Christian Publishing House Blog
Apologetic Defense of the faith, the Bible, and Christianity
There is a brief expression of pleasure at the tidings of the sweet and gracious hospitality of Gaius which was brought by certain missionary brethren to Ephesus, coupled with the assurance of the truth and consistency of his whole walk.
IN a certain sense, Paul has done now with the explanation of Justification. He has brought us on, from his denunciation of human sin, and his detection of the futility of mere privilege, to propitiation, to faith, to acceptance, to love, to joy, and hope, and finally to our mysterious but real connection in all this blessing with Him who won our peace.
THE third chapter of Philippians contains the portion of this Epistle in which, perhaps, one is hardest put to it to keep pace with the writer. Here he gives us one of his most remarkable expositions of the true Christian religion as the Holy Spirit shared it with him, and as he maintains it must essentially exist for all Christian up until Christ returns. He does this in a burst of thought and feeling expressed together, so that, if we are to take his meaning, the fire and the light must both alike do their work upon us; we must feel and see both at once.
AFTER the salutation, the first thing in the Epistle is a warm utterance of the feelings and the desires which Paul habitually cherishes in relation to his converts at Philippi. This is expressed in Philippians 1:3-11.
Who was Jesus Christ? Who Did Jesus Think He Was? What Did Jesus Think of Himself? Did he actually believe that he was the divinely appointed Messiah of the Jews, as the Gospels say he did? Did Jesus Think He was God?
Why did the resurrected Jesus Christ invite Thomas to touch him yet he had stopped Mary Magdalene from doing so earlier? Mary Magdalene was a close friend, why would Jesus say that to her? "This verse belongs to a handful of the most difficult passages in the New Testament." - D. A. Carson
When Rome came to think that Christians were traitors of the State, she ruled over them in cruel and unmerciful repression. Says historian J. M. Roberts: “Many Christians in the capital [Rome] certainly perished horribly in the arena or were burned alive.” (Shorter History of the World) Of these Christian victims of Nero’s persecution, another report states: “Some were crucified, some were sewn up in the skins of animals and hunted down by dogs, some were covered with pitch and set alight to serve as living torches when darkness fell.”—New Testament History, by F. F. Bruce.
What Matthew has done here at 11:10 is combine Malachi 3:1 and Exodus 23:20. The first half of Matthew's quotation is identical to the Greek Septuagint of Exodus 23:20. The second half of Matthew's quotation is not identical to the Greek Septuagint of Malachi 3:1.
"Paul established that the worldly human wisdom cherished by unbelievers opposes the wisdom of God revealed in the gospel. By basing their divisions on human wisdom, the Corinthian Christians revealed that they had forgotten this basic truth." – Richard L. Pratt Jr.
Hands down, the Greek Septuagint version is the most important of the early versions of the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures. In fact, it is the first translation. The Greek Septuagint is abbreviated as the Roman numeral LXX (meaning, “Seventy”).