Colossians 3:11 “In Christ there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all.”

God intended for His body, the church, to display the great diversity that exists among all the cultures and ethnicities of the globe. Our Lord did not come to save just one nation- no, He came to save His chosen from every nation and tongue on the planet.
Our task is to extend this message of grace and love everywhere we go.

Ethnic partiality, like any form of partiality, is a sin. Anytime God’s people begin to give credence to the cultural snobbery that looks on themselves as better than other’s it is an affront to God’s very nature. God does not look on it and bless it.
Sadly, American evangelicalism and individually, we as believers, have sometimes fallen prey to this trap of Satan.

Having said that, it is also true that certain forces at work in our country at this time are trying to sow seeds of greater division between people and exploit that division for their own ends.
These cultural Marxists are trying to nurture unrest in our churches by claiming that evangelicalism is poisoned by its “whiteness”.

They assert that this whiteness is a latent form of white supremacy and that it taints our churches and discredits our message.
They also assert that this “evil” asserts itself in a toxic masculinity that believes in the repression of women. They then tag sexual identity and economic disparities into the equation.

This charge is serious and needs to be answered. Over the next two weeks we are going to address some of the issues that the deconstruction project raises about evangelicalism and show that despite its warts and pimples evangelicalism has a long history of standing with those who are oppressed and marginalized.
American evangelicalism is under attack- cultural forces are seeking to erode its influence. We need to be armed and ready.

The churches motto is the same as that of the American special operations community: De Oppresso Liber (to free the oppressed). May it be so with us.

Because of grace,
Tim

The post Christ in All appeared first on EBCSV.

Today we come to a text that reminds us of the binding nature of the marriage contract. It is not to be entered into lightly or ill advisedly- but reverently, soberly and in the fear of God!

Dearly beloved, we are gathered together in the sight of God and in the presence of this company, to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony. Marriage is an honorable estate, instituted of God, blessed by our Lord Jesus Christ, and thus held to be honorable among all men. It is not therefore to be entered into lightly or ill advisedly; but reverently, soberly and in the fear of God.
“A married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives…”
Romans 7:2

Marriage has fallen on hard times in America. The hook-up culture of flippant sexuality, shacking up to experiment and then if it doesn’t work out- no fault divorce to dissolve it; hasn’t led to societal bliss, only lives filled with chaos and insecurity. Although adults are left with shattered lives; it is truly the children that bear the brunt of the carnage.

We need to maintain a commitment to our vows. If you are married, I can guarantee you will go through ups and downs in your relationship. There will be times of hard feelings and unfilled expectations. There may be times when you question your sanity in having gotten married in the first place. Friends and loved ones may tell you to throw in the towel and call it quits. Don’t yield to that temptation and don’t let yourself even begin to think of divorce as an alternative.

By God’s grace you can weather the storms and with perseverance and grit you can emerge from times in the valley to experience the very best in what God intended marriage to be. Read God’s Word about marriage- commit to living it out and put God to the test if He won’t bless His Word by giving you the best of relationships and His blessing along the way.
I guarantee you will look back and say it was worth the effort.

Because of grace,
Tim

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“I am under obligation both to Greek and to Barbarian” Romans 1:14
When we hear the word “barbarian” we immediately think of someone who is crude, rude and probably violent. When the ancients used the word barbarian it did not immediately have that connotation.
It is true that by the time of the fall of the Roman Empire there was extreme violence by the barbarian hordes, however, this was not the violence of terrorist mobs- rather it was outright invasion by neighboring states that were sick and tired of Roman expansion and were set on ending it.

The word “barbarian” comes from the Greek word “barbarous”. Barbarous is what we call an onomatopoeia- a word that sounds like what it means. Another onomatopoeia would be the word “buzz”- it sounds like what it means. Essentially the word means “to babel”. Thus the concept behind barbarous is someone who speaks a language I can’t understand.
This is evident by Paul’s use of the word in I Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians 14:11 Paul says: “but if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner (barbarous) to the speaker and the speaker will be a foreigner to me.”

The entire Roman Empire was united by its use of the Koine (common) Greek language as the trade language of the empire. Every people group maintained its ethnic dialects for interaction in everyday life. However, everyone learned Greek from childhood.
From the gospels, it is clear that Jesus, and most of his contemporaries, were fluent in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. This was common practice all over the empire.

Paul’s statement in Romans 1:14 implies that it is right and proper for Christians to translate Scripture into various languages so that each people group can read Scripture for themselves. It also implies that as language evolves and changes it is proper to contemporize its message into language that is understandable by that generation.

In the last decades there has been a lot of well-meaning push back by conservative Christians against new translations of Scripture. They argue for the use of the old KJV as a matter of conviction fearing that God’s Word is being changed in these new translations.
Now, to be sure, there are many new translations that are sloppy at the least and downright deceptive at the worst. These need to be rejected by serious Bible believers. However, translations produced by solid Biblical Scholarship that upholds a belief in inerrancy are not to be feared, rather they should be embraced as helpful to the growth of God’s kingdom.

We have an obligation to make God’s Word understandable to all- Greek and barbarian.
Because of grace,
Tim

Listen to the related message below.

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