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Paul's Epistles Bible Reading Plan · Read, Do, & Tell

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the Read, Do, and Tell Podcast.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Becky.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Amy.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you all for joining us again.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Today we're going to go through another Bible reading plan and it will cover portions of the letters that Paul wrote during his missionary journey.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: We would recommend that you read the entire letters in the Bible.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: However, if you're struggling to really read in the Bible, then we hope that this reading plan will encourage you to at least get in and learn a little bit more.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then it would lead you maybe to go a little bit deeper.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: You can download this plan by becoming a podcast plus member.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: That is only$5 a month, but it helps us to continue to prepare material for you.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so we hope you'll partner with us by becoming a member.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: And in addition to the Bible reading plans, you can access the other materials that are created to help walk you through the podcast.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's the guided study notes and then other resources like charts that help you understand basically what's going on in those books of the Bible.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: So the resource that we'll be walking through today, we mentioned back in episode 33, which is the timeline of Paul's life and writing.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, with a few of Paul's epistles, not all of them, we have Bible historians and scholars.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: They don't always agree on the exact dating of when he penned them, but we know Paul wrote them.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the most important part.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Dr.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Mark Nickens, he um teaches at Liberty University online, and he also has a website called studythechurch.com.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna quote something he said because I think it's important to understand how Paul's letters are laid out in Scripture.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Most people think these letters are arranged in the order that Paul wrote them, but these letters are not arranged chronologically.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: So why are the letters of Paul arranged in this way if they're not chronological?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because that makes the most sense, right?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: We would think it would be that way.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they follow two rules.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: The first group of letters is to cities or communities, and the second group of letters is written to individuals.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Within each of those two groups, the letters are arranged from the longest letters to the shortest letters.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: I find that helpful.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: After Paul's first missionary journey, um, he goes back to Jerusalem for the Jerusalem Council.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when we believe he penned the letter to the Galatians, um, which is what I'll touch on briefly about what we talk about in the Bible reading plan.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so something that I was reading as I was preparing for today's podcast, that many times Jesus will take the disciple's name and he'll change it.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: He'll go, Now your name is.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: But for Paul, he didn't do that.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: So what I understand is that Saul being his name that we first learn, and then later he uses the name Paul, not because Jesus said, Now you'll be called Paul, but that's his Roman name.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's really cool because he has a Jewish name and he has a Gentile name.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: So that's pretty cool.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like God knew what he was doing when he was choosing Saul to be the what was it, the apostle to the Gentile nations.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, anyway, so back to the reading plan.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: I just thought that was pretty cool.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's in Acts 13, 9, actually, where Paul, on his first missionary journey to the island country of Cyprus, he uses the name Paul.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so in the Bible reading plan, we cover Galatian for three days.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: We go over chapter one, three, parts of four and five.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: And in these passages, Paul reminds them of the following.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: He gives them warnings against the perversion of the gospel, against um warnings for those who are going to teach, maybe angels that appear to preach a different gospel.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, Let them be forever condemned.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure we could think of a few teachings out there that say, An angel came and visited me.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so rewrote a different gospel.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then he um he shares with them that he was previously a persecutor of Christians, but now he is a Christian that takes the gospel to the Gentiles.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it's through the Holy Spirit that you attain righteousness, not of your own work.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: So if we think of Paul, he was a Jew, right?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: He followed the law, but he's saying, Nope.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Once you believe in the gospel, you receive the spirit, you are made righteous.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: It is not through any work of your own.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: Hallelujah.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so um I haven't always been a Christian.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: If you've heard my testimony, I think it's episode, oh, I don't remember.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's an episode where we went through our testimonies again.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: One of the moments that I remember would be when I was reading through Galatians, maybe two years ago.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: It was the first time that you and I are good were going through the Bible in a year together and we were holding one another accountable to do it.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I read Galatians 3, where it talks about being sons of Abraham.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: And when I started to listen to Christian music, like um kids' songs with my children in the car, there was a song that says, Father Abraham has many sons.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: And we would sing it, and in my mind, I would go, I don't understand what this song is saying.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: How are we sons of Abraham?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: So this time I'm reading through Galatians 3, and it says, it's it begins to say how Abraham believed and he was made righteous.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: It says the scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and gave the gospel to Abraham in advance.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: How did he give him the gospel?
