Daily Bread Pastor Mike Anderson

Click Here to Read or Listen to Ephesians 5 Paul now turns to the more practical matters of how the Ephesians can live a life worthy of their calling. His admonitions are to the point and pretty strong.  But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. 4 Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. 5 For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Ephesians 5:3-5 Most of these Greek words have a connotation of being sexual sins.  This emphasis on sexual sin was appropriate. The culture of Paul’s day (and in the city of Ephesus especially) was given over to sexual immorality. The sort of behavior Paul says is not fitting for saints was pretty much completely approved by the culture of his day (and our own). I guess

Click Here to Read or Listen to Ephesians 4 Unity and Maturity in the Body of Christ In chapter 4 Paul transitions from theology to practical application. Chapter 4 has some of the most significant passages about what Christian maturity is all about. Note Christian maturity is a response to what God has done for us in Christ. And Christian maturity also leads to unity in the body of Christ, because pride, division, and gossip are all a result of spiritual immaturity in the church.  I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Ephesians 4:1 This is the goal for every Christian and should be your primary motive for you living the life you've always wanted. We have all been given a calling, not just ministers or missionaries. We are all called to represent Jesus to the world. We will find out in a few verses, we are all given gifts for ministry. The question is will we live a life "worthy of our calling". This is the "due north" for a Christia

Click Here to Read or Listen to Ephesians 3 God’s Marvelous Plan for the Gentiles Paul returns to the topic which got him in so much trouble, the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles. You have to remember how deep the dividing line historically was between Jews and Gentiles. Paul's role as the missionary to the Gentiles was a very dangerous one. He certainly would not have expected it given his background as a Pharisee.  The inclusion of the Gentiles into the church was a huge issue for every one of the first New Testament churches, as it was for the church of Ephesus. Paul knew that unless he helped the church understand why this was God's very specific and strategic plan, the church would never be unified.  So the mystery that God had revealed to Paul was His plan to include the Gentiles in His plan of salvation for all people. As we mentioned yesterday, this should not have been surprising to the Jews in Paul's day because God's promise to reach all nations is inc

Click Here to Read or Listen to Ephesians 2 Made Alive in Christ Chapter 2 is very theological in nature. As we said yesterday, chapters 1-3 are more doctrinal, and chapters 4-6 are more application oriented. Ephesus was one of the most influential churches in the 1st century. So Paul is especially interested in making sure they have their doctrine straight.  These first eight verses are power packed with three of the most important verses in the New  Testament.  But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. Ephesians 2:4-5 Paul says we were once dead in our transgressions, which he also says in verse 1. What does it mean to be dead in a spiritual sense? To be spiritually dead does not mean that we are physically dead, socially dead, or psychologically dead. Yet it is a real death, a “dead death” nonetheless. “The most vital part of man’s personality – the spirit –

Click Here to Read or Listen to Ephesians 1 An Introduction to the Letter of Ephesians Today we begin Paul's letter to the church of Ephesus. Ephesus was located in the Roman province of Asia, which is modern day Turkey. Ephesians was located near the Aegean sea by a major trade route which made it a very wealthy city. Ephesians was most likely written when Paul was in prison in Rome (61-62 A.D.), and along with Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon is called on of Paul's "prison letters".  Some have called Ephesians, " A manual for the church ". While Paul does address some contemporary issues like idol worship, the book mainly focuses on how we are made right with God by faith in Jesus, which is focuses on in chapters 1-3. Then in chapters 4-6 it teaches us how we apply so we can become mature Christians. Ephesians also focuses on the unity of the church, and why it is so important. Finally, Ephesians addresses practical matters like ministry, marriage, an

Click Here to Read or Listen to Galatians 6 Doing Good to All Today we conclude Paul's letter to the Galatians. As is often the case, he ends with some advice on practical matters. Paul first focuses on how to deal with conflict. For example, how should someone treat someone who is caught up in a sinful behavior. When someone is caught the key thing is to restore them gently. Note the focus is on restoration. Paul closes this opening paragraph with a very important verse.  Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ, Galatians 6:2 A burden is something we cannot carry ourselves. We bear each other's burden when they are too heaven for them to carry. This could happen in many ways. Sometimes we carry other's burdens and sometimes they carry ours. But importantly Paul follows up this verse with,  For each one should carry their own load. Galatians 6:5 Paul says we should carry each other's burdens, but each person needs to carry his own

Click Here to Read or Listen to Galatians 5 Freedom in Christ Nobody can forget the incredibly inspiring scene in Braveheart when Mel Gibson wails, "FREEDOM!!!".  Since I loved the movie so much here is another quote, Run and you'll live -- at least a while. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!!! - William Wallace Freedom is quite an amazing right to have and in our country many brave men and women died and shed their blood so we could enjoy the freedom we have today. Unfortunately we sometimes take our freedom for granted and forget the price that was paid for it.  Paul starts out Galatians 5 by saying,  It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Jesus also paid a price on the cross for our freedom. He died an innocent death to pay the price of our sin. We

Click Here to Read or Listen to Galatians 4 Though there is a sense that we are all born with God's image stamped on us. We all at least start with a sense of right and wrong. We are still subject to the elemental spirits of the world in that we may break the law but in the end what we reap is what we sow. We might call it immutable principles established by God that cannot be overturned. But God the Father sent Jesus the Son, to redeem us to buy us back from being a slave to the law. We were once slaves to sin, yet Jesus purchased us and set us free by his death on the cross. At just the right "time" God sent His Son free us. Paul uses the language of adoption. A child who is adopted into a family during that time, had all the rights of the family members including being heirs of the estate.  As evidence of this adoption to be God's sons and daughters, God sent the Holy Spirit into our hearts. It is by the Holy Spirit that we cry, "Abba Father ". " Abb

