Basics of the New Testament - Lesson 6

In this lesson, we’re going to look at the next four of Paul’s letters, and we classify them as the Prison Epistles. You remember from the Book of Acts, Paul is left waiting trial in Rome. He was there for a couple of years, and it is during that time that he wrote these four letters. That’s why we call them Prison Epistles. The first is the letter he wrote to the Ephesian church, or at least the area that Ephesus was. And again, we have this wonderful structure where the first three chapters are usually theological. The last three are very practical. Again, not too firm of a division, but you can see it really clearly in the book of Ephesians.

Now, one of the really important passages in the Book of Ephesians has to do with our spiritual blessings. This is who you are in Christ. Whether you feel it or not, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, this is all true of you. And it’s the first chapter, verses 3 to 14. And I’d really encourage you to reflect on these, to read them slowly, and to think through. But regardless of how you feel about yourself, or other people feel about you, this is how God feels about you. Paul says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” Every spiritual blessing is now ours. The “heavenlies” is a concept that only comes up in Ephesians, but it’s the idea that we are already receiving some of these heavenly benefits. 

What are the benefits of being a follower of Christ? “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world.” God looked down before there was time and said, “Bill Mounce is mine.” Okay, that’s what it means to be chosen. “And he chose me to be holy and blameless.” That was through the work of Christ on the cross. “In love, God predestined us for adoption to sonship.” In other words, he didn’t just save us, he brought us into his family. He adopted us. We’re all adopted children of God. Okay, there’s no biological children of God. There’s only adopted children of God, and we’re all adopted into his family. “Through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will…” And there’s your sovereignty of God, he’s doing what he wants to do. “…to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the one he loves,” the one meaning Jesus. And when you get to verse 7, you get some more blessings. “In him, we have redemption.” We have been redeemed from sin. “Through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.” God is not frugal, not in how he treats his children, but he lavishes himself upon us. “With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ.” 

Wow, there’s a lot of stuff in there, but that’s who you are as far as he’s concerned. All right. And by the way, as you read through this passage, you’ll see the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But I’ll let you figure that one out.

The other passage that’s really important, I think, in Ephesians is in chapter two. In the first ten verses, the caption is, “God saved us.” And it talks about who we were and what God has done. And it talks about that we were dead in our sin, but God is rich in his mercy. God, mercy is God’s goodness extended to those in need. All right. We were saved by God’s grace, God’s goodness extended to people who don’t deserve it. The faith that we have is a gift. And the very famous verse here is, for by grace you’ve been saved through faith. And that’s not of yourselves. It is a gift of God. In other words, the entire process of salvation is a free gift from God. So, a wonderful passage about the nature of salvation. And then we’re called to walk in unity.

The next of the Prison Epistles is the Philippians. He wrote to the church in Philippi. When you’re a prisoner in Rome, you have to pay for your own keep. And so, people would send Paul money, but the Philippian church had evidently sent him a very significant gift. He was primarily writing to say thank you. But in chapter 2 of Philippians, we have one of the most important passages about the person of Christ and who Christ is. And what Paul is doing, he’s calling on the Philippian church to pursue humility. And he wants to use Jesus as an example of what humility really looks like. And so, in Philippians 2, starting in verse 5, he says, (or verse 6, I guess), “that Jesus, being in very nature God…” And by the way, I’m reading out of the NIV. Some of these words are hard to translate, so you may have some variety in different translations. But anyway, “that Jesus, being in very nature God” (in other words, he was fully God, all right), “…did not consider equality with God something to be…” (and the NIV translation, is “used to his own advantage”). The idea is “the fact that he was equal with God” (because he was in very nature God), “that privilege isn’t something that he held on despite everything else, but rather he made himself nothing.” 

How did he do that? “Well, he took on the very nature of a servant.” In other words, he was fully human, and he was made in human likeness. He looked like a human being. “And being found in appearance as a man…” perhaps as a male, but certainly as a human being, “…he humbled himself.” So he’s in very nature God. He is equal with God, but he didn’t hang on to that, but rather he made himself nothing, and he humbled himself. How did he humble himself? “…being obedient to death, even death on the cross…” (about the worst kind of death you could have). “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord.” Okay, that ‘Lord’ is the translation of the Greek word kurios, which is the translation of the Hebrew ‘Yahweh,’ which is the name for God himself. Jesus Christ is God, to the glory of God the Father. Again, you can see the Trinity working there.

Now one of the translations in there, some of the translations talk about that Jesus “gave up” something. Jesus never ceased being God. He never ceased being human. So if you have that “giving up” translation, that’s not what the passage means. The way I like to say it, and pick this up from a book I’m sure, is that he gave up the independent exercise of his divinity. In other words, when Jesus lived his life, he humbled himself to a human life. He didn’t rely on the fact that he was still God. Okay, he didn’t give that up, but rather through the power of God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, he lived a totally human life and was 100% obedient to him. So a great hymn—this is called a hymn, probably was the way the early church taught people, because most of them couldn’t read, is that they memorized hymns. And this is one of those hymns that talks about who Jesus is, fully God and fully human. All right, so that’s Philippians. Great, thankful, it’s just an encouraging book to read.

So the next one is Colossians. There was an interesting thing going on in Colossae, and that is, it was a kind of a form of syncretism, that the church had taken Christianity and then worship of spirits and ancestors and things, they kind of merged them all together. And so Paul is having to deal with that. And he starts in chapter 1 again, starting at verse 15, “…to declare the supremacy of Christ in all things.” In other words, syncretism is wrong. The blending of the church and culture is wrong. Okay, the church has to address the culture, but you can’t blend. So for example, for our Chinese brothers and sisters, ancestor worship is part of the culture. And the Christians in China have to deal with that, and they can’t slip into ancestral worship. But they have to be Christians, right? And it’s true in Africa, it’s true in a lot of different places. We probably do the same thing in America; it’s just we don’t see it as clearly. But that’s what was going on in Colossae. They had merged Christianity with other kinds of thinking. And he wants to start by saying, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Demons are real, but you know, the spirits, we’re not under the control of the spirits, we’re not under the control of the stars. We’re under the control of Jesus Christ.” That’s the point he’s trying to make.