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: It said, All nations would be blessed through Abraham, and from Abraham came Jesus, and all who have faith are blessed as Abraham was, who was a man of faith.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then it goes on to say that all of those who believe in the seed of Abraham are sons of Abraham.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I was going, Oh my gosh, Father Abraham, how many sons?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so I started texting all my friends.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: I finally get it, I get it.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, I thought that was interesting.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and then we go into Thessalonians 1.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: We cover that as well in the Bible reading plan.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this is during Paul's second missionary journey, and he is telling them to follow the instructions that they were given.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: So this is what Paul did.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: He went, he shared the gospel, he gave them instructions for holy living, and so he tells them to live holy lives because God calls us to be pure.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: He says, live your life with love, which will cause outsiders to respect you.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's important.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not just about our knowledge, it's that we're loving others because of Jesus.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Don't lose hope about the day of the Lord, which is the day when all who are asleep and all those awake with God are caught up.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we won't go into the different theological uh viewpoints on that, but he does talk about that in in Thessalonians 1.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, he reminds them, Jesus died for us.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: So whether alive or dead, we will live together with him to encourage each other in this truth continually.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: So Galatians and 1 Thessalonians, those are the two books where you'll hear different people say which one was written first.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Some believe 1 Thessalonians, some believe Galatians.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: In reality, only God and Paul know.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know that they really care that we know which one it is.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: So we won't get into that.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Second Thessalonians, we have Paul, he is writing to the church at Thessalonica.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: They had thought the day of the Lord had come and gone and they'd missed it.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: So they were persecuted, they were idle and lazy.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: So he addresses that.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: He exhorts them to stand firm in the faith and to continue to do good works for the glory of God the Father.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Then we have 1 Corinthians.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: So Paul spent about one and a half years in Corinth as a part of his second missionary journey.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is where we meet Priscilla and Aquila, who were tent makers, as well as Paul.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: That was in Acts 18 and 19.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: So during his third missionary journey, he writes back to the people in Corinthians to instruct the believers to live different than the world.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So they had pagans, it was a very pagan area.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: They had pagans living all around them, idol worshipers, um, temples, all these kinds of things.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so in the book of 1 Corinthians, we see how Paul tells them to have Christ as their firm foundation.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: So he talks about spiritual gifts in the body of Christ.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is where we have in 1 Corinthians 13, we have the love chapter that if you've ever been to a wedding, even people who don't believe, oftentimes 1 Corinthians 13 is read.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Love is patient, love is kind.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then we also have in 1 Corinthians the um resurrection chapter, which would be 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul goes into the importance of the resurrection.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And if we don't have the resurrection, he says our faith is useless and we're still lost in our sins.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: I had the 1 Corinthians 13 verse read at my wedding.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: Did you?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: I did.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: And you weren't a believer at that point.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: I was, I was.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: My husband was not.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: I gotcha.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: But I was.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, okay, and then in the Bible reading plan, we also go through Romans.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: There's two sections of Romans that we go through.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: The first part will take you through Romans 1, 3, 5, and 6.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it talks about how the gospel is the power of God for salvation for all who believe.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Through the gospel, you attain righteousness through faith.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: It goes back to the same message in Galatians.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's through faith, just as Abraham was counted righteous because of his faith.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: God can be known to all through his creation, which clearly speaks of his power, and all men are without excuse.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: It goes into detail here about how men exchange God's glory for a lie.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: They worship man-made idols that don't hear or talk.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: This is something that's talked a lot about even in the Old Testament.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: How they create these idols, they mold them out of wood and iron, whatever material, and then they worship it as if it's gonna speak back to them.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I just think it's kind of crazy that you have evidence of who God is around you, yet, even with all that evidence, man will still create its own idol to worship just because it doesn't want to be held accountable to the one who created it all.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: And as we've talked about in the past episodes, sets that standard of righteousness.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it talks about how God gives them over to their foolishness.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um in chapter three, it reminds us that all are under sin.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: That is a good reminder for the Christian that we all were there.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, all are under sin, and God's righteousness can only be received through faith in Jesus.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: So we cannot boast in anything that we do on our own.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: In chapter five, it speaks of the peace with God that we have because we are justified through our faith in Jesus.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Again, we have peace with God because of our faith.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: It is not because we can achieve it.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's through Jesus did the work.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, through Jesus who did the work.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: We can rejoice in suffering because suffering, this is one of my favorite verses in the Bible.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: This is also in chapter five.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: We can rejoice in our suffering because suffering produces perseverance, which produces character, then hope, and that hope does not disappoint because it is eternal.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: It is is one of my favorite verses.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: Chapter six tells us that the flesh and the spirit war against one another.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: A Christian knows this well.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and Paul says, Who can save me from this body?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Only the blood of Jesus, only through faith in Jesus Christ.