The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.

At the advice of my friends and peers in ministry, I'm taking a lot more time to spend with the text I preach and to use fewer texts. I'm really enjoying Paul and His Letters by John Polhill. I forgot how rewarding it was to explore what the writers of the Bible said to the original recipients. John Polhill is helping tremendously with that. He takes in scholarly concerns with skill without leaving behind some practical applications for the Church today, or at least making it easy for the reader to connect the dots.

I'm also trying to avoid drowning our congregation in scripture after scripture and many points. I'm going to try to say one thing, Jesus' works, not ours cause real and lasting revolution. This also goes along with Andy Stanley's book, called Communicating for a Change.
Here are some themes that I've observed so far that I'd like to highlight:

-The supremacy of Christ's work over the work of human beings for salvation.
-Our culture also spreads false gospels including, self help, outside beauty, materialism, and good works. None of those are God's dream for human kind.

Where is all this going? The word revolution gets tossed around in our culture a lot these days. Paul was certainly involved in a revolution. He understood that the best kind of change, the only real lasting change comes from an inside out revolution. He was furious with the Galatians when they went back to their old ways. He was fierce when talking to his Jewish peers about the dangers of trying to get to God from the outside in.

These thoughts aren't finished yet, but that's what I got cookin'.


Here's links to the sources I've been using for Paul's Letters and for getting better at teaching:

Blogged with the Flock Browser