Kathy's Bible StudyCourtesy Of Firequill Publications email: FireQuill@cox.net

by Kathy Kearney

Vs. 11 – 23

Verse 11-12 In Him we were circumcised.  The foreskin is a useless piece of flesh.  In the Jewish culture, a baby boy is circumcised on his 8th day.  That’s also the day that an infant’s blood clotting capability has reached its peak.  Circumcision was God’s way of marking the Hebrew people as His own.  It’s also what helped them become a great nation.  Jewish women have the lowest incident of cervical cancer, and it’s attributed to the fact that the men are circumcised.  Lots of bacteria can hide in the foreskin.  It’s cleaner and safer for boys to be circumcised.  So God took a religious ritual and also made it part of the nation’s health.

In Scripture circumcision represents the work of flesh trying to please God, not by faith, but by works. Paul says we have been circumcised in our hearts.  We don’t live according to the flesh, but by faith.

Now we always think living by flesh means sinful things like lust, stealing, murder, etc. and it can mean those things, but it also means imposing laws and regulations on ourselves as a way of proving our worthiness to God.  That too is sin.  It is the sin or arrogance and pride.

Years ago while Dewey and I were still dating we used to go to downtown LA and eat at Clifton’s Cafeteria. One Sunday after lunch we walked the area checking things out and came across a small store-front church with a big sign in the front window about all the things a woman COULD NOT wear if she worshiped there. Ridiculous things like short hair; must have her head covered etc., etc. The list was a long one. Nothing at all about what a man could do and not do. We had a laugh at it and moved on. It is interesting that all these cults always put limits on women – not men. Islam is a good example. Works of the flesh and it puts everyone in bondage.

We are baptized into Christ when we accept him.  The rite of baptism which a pastor performs doesn’t save us, it demonstrates to the world the inward baptism that we have in Christ.  So if we’re buried with Him-his work on the cross and his resurrection from the dead–we should live like him.

Verse 13-15: Dead in transgressions Eph 2:  we get our word Zombie from this word.  He means literally the “walking dead.”  He made us alive together with Him.

In Roman prisons when you were convicted and sentenced, a certificate with a list of your crimes and the time you must serve for each one was posted on your cell door.  And you were not released until you had paid the penalty in full.  Christ walks into that “prison” and takes the certificate off your door and puts it over his head on the cross and pays for your sentence.  And he had committed no crimes.  But he suffered and died because of the rulers and authorities sentencing him to death, but in the over all sense he also overpowered the rulers and authorities of Satan’s world by snatching us from the sentence of death and hell in this life and the next.

His public display is through the resurrection, and through us as He lives that resurrected life in us.  Remember in V. 1:29, Paul said he labors according to His power that mightily works in him and us.  His resurrection was the talk of all Jerusalem because the stone was rolled away and the body was gone.  Someone once said, I can show you the grave of Mohammed the profit, but all you Christians have is an empty tomb.  That’s the proof.  Mohammed still lies in that tomb, but our Lord is risen.

Verse 16-19 Therefore.  Remember when you see a therefore, you have to find what it’s there for. You look at the previous verses.  Based on all this evidence, the power of the resurrection, the complete Godhead living within, the transformed life from dark to light, don’t let yourselves be taken in and judged over food, drink, festivals, new moons, Sabbath’s.  These were a shadow of what was to come.

If my friend Christine had a fiancé that went off to war, and all she had of him while she was gone was a photograph.  Every night she kisses his picture looks at it while she writes letters, prays for him as she gazes at it.  One day she gets a call from the airport.  Her fiancé has returned from war.  Does she say, “But I have this picture, I don’t need you.”  Not.  She runs to the airport without a second glance at the picture.  Who needs pictures now that the real has come.

Actually the words “mere shadow” is a word in we use for photography. What do we call the image from which the picture is developed.  A negative: but it’s shadowy isn’t it.  You wouldn’t frame it and put it in your living room.

Verse 18.  Boy some groups are big on visions.  Paul says, don’t let anyone take a stand on visions.  Even he himself did not.  II Cor. 12 he talks about his vision, but he says it is not profitable.  It was not the center theme of his ministry, Christ is.  In fact, to keep him from exalting himself, God gave him a humbling thorn in the flesh.

If you have an honest to goodness insight or promise from God, shut up about it.  You have no right to enslave another to it.  It might well be the pickles and onions you ate last night before bed.   A couple of years back we needed another car, a better car. My folks had owned a car dealership in Needles Ca. and when they closed the dealership down they took a new Plymouth. I wanted to ask my dad to sell it to me because they were not driving it, having been given a smaller car by my Uncle Jim. I felt checked by the Lord not to ask and felt that the Lord said that dad would give it to me at a convenient time. Sure enough without me saying another word almost three months to the day dad called and said he and mom wanted to give me the car.

