Well, welcome to the start of a new series, where the focus will be on the different churches in the New Testament. One of my weaknesses in studying Scripture is learning historical and geographical context, and this is giving me an opportunity to work on that and connect it to the practical applications I make in Scripture. When you understand who a letter was written to, why it was written to them, and what was happening at the time, it gives a deeper perspective on the topic, and brings a more complete understanding to the book as a whole.
Before we jump into the first church, I want to give a thorough understanding of Paul’s letters: who Paul is, why he wrote these letters, and what makes them important enough that they are in the Bible.
The Importance of Context
When reading the Bible, our immediate reaction is to take direct application from every verse you read. This is dangerous, because not everything in Scripture is written specifically to us and for us. For example, the Levitical laws are important for our understanding of God’s character and the importance of the resurrection, but we are not commanded to follow all of these laws. Whenever you begin reading a new book of the Bible, the first thing you should do is to learn the context in which this book was written. With most of Paul’s letters, they were written to a church, and the letters detail specific issues that the church was dealing with. Some things that Paul says are specific to what the church needs to hear and do. While we are able to take all Scripture and find a devotional aspect to it, it can be harmful to immediately follow every word you read without understanding its context.
Without context, it is amazingly easy to take a verse and misuse it. I have seen countless examples of people that find a verse in the Bible and wrongly use it, and 99% of the time it is because they did not use context to guide their thoughts. This is where lots of false doctrines begin, and it can be very harmful. Even if a person’s intentions are pure, taking a verse out of context can easily change all of what you believe.
The first example of this that comes to mind is Galatians 3:28, which says that “There is neither Jew nor Greek there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Lots of people use this to justify their belief that gender isn’t important, but this is not the context of this passage. Here, Paul is explaining to the church in Galatia that once you are part of the body of Christ, none of these things matter anymore. Your identity should not come from your gender, race, status, talents, or anything else besides being a child of God. Paul was illustrating how you should not look upon other Christians differently, because you are all first and foremost here to glorify God.
In addition, context helps us properly compare Scripture with Scripture. As we see in Genesis 1:27, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” We are explicitly told that we were created as either a male or female, and this would not be included in Scripture if it were not true. In addition, this is a constant variable, because God never changes the design that he declared was “good”. If you want to dive even further, the Bible does give different commands to men and women in certain conditions. This is just one of many examples that shows how important context can be, because if we are not looking towards the original meaning of Scripture, we can create our own definitions of the Bible, which is not how it was intended to be studied.
Paul’s Letters to Churches
To explain Paul’s letters, I need to give a brief overview of Paul’s story. Before he was Paul, he was known as Saul, and he was extremely interested in the persecution of the Christian church. He was one of the men involved in the murdering of the first Christian martyr, Stephen, in Acts 7:54-8:3). Then, after God appeared to Saul in Damascus, he repented and began going by the name of Paul (Acts 9:1-22). After this, he was filled with the Holy Spirit, and immediately began proclaiming Jesus in the synagogues. Soon after, he engaged in three missionary journeys, where he went from city to city to spread the Gospel. He traveled as far as Rome to the west, and Asia Minor to the east. I am not going to go deep into the individual missionary journeys that Paul went on, but the map below gives an illustration of Paul’s three missionary journeys, as far as his journey to Rome, to show you where all he went during this time. (If you are interested in reading Paul’s journeys, the first one is in Acts 13-14, the second one is in Acts 15:36-18:22, and the third one is in Acts 18:23-20:38).
In these three journeys, Paul was able to start new churches in cities that had not heard of the Gospel prior, and was able to check in on existing churches to ensure that they were preaching the true Gospel and being obedient to the Lord’s teachings. Some of the churches that he visited are the ones that he wrote letters to, and these letters are a part of the Scriptures. The purpose of these letters was for a similar purpose of why Paul visited the churches. In his letters, he gives the church he is writing to advice on particular issues they are facing, and showing them things such as how to lead a church, what to do and say, and explaining the Gospel in a deeper way.
Imagine this: your pastor that started your church spent time building up your church as a whole, teaching them the Bible and how to follow Jesus. Eventually, that pastor elects people to replace him as he goes out to make more churches and continue to spread the Gospel. After some time, he came back to check up on the congregation, and wrote them letters to tell them what they needed to fix, and what they could do to grow the kingdom of God. This is exactly what Paul did.
Purpose of the Letters in the Bible
So, if these letters were all written to churches by a man almost two thousand years ago, why are they a part of our holy Scriptures?
We know that all books of the Bible were physically written down by man, but they were simply people that God was able to use to preserve His teachings and histories. These letters were not Paul sharing his personal opinions, or chatting to the other churches about the weather and the latest fashion trends. Instead, these letters were how the Gospel was able to be spread, and how churches were able to multiply after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul wrote these letters with instruction and guidance from God, so while Paul was the one holding the pen, God was really the one writing these letters. Don’t take my word for it, though, look at what the Bible has to say about it: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). The purpose that is given for Scripture is identical to the purposes for Paul’s letters.
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Over the next few months, we will be doing a deep dive into each of the churches Paul wrote a letter to in the Bible. We will go over the church as a congregation, as well as the church’s city and the issues going on there at the time. Hopefully, these will allow you to understand why Paul writes what he does to these churches, and understanding the “why” will drive you to understand what we are called to do, and how we are called to do it.
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