MUSINGS – MAY 18 2018
LONG-WINDED PAUL’S SHORT SERMON
Colossians 1:21-23a
“Once you were separated from God. The evil things you did showed your hostile attitude. But now Christ has brought you back to God by dying in his physical body. He did this so that you could come into God’s presence without sin, fault, or blame. This is on the condition that you continue in faith without being moved from the solid foundation of the hope that the Good News contains.”
Let me start by saying that I love the letters written by Saint Paul. He was highly educated and had a mind that would make any trial lawyer proud. He would state a position and then attack it from every angle so that there was no escaping the validity of his arguments. That means, of course, that his letters were wordy and long winded.*
However, in today’s scripture reading her
gets right to the point.
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You were previously separated from God
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It was because of your evil heart
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Christ has brought you back to God
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It was done so that you could stand sin free in God’s presence
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The only condition being that you continue, through faith, to believe the good news
Are you keeping on, keeping on?
*Paul’s letter to the Ephesians 1:3-14 (originally written in Greek) is the longest sentence in Greek literature.
All content (except quotations) © 2018 Thomas E. Williams
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