Something Greater

Heart, Conscience and Faith...and Food Paul wrote to Timothy, expressing confidence in the young man's genuine faith, urging him to care for the church in Ephesus. Timothy's specific mission would be to oppose some who taught doctrine that was unfaithful to that taught by Jesus, including an unhealthy devotion to mythology and endless genealogies. Paul warned that the heretical teaching would result in an eroding of the church's strong foundation of truth. Paul saw love as the ultimate goal, for his own ministry as well as for that of Timothy. But he carefully described the quality of that love: "The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith." 1 Timothy 1:5 (ESV) LOVE: agape (love, affection or benevolence, specially a love-feast); from agapao (to love in a social or moral sense); from agan (much) PURE HEART: katharos (clean) and kardia (the heart, the thoughts and feelings of the mind) GOOD C...

Essentials of Love I Corinthians 13:4-7 Love is patient, Is kind, Love does not envy; Love does not boast, Is not arrogant; Is not rude, Does not insist on its own way; Is not irritable, Is not resentful ; Does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth; Bears all things, Believes all things, Hopes all things, Endures all things! 1 Cor 13:4-7 (ESV) The Apostle Paul opened his letter to the church in Corinth by appealing for unity, joined in mind and judgement . Their wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and spiritual redemption was to be solidly founded upon Christ Jesus. This passage is a poem, perhaps a song. If we could read Greek easily and fluently, we would enjoy the rhythm and rhyme with which Paul wrote this. Paul is appealing to both our minds and our emotions. In the Corinthian church, Paul saw immaturity, jealousy and strife . The community of Corinth thought of the Christians in Corinth as exceeding all limits of sexual im...

Pentecost And The Three Feasts "When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place." Acts 1:2 PENTECOST: "Pentekoste", fiftieth; from "pentekonta" (fifty) and "pente" (five) Pentecost, meaning "the fiftieth day", is the second of the three great Jewish feasts, celebrated at Jerusalem yearly, the seventh week after the Passover, in grateful recognition of the completed harvest. THREE FEASTS: - Feast of Unleavened Bread - Feast of Harvest - Feast of Ingathering "Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me. You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. As I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. None shall appear before me empty-handed. You shall keep the Feast of Harvest, of the firstfruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. You shall keep the Feast of Ingathering at the end of th...