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: I love how Paul never established the church in Rome.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like he was writing to this church, and we have such rich theology because he didn't go there to establish this church.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so he wants to give them all this information, all these things that he wants them to know.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so we get to benefit from that awesome book that he wrote.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you've, you know, I thought I used to tell people it'd start in Romans when they were new believers, and then I started reading Romans and I was like, this is really deep.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, ooh, maybe start in John or somewhere else.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: But we get such rich theology and I love it.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: So we read also about the freedom we have from sin through Jesus Christ.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: We read about our continual need for Christ.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Even as believers, we continually need the Holy Spirit.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: We want to walk in the Spirit.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: I love this passage in Romans 8.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Romans 8 is a fantastic chapter.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Becky loves Romans 8.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: I do.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um so believers have no condemnation in Christ.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Love it.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we see the beautiful way that the Gentiles are have been grafted in.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is Romans 9, 10, and 11.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: They've been grafted in.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: We've been grafted in to the new covenant.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we explored that in depth in episode 16.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to go back and listen to that one, I would highly recommend that one.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: That one was really good for me to go through.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we also learn that we are being transformed by Christ.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're not to conform to the world, we're to be transformed by the renewing of our mind.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're also to be a living sacrifice for his glory.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I may have said this before, but I think about in the Old Testament, they the sacrifices were alive and obviously until they killed them.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: But it says here to be a living sacrifice.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And man, that living sacrifice, if I'm supposed to be supposed to be a living sacrifice, and I need to um, you know, I need to continually renew my mind because that living sacrifice is always trying to get off the altar and do things this way and run away.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Just like we do.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's funny.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: We're prone to wander.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so we continually need Christ and we need his Holy Spirit to guide us every day through his word.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: That is so funny.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: I cannot get that image out of my head.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: That little lamb, like running off that altar.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's good.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and we also go through Second Corinthians.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: We chose chapter five because it's telling us that we need to no longer form a worldly perspective of things.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: So that's like the flesh.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: We're looking for our own, um, as you would say, your own attaboy.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: You're looking at how you can get ahead in this life, and you can get lost in in the thoughts or the ideologies, like we talked about, of what this world says.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, instead of constantly renewing our mind, like you just said.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Second Corinthians talks about how those in Christ are a new creation.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's through faith.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: I love how Paul always reminds us of this.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: It is through faith that we receive the Holy Spirit, which is a deposit for us.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's a guarantee of our eternal life with God.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: We are reconciled to God through Christ.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Reconciled is just being in a right relationship with him now.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: We're not apart, we're not um separate from him.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: We're now with him in this goal to bring others into a right relationship with him.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: In this body, we are away from the Lord, we live by faith, not by sight, and we prefer to be at home with the Lord, right?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: To live is Christ, to die is gain.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: And our goal is to please him.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's our purpose.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: We want to persuade others to be reconciled to God.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Next we have Ephesians.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: So Paul was in Ephesus for two and a half years on his third missionary journey.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now Paul is in Rome, he's on house arrest and he's awaiting a trial.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And during this time in his life, he pens several of his epistles.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Ephesians is an encouraging letter.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: There really isn't an indication in the book of Ephesians that Paul needed to write them to correct them.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like we see, like in 1 Corinthians and other places, Galatians, we see that.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is a very practical and encouraging letter.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is where we have that well-known verse, Ephesians 2, or verses 2, 8, and 9, where it says we've not been saved through works of the law.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's not of our own works, it's grace through faith.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: We see where Paul talks about having unity in Christ, the body of Christ again.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: He talks a lot about putting off the flesh, putting on the new man in Christ, walking in the light, walking worthy.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's a big one, and that the work we do is important to not grow tired of and not grow weary of doing good works.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: And he also talks, he gives us kind of a glimpse into the heavens or into what we don't normally see, spiritual warfare.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he talks about how we're not each other's enemies, but our our true enemy is darkness, it's Satan, it's his demons.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he kind of gives us a glimpse into that.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: He talks about wearing the armor of God to fight those spiritual battles.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Then we go into the book of Philippians, where we cover chapters two, three, and four.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: It talks about how to be like Christ, not thinking of ourselves as better than anyone else.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: It tells us not to complain or argue.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, even Moses was given this command, right?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we have to be really careful about that.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: Instead, it tells us to shine like stars, which would we need to be the light of the world.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if if it says the stars, it makes me think of nighttime when everything is dark and the stars give it light.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: So in the darkness of the world, we are that light because we have the true light of Christ in us.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it says to do this is we hold out the word of life.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: I love how he says it like that.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: It says, watch out for the dogs, the mutilators of the flesh, because you have the Judaizers, right?
