The writer gives us five ways to treat our brothers and sisters well: to love genuinely from the heart, and to be hospitable, faithful, content, and teachable. In these ways, believers live daily by faith in community.
Advent: Respite of Joy
Have you ever wondered why the third candle in the advent wreath is pink? Why pink? Why the third Sunday? The short answer is joy! But the long answer is fascinating, and it has something to do with Lent, and something to do with an early Gnostic movement that dismissed Jesus as a real human person.
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Philemon: Every Good Thing
Paul wanted Philemon to mature in his faith, so rather than tell him what to do, Paul entreated him as a fellow elder.
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Philemon: Encouragement
did Onesimus lead the way, full of hope, confident both in Paul and Timothy’s letter, and in the Spirit at work in Philemon? Was it Onesimus who handed Philemon this personal note, and told him, “This is from our brother Paul,”?
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1 John 4: Agape First and Last
There is a quality to agape that is unlike the other loves, for it comes from a place of fullness, a place of depth and peace, it is an overflowing kind of love that does not need a response to exist.
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1 John 3: Love the Brothers and Sisters
I remember reading, once, that when we help someone, we reduce the amount of suffering in the world, we become part of the process of God working things together for good.
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2 Peter 1: Add To Your Faith
Peter teaches us to hold two truth loosely together--we have everything we need from God, it is now our responsibility to use it well.
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1 Peter 4: Manifold Grace of God
There are three basic things Peter emphasized in this passage for you and I to do as we interact with each other: pray, love fervently, and make our hospitality cheerful. And there is one thing God calls you and me to stop doing: living in the identity we used to have before we came to Christ.
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1 Peter 1: Spiritual DNA
Our spiritual DNA is now from above, and as we live in faith, by faith in Jesus, we experience Jesus’ faithfulness in us and to us; we grow and mature into our new being, a being of love.
Grace and Peace, Joanne 