Salvation by Allegiance Alone
We bring all of our selves to everything we interpret, including assumptions we have based on the influence of the cultures around us. When we come to this week’s text, Ephesians 2.1-10, many of us have been influenced by Modern, Western culture, which has conditioned us to understand the concept of “faith” as opposed to “works”. This is because of the view developed since the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth-century. But, we want to understand faith in Christ as it…
Finding Identity in Jesus
Today, many people are experiencing an identity crisis. Many of the labels and categories that have traditionally supported our identities no longer serve us well. People are searching for something solid, something real, something in which to be rooted. Ephesians chapter one is all about identity “in the Messiah.” Paul uses that phrase eleven times in as many verses. But what does it mean? It means being joined with God through baptism into the life of Jesus and receiving the…
The Disturbing Way of Jesus
In Acts 19, we read the account of Paul’s time in Ephesus establishing a church there. In three key passages in that chapter, we see three ways the Way of Jesus disturbs the status quo. In verses 8-10, we see that Paul’s radical Gospel of equality and unity among all ethnic groups led to the maligning of the Jesus Way. The Jesus Way disturbs our walls of hostility (Ephesians 2.14-16). Then, in verses 14-16, we see that the Jesus Way…
The Non-transactional Spirit
In Acts 8, there are two main figures on which the narrative focuses: Simon, the Sorcerer, and Philip, the apostle. In these two we see contrasted two approaches to Christian faith. One views faith as a transaction, a quid-pro-quo. The other views faith as a movement of the Spirit as a witness to Jesus. Transactional faith is very common in Western forms of Christianity. In this message, Andrea Roles helps us to recognize the difference and to move toward God’s…
God’s Mission, Not the Twelve’s
Jesus instructed his Galilean disciples in Acts 1:8 to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. However, when the Twelve are slow to carry God’s mission beyond Jerusalem, God uses Hellenistic Jews Stephen and Philip (who were delegated for food distribution) to preach and evangelize in and outside of Jerusalem.