Fleshly humility.  Worshiping angels, etc.  God doesn’t speak to us through angels any longer.  Hebrews 1 says he speaks through His son.  Lot of concentration on angels now.  Even touched by an angel gets a little far out.  I asked Dewey, where is Christ in all this.  If a man sees one angel, he wants and waits to see more.  What a waste of time and energy.

Verse 20-23: Don’t touch, handle, taste.  Deny, deny, deny.  (Going to perish anyway) Yield your life to the one who is eternal.  It often leads to contests of who is the most spiritual.  Who gets to lead because they have the most visions, or are the most denying of self.  (Nuns not putting salt in food, denying themselves comfort) If we live like that we make God the author of temptation by saying he put good things here for us to tempt us into using them so he can judge us.

If you live the life of faith in love you may eat what you want, drink what you want, do what you want.  That is our life of freedom.  Enjoy.

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by Kathy Kearney

Verses 1 – 10

In the first part of our study we see Paul establish the truth that Christ is God–the only God, and that He is the Creator, the head of the Church (Body of Christ), He is the mystery explained–Christ in us the hope of glory.

All this was to combat the entry of Gnosticism, which teaches that only the spirit of man can attain knowledge of the mystery of God.  All else in life is corrupted and God has nothing to do with it.  Therefore, they worshiped God in their spirits, but their human lives could indulge in whatever sin or vice they wished because it was corrupt anyway, and God had no plans for it. Or some Gnostics believed that the flesh must be subdued, so they came up with a lot of meaningless rules and regulations to publicly demonstrate how deeply dedicated and Pius they were.

As with most cults Gnosticism aimed at making people feel good while selfishly doing whatever they wished. Cults or man-made religions are man’s definition of God, meaning He fits our mold.

Christianity is God explained to sinful man through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  He alone is the one who defines us for we are His creation and we owe Him adoration, service and worship.  However He doesn’t force us to accept these things, but invites us through the love of Christ manifested through His death on the cross. A death that you and I deserve, but don’t have to suffer, a grace which we do not deserve but it is freely offered to all.  That is the mystery.

Verse 1: Paul is suffering for these people, whom he has never met, (”have not personally seen my face”).  In Philippians he talked about those who mocked his imprisonment as proof that he was not a correct teacher of the gospel, and they were.  Paul says that his imprisonment is proof that what he teaches is correct, because if he taught what was pleasing to man, he wouldn’t be in prison, but because man hates the gospel he was suffering for it.  (Turn to Galatians 1:6-10).

Paul battled two things that constantly worked to undermine the gospel.  Judaizers-who said the only way to salvation is through law, and Gnostics-who said the only way to God was fleshly religion that made Christ no God.

It’s no different today.  We may not call it Judaizing, but many Christians and churches lay down rules and regulations as the way to salvation. If anyone tells you, you need Jesus PLUS anything, don’t believe it!  Anything that demeans and lays aside grace is sin.  We’re substituting law keeping for salvation through Christ.  We may not call it Gnosticism, but cults arise and even absorb some of the things of Christianity into it.  Mormonism and the Jehovah’ Witness all sound subtly Christian, but they are not trusting in Christ.  They are trusting in works.

When we stand before God he will ask how we wish to be judged.  You and I will say, “Not on our merit, but your Son’s who died for us and took our place.”  Others will say, “I lived a pretty good life, line up my good deeds against my bad.”  God will do just that, and they will fall short because nothing done in our flesh can meet his holy requirements.

Paul knows he’s suffering for people he has not met, he never will meet, who will be born and live long after he is gone.  For that reason he is passionately dedicated to the truth and it’s continuation without being contaminated by false precepts.

Verse 2: He’s struggling so that they may be encouraged to following Christ.  That they can have all wealth of knowledge and wisdom which is found in that great mystery of God: Jesus Christ Himself.

He talks about their hearts being knit together in love.  I think it’s interesting that love precedes wisdom and knowledge.  That’s how God’s truth operates.  Man’s says learn and get wisdom and knowledge of human things, and it puffs them up and makes them lofty and unapproachable.  When the love of Christ abides in our hearts, then we’re free and open to God’s knowledge, and that knowledge isn’t so we can feel good, but so we can live more wisely on behalf of those God brings into our lives.

