Bible stories come to life

Aug 12

The Letter to Philemon

Facts and figures

Of all the books of the Bible, only the second and third letters of John are shorter that the letter to Philemon if length is determined by number of words.

Writers	Paul and Timothy
Location and time	Sent from Rome in about 61-62 AD while Paul was imprisoned there
Delivery	Probably delivered by Onesimus, the subject of the letter
Addressees/recipients	Philemon, Apphia and Archippus in Colossae
Summary of message for Philemon	Forgive Onesimus your runaway slave and welcome him as a believing brother.
Number of chapters	1
Number of verses	25

Introduction

Most of what we know about Philemon and his slave Onesimus comes from the letter to Philemon itself. However, extra details in the letter to the Colossians suggest that both Onesimus, the subject of the letter, and Archippus, one of the recipients, came from Colossae.

Jan 23

Paul’s background

By Mark Morgan | Paul

‘Who are you, Lord?’ Saul asked. ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the voice replied. ‘Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.’ (Sweet Publishing / FreeBibleImages.org https://freebibleimages.org/illustrations/paul-conversion/ (Slide 6) License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license)

The narrative of the New Testament is dominated by two people: Jesus of Nazareth and Paul of Tarsus. The earthly life and preaching of Jesus fills the gospels, while the faith he fathered drives the rest of the New Testament, with Paul as the main advocate for that faith. How did Paul’s background prepare him for that crusade?

If we imagine life as a sport, one might say that Jesus defined the playing field, described the rules, placed the goalposts and took his God-given position as referee, while Paul explained different aspects of the rules and how the teams should be organised to play together on a day-to-day basis.

Jan 20

Harmony of Bible records of Paul’s conversion

By Mark Morgan | Harmonies , Paul

The conversion of Paul

Paul, the apostle of Jesus originally known as Saul, was converted from Judaism to Christianity by unexpectedly meeting Jesus. Luke describes the events in Acts 9 and also reports two occasions on which Paul himself described his conversion in Acts 22 and Acts 26. Paul also comments on the surrounding events in Galatians 1 & 2. The goal of this article is to put together these four records in chronological order. In this article, we present a harmony of Bible records of Paul’s conversion and the basis for the order chosen.

Dec 21

The stocks in the Bible

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah , Paul

Comfort

Comfort is important to us. To get comfortable, we will often be willing to spend a lot of money or work very hard – maybe even change our job or move to a different house, town or country. Some prophets, however, could not avoid the stocks in the Bible: it was all part of doing their job.

We do our best to avoid discomfort and expect others to do the same, so when we look at the lives of prophets in the Bible, the difference stands out.Continue reading

Nov 10

Marriage in the Bible