Friends,
Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ!
I’m back to recap yesterday’s session. But I’m going to try something a little different today. As usual you’ll find resources, art, and a look ahead below, but instead of my usual written recap of what we discussed yesterday (which have gotten increasingly time consuming), I’ve recorded an audio one. You can find it at the top of this email. It’s about twenty two minutes long. You can listen to it in the car, on a walk, while you’re cooking, etc. Let me know what you think!
Resources
* Video recording (PM)
* Slides
The Art of Paul
I shared a picture of the first page of Paul’s letter to the Romans from the 4th century Codex Vaticanus - probably the oldest copy of the Greek Bible that we have (browse it yourself at the official site, or read more at Wikipedia). One of the oldest manuscripts of some of Paul’s writings is a good bit older - Papyrus 46 was written in the late 2nd century or early 3rd (Wikipedia). Though even that is at least a hundred years after Paul’s death!
It’s easy to forget sometimes the countless hours spent by countless unnamed scribes copying and sharing these sacred writings. We don’t have a single piece of paper that is thought to be an original from Paul’s hand - or that of any other NT author, for that matter. One of the most remarkable and unsung miracles of the Holy Spirit is how very well preserved - and how well attested - the writings of the New Testament are.
Thank God for the labor of these ancient brothers (and sisters?) of ours!
For Next Week
Next Wednesday we’ll dive into Paul’s message. The problem is I don’t think I can do it justice in the three weeks we have remaining. Instead we’ll look at different aspects of Paul’s message that I think might surprise you, or that I think many of you have never encountered before. We’ll do that under three broad headings: the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the community of the Holy Spirit (cf. 2 Cor. 13:13). Next week it’ll be the grace of Jesus. We’ll take close looks at a few brief passages from Romans and Galatians, and maybe some others. I told the lunch session that it would blow their minds. At the very least I bet it’ll be a different way of looking at Paul’s message for a lot of you.
Last thing: don’t forget the reading plan.
In Christ,
Pastor Cabe