“So the Son is the image of the invisible God.” You see Jesus, you see God, okay? God the Father is invisible, no one has seen him, but we have seen the Messiah, we have seen the Christ. He is the visible representation of God. Jesus is the firstborn over all creation, with all the benefits that comes from being the firstborn. “For in him,” meaning in Jesus, “all things were created.” So who is the God in Genesis 1? It’s Jesus. It wasn’t God the Father. It was Jesus who created all things, who spoke, and reality came into being. And then the NIV has a colon here, and they want to emphasize “all things.” “Things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him.” Everything was created to direct us toward Jesus, all right? “He is before all things. In him, all things hold together.” He holds the universe together, whatever that means, I’m not sure. But without him, I think matter would dissipate, because he’s holding all things together. “He is the head of the body,” which is the church. “He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him.” Again, you can feel Paul dealing with the Trinity. But Jesus was fully God. “And through him,” through Jesus, “to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.” Wow, what an amazing statement. And that’s the absolute supremacy of Christ in all things. And if you understand that, then you’re not going to try to blend in culture or traditions or, you know, the Zodiac. I mean, none of that stuff matters, because Christ is supreme. He is over all, and he’s the only one that we need to be concerned about. He’s the only one that we need to rely on.

So what happens then, after he’s laid that down in Colossians, chapter 2, he actually makes the point, and you can read the full passage. Verse 8, “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy.” It doesn’t mean that all philosophy is hollow and deceptive, but some philosophy is hollow and deceptive. “Philosophy that depends upon human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of the world rather than on Christ. For in Christ, all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form.” And he goes on to talk about human traditions that take away from our understanding of the supremacy of Christ. So very, very powerful passage, especially if you live in a syncretistic kind of culture. Let me emphasize, syncretism isn’t just in China and in Africa. Syncretism is here in the United States, where people think that being a Christian and being an American are the same thing. That’s syncretism, and it’s simply not true. All right.

The last of the Prison Epistles is called Philemon. It’s a very short letter, and Philemon was a slave owner, and he had a slave named Onesimus. And apparently, Onesimus ran away, had went to Rome, and was converted through the ministry of Paul. And now Paul and Onesimus have a problem. What’s Onesimus supposed to do? Because if you’re a slave and you’re running away, it’s a capital offense. Philemon could have had him killed. But apparently, Paul thinks Onesimus should go back to Philemon and apologize and serve him. And you want to talk about a book that uses shame and guilt to make the point across. Just every verse in Philemon is Paul saying, “Yeah, yeah, you have control over Onesimus, but I own you,” something to that effect. “You know, you’re indebted to me. Don’t forget that in how you treat Onesimus.” So it’s a letter to a shame culture will make a lot of sense.

Now, I need to say something about slavery. And in my commentary on the Pastorals, I have a very long section on the church and slavery. And we encourage you, if this is something that’s important to you, to go read. But Paul has often been accused of having mixed priorities, and that he should have come out and just flat out condemned slavery. And Paul doesn’t do that. And that bothers a lot of people. And I understand why. But there are things in Paul’s writings that lessen the difficulty. First of all, in 1 Corinthians 7:21, Paul does say to slaves, “If you can gain your freedom, do it.” So he encourages them to get their freedom. But there’s some more subtle things. And one of the most important ones is in 1 Timothy 1. Paul has a list of sins. And the sins are parallel in the Ten Commandments. And you get to verse 10. And in the NIV translation is that one of the sins is being a slave trader. And that’s a really, really good translation. It parallels the eighth of the Ten Commandments, “Thou shalt not steal.” And what Paul is saying, in pretty clear terms, is that if you trade slaves, you are stealing. And the booty is human life. And so you have—it’s a pretty strong condemnation there.

But perhaps the more important, I would say more important, but it would be important, is the other verses that he has. So in Philemon, it’s only one chapter, so we say Philemon 1. But verse 16, listen to what he says, that “Philemon is to receive Onesimus back, no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me, but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man, as a brother in the Lord.” What Paul is doing is asserting the absolute equality of people. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a master or you’re a slave. You’re the same. Okay, you see that? Don’t think of him as a slave. He’s your brother. And that kind of equation moves a slave out from being property to being a human being and a brother in Christ. And that actually is a statement that would have raised some eyebrows in 1st century culture.

And you have somewhat the same kind of idea elsewhere, like in Colossians 4:1. “Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a master in heaven.” See what he’s doing? He’s leveling out the culture, and he’s saying it doesn’t matter whether you’re a slave or a master, you’ve got the same judge, and you’re going to have the same criteria by which you are judged. Do what is right and fair to your slaves, unheard of, for the most part, I should say, in ancient culture. And in Ephesians 6:9, Paul writes, “And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.” All right. Again, that might not sound like much to you in your modern culture, but in 1st century culture, that’s revolutionary. You’re going to be judged on an even standard with your slaves, so treat them accordingly.

Basically, though, what Paul is doing, what he’s saying by his inaction on slavery, is that there are some things that are more important than cultural change. Now, again, for us, that’s hard to hear, but the spread of the gospel is more important. And if Paul had started aggressively advocating for the freedom of slaves, the gospel would not have spread. And I think he knows that, and so he has his priorities. 

So those are the four Prison Epistles, and there’s a lot more into them than I was able to cover. I hope you will read them.