Pastor Shaun Marksbury

New Testament Overview Part 7 : T he Rest of Paul’s Epistles I. Introduction We’ve looked at Romans, the first of the Pauline writings. This Session: The remainder of the Pauline Epistles 1 & 2 Corinthians; Galatians; Ephesians; Philippians; Colossians; 1 & 2 Thessalonians; 1 & 2 Timothy; Titus; Philemon These were believers, just like us, struggling against the sin, the world, and the devil as they put their faith into practice. Breaking them down further: General Epistles Prison Epistles (Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon [c. ad 61], Philippians [c. ad 62]) Pastoral Epistles (1& Timothy, Titus) II. 1 & 2 Corinthians “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God” (1 Cor. 2:12–16). AUDIENCE: Saints at Corinth (They wrote Paul, 1 Cor 7:1) DATE: ad 56 & 56 (as well as the “severe letter,” 2 Cor 2:4) THEME: I — Correction (factions and sin plagued the church) II — Def...

“For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time” (1 Tim. 2:5-6). We require a mediator between us and God because we are in conflict.  So, to use the imagery of Job 9:33, God sent an umpire or an arbiter to “lay his hand upon us both.”  This is the only point of arbitration by which we can come to God, regardless of your socio-economic or ethnic background. In fact, there is a play on words here to describe who this is.   We see this in the English translation: “there is… one mediator also between God and men , the man Christ Jesus.”   The same word is used here in both cases, a word that speaks generally of people (whether male or female).   In other words, Jesus Christ became as we are — human — to be a sympathetic mediator ( a la Heb. 4:15). As such, we can’t look to another mediator.   The Gnostics would later teach falsely that Je...

(Originally posted August 22, 2008) I cannot tell you how often I have heard the story told in a pulpit of how bank tellers spot a counterfeit bill. Apparently, the Secret Service has tellers study only true currency. The idea is in knowing the genuine article, a person will be able to spot counterfeit bills more readily. The spiritual application of this tale is that Christians should only study true things, rather than spending extra time learning about heresy. If the Christian only knows truth, then he will not be tricked by error. One problem: the bank teller story is a myth. Tellers are given counterfeit bills, as well, so they can learn some of the tell-tell markers of fakes. I'm currently reading Roger E. Olson's The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition & Reform . He writes of this myth on pages 20-21. On checking with the Treasury Department's Minneapolis Secret Service agent in charge of training bank tellers to identify counterf...