Click Here to Read or Listen to Galatians 3 Faith or Works of the Law As we have seen over the first two chapters of Galatians, the biggest issue Paul is addressing is are we justified, or made right with God, by faith or works. Paul is very hard on the Galatians and considers them foolish for having started with Spirit to go back to relying on sinful human nature. He refers to the God's giving them the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is given to us as we come to God by faith.  Being justified by faith isn't just a New Testament concept. Paul quotes Genesis 15:6, So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Abraham trusted in God so much that he moved his family to a land he knew nothing about. Paul says it is faith which makes Jews the same as Gentiles. Even in the promise given to Abraham back in Genesis 15 God said,  Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will b

Click Here to Read or Listen to Galatians 2 Paul Accepted by the Apostles We often miss the fact that Paul spent 14 years in Damascus. Paul had done a lot of missionary work helping many Gentiles come to faith in Christ during these 14 years. One of the issues that arose was male Gentile converts had not been circumcised. This became an issue for some of the more legalistic Jews. In fact, Paul mentions that they were " false believers ", who tried to spy on them and take their freedom away from them.  By freedom Paul means freedom from the Law. Paul realized and taught the Law had no inherent power in it but it could only condemn us. The only function of the Law was to point out how far we fall from God's perfect standards. The most important use of the Law is to lead us to Christ. Paul had seen how all of these Gentiles had come to faith in Christ, by the grace God had poured out through in the cross. Paul's biggest fear is that these false teachers would somehow per

Click Here to Read or Listen to Galatians 1   Today we begin Paul's letter to the churches in Galatia. Galatia was a province in Asia Minor, better known as modern day Turkey. The main purpose in his letter is to clarify the true nature of the gospel. Paul says it this way in chapter 1,  I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.  The gospel is the Good News that Jesus came to take all of our sin to the cross. Jesus died and rose again to show that the power of sin, death, and the devil was defeated once and for all in Jesus victory over sin. Though we could never measure up to the righteous requirements of the law, Jesus died so that we might be made right in God's eyes through faith. Importantly there is nothing we can do to earn or merit God

Click Here To Read or Listen to 2 Corinthians 13 Final Warnings  On his first visit to Corinth, Paul founded the church and stayed a year and six months (Acts 18:11). His second visit was a brief, painful visit in between the writing of 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. Now he is prepared to come for a third time. As Paul prepares for his third visit to the Corinthians, he wants them to be prepared. Some had knocked him for being to soft on sin. He assured them it would not be like this on his third visit. It was not his own authority with which he would come to them, but the authority he had in Christ. Interestingly Paul says this,  "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?" This is gut check time for the believers in Corinth. If they were acting in these ways were they truly Christians? This was not a test of perfection. It was a test if Christ was in them. If

Click Here to Read or Listen to 2 Corinthians 12 Paul’s Vision and His Thorn Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. This is Paul's famous " thorn in the flesh" passage. First of all we must understand what he means by the term "flesh", because it is not a term we use very often. The word " flesh " in the Greek is the word " sarx ". It is also translated " sinful nature ". Paul talked quite a bit about his struggle with his sinful nat

Click Here to Read or Listen to 2 Corinthians 11   Paul and the False Apostles For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough. Paul returns to his concerns about the Corinthians and their failure to discern what a true leader looks like. As we have said the last two days, they were more impressed with personality than character.  Paul cites two ways this could happen. First, they could preach a different Jesus than Paul preached. Paul preached a Jesus was truly human and truly divine. Many false prophets minimized either Jesus' humanity or divinity. These so called prophets also spoke through a power other than the Holy Spirit. Worst of all the Corinthians put up with it.  Who was this “other Jesus?” Because of the way the Corinthian Christians despised Paul’s image of weakness and unimpressive appea

Click Here to Read 2 Corinthians 10 Paul’s Defense of His Ministry 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ Though we sometimes feel overwhelmed by the world, we don't need to be. Why? Because we have power that is way greater than the power in the world. Our weapons are designed to demolish demonic strongholds. We often don't realize the power we have and that is part of the problem. The devil would not want us to realize the power we have, so he keeps us in the dark.  A lot of this battle is waged in the mind of a believer. Instead of allowing evil thoughts to take a stronghold in your life make your thoughts obedient to Christ. By being in God's Word you can develop the mind of Christ to think like him and then act like him. This

Click Here to Read or Listen to 2 Corinthians 9 Paul starts out chapter 9 by basically saying that he has been bragging to the Macedonian Christians about the Corinthians desire to help out in the cause to help the church in Jerusalem. Paul was so persuasive to the Philippians about the generosity of the Corinthians that the Philippians gave above and beyond their means. Paul would be embarrassed after having said this if the Corinthians didn't follow through with what they said they would do. As Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, " Let your yes be yes and your no be no. Anything beyond that comes from the devil."  Paul was very concerned that giving be a matter of generosity and not a matter of grudging obligation. God Himself never gives out of an attitude of grudging obligation, and neither should we. To be generous, in the Biblical idea of the word, has more to do with our attitude in giving than with the amount that we give, so God wants a willing attitude from g

Click Here to Read or Listen to 2 Corinthians 8 The Collection for the Lord’s People The collection Paul is referring to was a collection taken for the poor and the widows in the church of Jerusalem. Though Paul is going to talk about the generosity of the church at Philippi, he starts, "W e want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches." Our generosity always starts with God's grace given to us. What is so special about the giving from the churches in Macedonia is that they were giving even during an extremely difficult time. They struggled with being poor themselves.  We want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches.  - Guzik Paul then states that they give first to the Lord, and then also to Paul to bring to Jerusalem. This could mean that they first gave their offerings to the temple in Philippi as part of their tithe, and then gave a special offering to the churches in Jerusalem. They first gave locally and