Is Paul An Overthinker?

             I know an overthinker when I read one, because that is my own tendency.  Do you know the joke that, being a pastor, why use a word when ten will do?  There is an uncomfortable amount of truth that underlies the humor.  In our passage, Paul could be accused of doing exactly that.

             Heard of a "to do" list?  How about the "Done for us" list":

·       Blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing…

·      Chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world…

·      Destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ…

·      Freely bestowed (his glorious grace) on us in the Beloved…

·      We have redemption through his blood…

o   Forgiveness of our trespasses…

·      This according to the riches of his grace lavished upon us…

·      Made known to us the mystery of his will,

o   According to his good pleasure set forth in Christ…

§  To gather all things in him for the fullness of time, in heaven and on earth…

·      Obtained an inheritance (in Christ)…

·      Destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all…

·      So we might live for the praise of his glory, the first to set our hope on Christ…

·      In him, when you heard the word of truth,..

o   The gospel of your salvation…

§  And believed in him, were marked by the seal of the Promised Holy Spirit.

·       This is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

We have our Story (Capital S).  I have a literary theory that poetry results when all the excess words are removed.  So, a poem…(maybe?)

Jesus was born unto us,

       Jesus lived with us,

          Jesus died for us,

              Jesus rose for us,

                  Jesus reigns over us,

                      Jesus prayers for us.

      That’s our story and I am sticking with it.  Dig into Paul and be amazed at what God has accomplished in this story.

Peace,
Pastor Peter

Artemis Versus Jesus...or Economics Versus Religion?

Our Summer Sermon Series is drawn from Paul’s letter to the Church in Ephesus.  To give a little background to this letter, there are details in Acts 19 and 20.

Paul caused a riot.  Ephesus was the home to a Temple of Artemis and with Paul showing up with his cronies, they were making a dent in the religious trade.  Because that is what the riot was about.  It was not about the truth of Jesus versus the truth of Artemis.

No, it was about religious tourism.  There was a silversmith guild in Ephesus that apparently made its money off of religious icons of the goddess Artemis.  Along comes Paul and company and people are beginning to listen to this new guy.  In fact, it reflected the efficacy of Paul’s entire operation in Asia.

Now, that might sound deceiving in today's consideration, because Asia is really, really huge-now, a whole continent.  In the time of the Roman Empire, it was a province that occupied the western part of what is now the nation of Turkey, a region of Greek speaking cities (again, a different time from the present).

But the kicker is Ephesus is NOT so different from us today.  Why did Demetrius, the ringleader from the silversmiths, kick up a fuss?  Well, after complaining about how Paul was finding success all over Asia (the province), he said, “And there is danger not only that this trade of ours (silver trinkets of Artemis) may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be scorned, and she will be deprived of her majesty that brought all Asia and the world to worship her… (and buy the silver trinkets of the silversmiths)”.

Wrap up economics in religious terms and start a riot. 

I was curious as to what these trinkets looked like, so here is one possibility, with free advertising to the folks providing the link.  I have no connection or link to them other than a convenient pic.

https://images.app.goo.gl/d5427PTzhfTbts1c6