Verse 3: Christ Himself in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.  Someone wrote, Christ as a man worked as a carpenter who built things from wood, Christ as God created the trees from which the wood came.  Imagine having a relationship with the creator of the universe.  Humans are so enamored of knowing someone famous.  I write and I read books by famous writers and stories, yet not one of them can make me a good writer.  But I know the One who wrote these pages, and so did the men through whom He wrote.  And he taught them and he teaches me how to write.  Just think; I can be trained by the one who has all wisdom and knowledge.  And when I write I am to do it from love.  Not for myself, but for Him.

When my friend Christine cuts my hair, she’s to do it unto God, and rely on him to be the best hairdresser ever.  It’s so simple, yet so profound.

Verse 4: Paul says he’s writing these things so no one will delude them with persuasive argument.  Remember the story of the Chinese boys that learned banking.  They were so knowledgeable about real money it’s feel, texture, smell, that when the counterfeit came along they couldn’t be fooled.  We don’t have to learn false cults in detail to know they are wrong, we just have to be immersed in the truth.

Joshua 1:8 (read) The story is told of a young Jewish man that came to his rabbi and asked if he could study other religions and philosophies.  The rabbi took him to this verse and then said, “if you can find a time when it is neither day nor night, they you may use that time to study other religions and philosophies.”

Verse 5: Paul is with them in spirit–through prayer.  He encourages them by noting their discipline (your ordered array, which is a military term of a line-up against an enemy) or something that’s obvious to all who see.  He notes their stability.  I have a friend who pronounces this word “stay-bility.”  I’ve never had the heart to correct her, but I told Dewey that’s a good word, a better word almost than stability.

Paul is saying; you’ve done well, now keep on, don’t give way before these empty vain, human philosophies.

Verse 6-7: As you have received Christ walk in him.  How did you receive Christ? Through works, through thinking, through learning, no through faith.  And that is just how we are to walk or live in Christ–by faith.  Galatians 5:6 (read) faith working through love.  Galatians 5:16 walk by the spirit.  In the Greek it’s the picture of a child learning to walk, getting up, sitting down, getting up and sitting down, until at last they take tottering steps. Then they walk more firmly, then they run, etc.

Firmly rooted.  Psalm 1.  In the dessert the date tree was common.  It grows in the middle of nowhere.  The older it gets the deeper its roots plunge looking for moisture.  It requires little moisture.  The older it gets the more sweet its fruit becomes.  Paul says, you are rooted, keep growing in the soil.  What happens when you rip a plant up, it goes into shock and sometimes dies.

We’re often compared to plants in Scripture.  Remember the study we did in John, where Jesus says we are the vines and he is the branch, we must abide in him, be pruned to bear more fruit.  Deadness must be trimmed off.  Painful.

Part of the health of our soil is our gratitude.  A thankful heart is a growing heart.  An ungrateful heart doesn’t grow.  Like an unwatered plant, it closes off to all nutrients and becomes woody and its fruit is small, bitter and inedible.

Chapter 1: 10-11

Verse 8-10: See to it, not blind following, but alert dedication.  See to it that no one takes you captive.  A few years back we had a visit from two young Mormon girls. Well one was a girl, the other was somewhat older. We discussed the Bible and the younger one had never heard the things we told them and pointed out from Scripture. She had been taken captive because although she had accepted Christ she had not grown and these folks had gotten hold of her. The older one was very agitated at this girls interest and broke the meeting up and departed. I have a friend who was raised as a Mormon but now pastors a Protestant church. He told me that 90% of the Mormon church now is made up of people from other churches. How sad!

The traditions of men, mean reasoning from sinful nature.  Traditions pass away, often with the founder.  Christianity has survived throughout the ages. AND IT NEVER CHANGES OR NEEDS TO BE ALTERED TO FIT.  It is the same yesterday, today and forever. Just as Hebrews says of Jesus.

The fullness of the deity dwells in bodily form.  That was so of Christ when he walked this earth–and now it’s true of us who follow him.  There is nothing more for us to get or become.  When we accept Christ, He is all we need, we just need to discover what that “all” is through deepening and widening our walk with Him.

Jesus said the way leading to salvation is narrow.  That’s because it’s the door, but it also says, my sheep will come and I will lead them in and out to pasture.  The doorway is narrow, but the world into which it leads is fantastic.  We can never outlive it, outreach it, or exhaust it’s resources.  Because they are Christ.

Years ago when I became a Christian at the age of 17, I heard an old man say. . .

What a wonder this life is, what a greater wonder heaven will be.

Freeman Hatch a good friend of ours – confined in body to a wheelchair, but not in spirit.  But now he’s dancing, running in heaven.

Verse 10, and in him you have been made complete.  It’s all there.  Now I get to live in it.

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