Tag Archives: Christ
Palmer St. Podcast: How Long? How Majestic!
We need to express gratitude and worship to keep growing into strong and mature believers. One of the great challenges we face is getting from a troubled heart to a heart full of praise. The Psalms can help us make that transition.
Palmer St. Podcast: Poetry and Prayer
The child learns to speak because his father speaks to him. He learns the speech of his father. So we learn to speak to God because God has spoken to us and speaks to us. By means of the speech of the Father in heaven his children learn to speak with him. Repeating God’s own words after him, we begin to pray to him.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906-1945, in Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible
Palmer St. Podcast: A Happy Ending
In a sense, God writes the ending of every story. This is uniquely significant in the story of Job.
Palmer St. Podcast: Finding Wisdom
What is the essential thing we need that will allow us to look back on a life well-lived? The bottom-line answer the Bible gives is, “Wisdom.”
Palmer St. Podcast: Romans 7
In Romans 6, Paul made the point that if we are in Christ, we are dead to sin and alive to Romans 7, he’ll make a related point: We are also dead to the law and alive to Christ.
Three Types of Subject Matter
In Acts 11 we see three types of subject matter that need to be communicated by God’s servants.
11:20 preaching euaggelízō to announce good news, “evangelize”. This is to unbelievers. They really just need to hear the gospel. Until they grasp that nothing else really matters very much.
11:23 encouraging parakaléō to call alongside, exhort, admonish Related to parakletos, a title used of both Jesus and the Holy Spirit. (See John 14:16, 15:26, 16:7 and 1 John 2:1) This is especially to new believers. They need to go beyond the gospel itself and hear about commitment to Christ, growth and perseverance – so that they don’t see trials and fall away. More mature believers also still need this from time to time because, let’s face it, we get discouraged and need motivation.
11:26 teaching didáskō (like “didactic”) to impart instruction, explain or expound a thing, instill doctrine. This is educating Christians about God and the Christian life, communicating all that God has revealed to us – from A to Z, Alpha to Omega, the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation, the Contents to the Maps. Teaching nourishes and matures a church. It is sorely needed in the church today. Many Christians are ignorant of the Scriptures and are therefore weak in their faith (Romans 10:17). We their pastors need to feed it to them.