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: The ones that are constantly trying to tell you, no, you have to do these things in order to be saved.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: You have to be circumcised, because only then are you truly a person of God, and that is not true.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Paul says, put your confidence in Christ, not in your own works or even in the circumcision of the flesh.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: It says to consider all that you could gain lost for the sake of Christ, because Paul is telling them that he could boast about many things that he has in his favor as a Jewish person.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: But he says, I consider all that I could have in the flesh, in my Jewishness, lost, all for the sake of Christ.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: Forget what is behind you, which is what he did.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: Press on toward the goal, which is to be eternally present with Christ.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: Rejoice always in the Lord, no matter what your situation.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes through how he can do this, whether he is in need of something or not, if he has plenty, he says, I'm able to count it all joy.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: I can handle all circumstances because of the strength that I have through my faith in Christ.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: And he says to share in the troubles of the saints, and we can do this many ways.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the ways he talks about in the book of Philippians is that the other churches are giving of themselves of what they have, the treasures they have, to help the saints that are suffering.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like they would send things to Paul while he was in prison.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: And he gave them much thanks for what they did.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: In Colossians, this is another epistle that he wrote while on house arrest.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: There was some kind of dangerous teaching, and really Bible scholars aren't 100% sure on what it was, but it was threatening the church.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: So Paul writes to address this teaching.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I love Colossians, it's one of my favorites, at least it's my favorite today.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um it really zeros in on the centrality.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Is that how you say it?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Centrality?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds very official.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: It may be wrong.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the supremacy of Christ, um, who he was, he tells them to be rooted in Christ and not to be held captive by empty thoughts, empty philosophies of the world, but to be rooted in Christ, in the word.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: He tells them how to live out the Christian life.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it really, with all these epistles, you see some good, rich theology and doctrine.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then toward the end of his epistles, he gives the practical, how you live it out in all of these.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in 1 Timothy, and then we have Titus, and again, church historians and scholars don't all agree on the timeline when Paul wrote these.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: But in 1 Timothy, Paul writes to instruct young Timothy on how to manage concerns in the early church.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have a reading on the reading plan from 1 Timothy, but we would encourage you to read it.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's very practical, especially for church leaders.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: In Titus, Paul encourages those in the church to cling to sound teaching, to refute false teaching.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is still going on today, believe it or not.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and he gives practical instructions on living a godly life.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's good.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: We do go through 2 Timothy in the Bible reading, yes.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it talks about how there will be godlessness in the last days.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: People will love themselves rather than God.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we may even see these people doing good deeds, but it is for their own honor, their own glory.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: They deny the power of God in it all.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: There will be the people, well, in this godlessness, the people who refuse to follow God, who reject Him.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: They will oppose the truth, as is described in Romans 1.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's almost like the same person wrote these letters.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's crazy.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: He says, All who want to live a godly life will be persecuted.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: Again, a good reminder for us because a lot of times from the pulpit you'll hear the prosperity gospel.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, all you have to do is have enough faith and you'll believe, or God wants you to have a worry-free life and have everything that you so desire in this world.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: But Paul reminds us that you're going to be persecuted because evil in this world will go from bad to worse.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: So continue in what you've learned.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, be equipped.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: The scriptures make you wise.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: This is the purpose of these Bible reading plans to get you in the word, um, to come alongside of the younger generation, whether you're a parent or a Sunday school teacher, a grandparent, that you have something to come alongside of the young people with and get their feet wet per se on what God's Word says, because the scriptures make you wise.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: It is all God breathed, and we can use it to teach, rebuke, correct, and train in righteousness.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: So we want to be like Ezra.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: We want to be like Timothy and Paul.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: We want to read God's word, we want to do it, and we want to tell it.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.