Parts of Speaking Publishing

 I had never heard of Laetare Sunday, explained here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laetare_Sunday  and extolled below.  Rejoice in the middle of the repentance of Lent.  Our pastor this morning explained how the Christian has self-esteem because we are brutally honest about who we are--sinners but in Christ. A cause for rejoicing. Laetare! Jonathan Pennington Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad” (Matt. 5:11–12). “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds” (James 1:2). “But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed” (1 Pet. 4:13). The command to practice joy in the midst of loss, grief, and hardship often feels impossible to do and heartless to hear. Yet it is found repeatedly throughout the Bible, including in these quotes from Jesus and two ...

 The first three verses of Ephesians 2 are familiar to many:    And  you  He made alive,   who were dead in trespasses and sins  2  in which you once walked according to the  [ a ] course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience,  3  among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. The Ephesian believers had been dead in sin and trespasses, not just in a theological way because of a decision made by an ancestor millennia before. They actually did things that conformed the patterns of the cosmos and Satan and assertively conducted themselves in lust and wrath.  I don't think telling someone they are a sinner because of Adam and Eve is the whole message. We have to know sin and know our hearts to make...

 2:1 -    And  you  He made alive,   who were dead in trespasses and sins Since three key words are italicized in the first clause, I go to other versions and the Greek.  NIV:  As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, . . . The idea of being made alive reappears in verse 5.  The other major versions, NASB, ESV, and Holman, do not provide the italicized words because they aren't there in the Greek.  There's a rather cliched statement, "Jesus did not die to make bad people good but to make dead people alive." Well, He did both, but the New Testament idea of the unconverted being dead cannot be overlooked. How were we dead? In trespasses and sins, and the next verses show the extent of it. This is just one more way that the New Testament makes a clear distinction between believers and non-believers. God sees a clear difference even if it's not always visible to those around us. However, I imagine today the difference is mo...

 Statement by a fellow church member in a meeting of women to create community.  "I feel so spiritual until my teenagers come home from school."

Today marks three more weeks until Good Friday, crucifixion day. It is Friday the 13th also, a superstition that comes from 13 (Judas Iscariot, the betraying disciple, being the thirteenth, whether one count Matthias as replacement 12 or Paul*) and Friday, the traditional day seen as the crucifixion (which puzzles us because of the "three days in the grave" requirement**). I am stopping to explain what I am doing here before I move into Ephesians 2, which I noted this morning in my study is a "testimony" of individual Gentile believers in Ephesus as well as the corporate church community in that region of Turkey. I was privileged and blessed to visit it in late September/early October and it was one of three high points. No, I take that back; the whole trip was a high point that is almost impossible to process even now because so much happened. I am writing these daily posts as part of my Lent. I did not "give something up" for Lent. I don't believe in...

 The subject shifts slightly in verse 15, from what we have already been granted to what Paul chooses to pray for in regard to the Ephesian church community.  15  Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints,  16  do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers Two relative clauses follow this opening: that  the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,  the eyes of your understanding being enlightened  that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,  [that you may know]   what  is  the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power  which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated...