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Casual English Bible

By Stephen M. Miller

Bible Book Intros

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Intro Notes for Revelation

painting angels blowing hornsThis is the story of the end of the world.

The universe, too, it seems.

“Earth and sky were gone…Both had served their purpose” (Revelation 20:11).

A mysterious man named John, exiled to an island, sees it all happen in a graphic and violent stream of unconsciousness: visions, trances, and perhaps out-of-body experiences. It’s hard to tell which.

An angel carries his spirit into God’s sprawling throne room in heaven. There he sees someone who talks like Jesus: “I was dead, but I’m alive for good now. I’ve shown that I’m stronger than death and the grave” (1:18). This spirit being tells John, “Write down what you’re going to see that’s happening now and that’s yet to come” (1:19).

Some of the horrors John reports sound very much like what first-century historians said Romans did to Christians.

Some details also sound like what happened to Christians and Jews living in the Jewish homeland when Romans invaded in AD 67 to crush a Jewish revolt. Romans leveled Jerusalem and destroyed what became the last Jewish Temple.

Later, Babylon—a code name for Rome—falls. John sees it and reports it, presumably, as a message of hope to Christians facing Roman persecution and martyrdom. Rome apparently got its code name “Babylon” because Romans did what Babylonians had done in 586 BC: they leveled Jerusalem and destroyed the Jewish Temple.

Some of John’s reporting doesn’t seem to fit on history’s timeline. John writes many events into the future.

He sees worldwide disasters that begin with a series of wars, famines, and diseases that wipe out a fourth of humanity. A massive earthquake erupts, leveling mountains and sinking islands. Then John says falling stars pummel humanity into what sounds like a new Stone Age. “Terrified, everyone hid in caves” (6:13, 15).

Satan mounts a final attack on God’s people, with coalition forces from nations all over the world. But a white-horse cavalry of celestial beings, led by Jesus it seems, destroys the army, captures Satan, and doggone well pitches him into a lake of fire.

An angel takes John to a mountaintop for the perfect view of New Jerusalem floating down from heaven. He says he saw the new heaven and earth God had made for his people. He said he heard a voice say, “Look at that! God has moved in with people! He’s going to live right there with them.” (21:3).

John doesn’t write in journalistic style, most Bible experts seem to agree. He writes in a genre that’s closer to poetry than prose: apocalyptic lit. It’s famous for its extreme symbolism and code words. That makes it hard to know when to take him literally or when to dive deeper and look for the hidden meaning—which might be tougher for us to figure out than it was for his readers who might have known the code.

Though it can be tough to follow John’s meaning from one dramatic scene to the next, it’s hard to miss where it all leads.

Bad guys lose. Satan is toast. Heaven is real.

Writer

Jesus’ disciple and close friend John wrote Revelation, according to some early Christian writers, including Irenaeus (about AD 130-202) and Polycrates (about AD 130-196).

But all the writer says about himself is this: “I, John, am your brother and your partner in all this suffering going on…I was sent to the island of Patmos because I got caught telling people about Jesus” (1:9).

Another contender with early support: John the Elder. His name is all we know about him. Yet a bishop named Papias (about AD 60-163) identifies him as the writer.

One clue that Jesus’ disciple John might not be the writer: when the writer refers to “the Lamb’s 12 apostles” (21:12), he doesn’t say he’s one of them.

Timeline

John wrote Revelation in either the AD 60s, when Emperor Nero launched the first wave of Roman persecution against Christians, or in the AD 90s, when Emperor Domitian persecuted them for not worshiping him as a god. That’s the consensus among most Bible scholars.

map of seven churches of Revelation copyright by Stephen M. MillerLocation

John wrote from exile on the island of Patmos about 40 miles (65 km) off Turkey’s west coast. He started the letter by addressing short messages to seven churches near the western coast. Early church writers say apostle John and many other Christians had moved there to western Turkey in around AD 66, when Jews revolted against Rome. Some reports have John settling in the busy coastal town of Ephesus.

Perhaps the fleeing Christians remembered a warning Jesus gave his followers near the end of his ministry: “The next time you see an army surround Jerusalem, that’s your sign. That’s when you’ll know the city is about to get decimated. Those of you who are anywhere near the city—anywhere in the region of Judea—you’ll need to run to the mountains. Those of you inside the city will need to evacuate immediately. And if you’re living in the countryside, don’t go anywhere near the city” (Luke 21:20-21).

That would have been good advice in AD 70, when Romans surrounded Jerusalem and then leveled it that summer.

Destination of letter

John starts the letter by addressing short notes to seven churches in the Roman province of Asia. That’s western Turkey today. First letter goes to the town where Apostle John reportedly settled: Ephesus. He added notes to six more: Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. Church members apparently copied those letters with the rest of the prophecies in Revelation and shared them with other churches, which is one reason Revelation ended up in the Bible.

Intro Notes for 1, 2, and 3 John

painting of Jesus Christ

These three short letters of 1, 2, and 3 John are the kind of letters you write when you don’t want to write letters.

Which could explain why they’re so short.

Clearly, there was a problem that generated those letters. But John doesn’t give the problem a name. Many scholars speculate it was a heresy later called Docetism (DOE suh TISS um), though at the time it probably didn’t have a call sign other than words like “trash,” “crap,” and “hogwash,” depending on a Christian’s vocabulary and temperament.

Bible experts base their speculation on John’s unusual words of warning. Nothing like this shows up anywhere in the Bible but in the writings of John. We’ll call him John since early church leaders said he was John, the disciple of Jesus.

The warnings? John feels compelled to remind the readers of these:

  • Jesus was human, not a spirit ghost. “I’ll tell you how you can recognize God’s Spirit in someone. People led by God’s Spirit will acknowledge Jesus Christ came here as a flesh-and-blood human being” (1 John 4:2).
  • God the Father and Jesus the Son are one, whatever that means; John doesn’t explain it. “Anyone who rejects the Son has already rejected the Father. But anyone who believes in the Son also has the Father” (1 John 2:23). “Everyone who loves his or her Father loves his Child” (1 John 5:1).
  • Believers are one with God. “Anyone who obeys God is spiritually linked to him, united. God lives in that person. God’s Spirit and the spirit of that person become one, making decisions together. We know this because the Spirit God gave us lives inside of us” (1 John 3:24).

Bible experts backward-engineer those reminders into the problems that produced them. Scholars say it’s possible people who attended the church were trying to convince others that Jesus was only a spirit-being who pretended to be human (Docetism) and we can never live up to the example he set because we’re only humans made from clay and full of dirty deeds.

When John starts his letter, he leads with that idea. Essentially, he’s saying, “Now wait a minute, my fellow apostles and I know better because ‘we’ve touched him with our hands’” (1 John 1:1).

You can’t touch a spirit, the mistaken folks apparently taught, as though they would recognize a spirit if one pinched them a good one.

The warped view of Jesus seemed to produce warped behavior. Folks apparently taught that if we believe in Jesus, it doesn’t matter what we do in this world. Go ahead and lie, cheat, and steal. We can’t help it because we’re flawed humans.

John said those ideas are spiritually lethal. He taught that people are capable of goodness because God’s Spirit lives in us.

“My dear children, I’m writing this to steer you away from sin. . . . There’s one way to tell if we really know God: We obey him” (1 John 2:1, 3).

Writer

Whether the writer is shy, humble, or afraid of getting arrested, we get no signature. We don’t know who wrote any of these three letters.

But we do get some hints.

One hint: The writer, referring to Jesus, says, “We have seen him with our own two eyes. We’ve not only looked at him, we’ve heard him and we’ve touched him with our hands” (1:1).

Since the early AD 100s, church leaders writing the first surviving documents after the New Testament said John wrote these letters. John and his brother James, along with Peter, were Jesus’ three best friends. He took them places he didn’t take the others, such as the Mount of Transfiguration, where Jesus seemed to momentarily transform into a glowing spiritual being (Matthew 17:1).

Another hint: Whoever wrote these letters wrote like the author of the Gospel of John. That’s another book early church leaders said John wrote. Both the Gospel and the letters of John, for example, call Jesus “the living Word of God” (1 John 1:1). He’s God’s message delivered in person, in the flesh.

For the sake of keeping the writing of this leader’s guide easy to read, we’ll presume the early church leaders got it right when they tagged John as the writer.

Timeline

John lived about another 60 years after Jesus left, according to early church leaders. They say he wrote 1, 2, and 3 John late in life, perhaps in the AD 80s or 90s. One clue he was an elderly man: He sometimes called church folks “my dear children” (1 John 2:1). Grownups wouldn’t likely appreciate hearing that from someone their own age.

map of John's possible route to EphesusLocation

John left what is now Israel and the Palestinian Territories, early church leaders reported. He may have left because of persecution. Tradition-minded Jews banned from the synagogue fellow Jews who said Jesus was the Messiah.

That was only for starters. First-century Jewish historian Josephus (AD 37-100) reported that Jewish leaders stoned to death James, head of the Jerusalem church. He was the brother of Jesus, according to early church fathers.

John moved to Ephesus, church leaders wrote. Ephesus was a thriving city along Turkey’s west coast. Church leaders said John wrote the Gospel of John there, too, and a community of kindred souls followed his teachings and started churches throughout the region. Scholars call this group the Johannine (joe HAN nine) community. If you lead a Bible study, you can pronounce that if you want to sound smart. But if you want to be smart, skip it. Some info is only for your background, to load your brain in case someone asks about anything Johannian. That’s so you don’t have to answer, “Joe what?”

Destination of Letters

John’s letters sound like they target problems in a single church or perhaps in a community of churches under his guidance as a kind of bishop—though he was an apostle, the highest office during the first decades of the church.

John also writes as though he knows his readers well enough to call them his “dear friends” (1 John 2:7), “dear family” (1 John 2:12), and “dearest children” (1 John 2:18). Typically, that’s not how folks—then or now—addressed strangers.

So, John may have sent the letter to the churches under his wing in Ephesus and cities throughout what is now western Turkey.

Intro Notes for 1 and 2 Peter, Jude

art of PeterAll three letters of 1 and 2 Peter and Jude target troubles in the church. Christians are facing frauds passing themselves off as church leaders. And they’re facing persecution from people outside their community of faith, perhaps including some former relatives and friends who don’t like the changes Christianity is making in these new believers.

1 Peter. Some scholars say this seems like an odd book for Peter to write. Peter addresses Christians scattered throughout what is now Turkey. That was Paul’s turf. Paul was born and raised there, and that’s where Paul started planting churches among non-Jews. There’s no record of Peter ever having gone there. He’s best known for ministering to Jews in what is now Israel and Palestinian Territories. One guess about why he wrote is that he was on trial in Rome, just before his crucifixion, when he got word that churches throughout Turkey were facing some kind of persecution, which Peter never identified. Emperor Nero, credited with executing Peter and Paul, launched the first persecution of Christians after accusing them of starting the July AD 64 fire that burned much of Rome. That might explain why Peter, on trial in Rome, wouldn’t specifically identify Nero as the source of the trouble. But there are other theories too. Jews might have caused the trouble for these churches, as they had done for Turkey’s premiere church planter, Paul.

2 Peter. Frauds in the church were apparently one of the main reasons Peter or someone writing in his name sent this open letter to Christians everywhere. The frauds apparently tried to pass themselves off as church leaders. But they were greedy people who wanted to get rich off the church. Driven by their animal instincts, they taught heresy that advocated sexual immorality. “These people act like animals. . . . They’ll die like those animals too” (2 Peter 2:12). In addition to warning Christians about these frauds, he told them not to worry about why Jesus hadn’t come back yet. Critics apparently were targeting this promise of a Second Coming, perhaps a generation or more after Jesus seemed to say he’d be back before his generation ended. “I’m telling you the truth, this generation of human beings will live to see everything I’ve talked about here” (Mark 13:30). Peter explains, “Our leader isn’t late, as some claim. He didn’t break his promise. Instead, he’s being patient with you. He doesn’t want anyone annihilated. He wants everyone to reject sin instead of rejecting him” (2 Peter 3:9).

Jude. This is a one-chapter book warning Christians about fraudulent church leaders preaching heresy and practicing what they preach. “Some people snuck into your church. These are bad people, condemned long before their time. They take God’s kindness and misrepresent it. They treat it as a license to behave immorally and to reject our only true leader and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 1:4). Sounding a bit like 2 Peter, Jude says they operate on animal instincts that “will destroy them” (Jude 1:10). He urges believers to hold onto the truth the apostles taught them and trust that “God can keep you from falling” (Jude 1:24).

Writers

1 Peter. This letter was written in a polished style of Greek, which is a tad surprising for a fisherman Jerusalem Jews described as uneducated: “Bold talk coming out of Peter and John shocked the Council since it was obvious that both men were uneducated” (Acts 4:13). Peter, like many people of his day, often used the services of people who knew how to write well. We do much the same today when we hire lawyers to write contracts and other formal documents. Peter, in fact, says that’s what he did: “Silas, a devoted brother in Christ, helped me write and deliver this short letter to you” (1 Peter 5:12). This may have been the same Silas who helped Paul plant churches throughout Turkey and who helped Paul write the letters of 1 and 2 Thessalonians. Church leaders writing in the AD 90s and 100s say Peter wrote this letter.

2 Peter. This letter is signed from “Simon Peter, . . . an apostle of Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:1). But there are two main reasons some scholars say someone else wrote the letter in Peter’s name, perhaps to honor him. The letter seems to address problems that didn’t develop until late into the first century and into the second, long after Peter likely died in the mid-60s. Also, the writer stamps the letters of Paul as “sacred writings” (2 Peter 3:16), “Scriptures” in some translations (New American Standard Bible, New Century Version). Scholars who say Peter wrote the letter say the problems he addressed were the beginnings of problems that blew up later in the church. As for Paul’s letters tagged as scripture, he had been writing more than a dozen years by the time he and Peter died, long enough for the Christian movement to recognize God’s inspiration in those words.  

Jude. The writer identifies himself as “Jude, a worker for Jesus Christ and a brother of James” (Jude 1:1). Jude, a nickname for Judas, may have been one of the brothers of Jesus: “James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas” (Matthew 13:55). James became the leader of the Jerusalem congregation, and he seemed to chair the first council meeting of the Christian movement. He made the closing statement at that meeting (Acts 15:13). Jewish historian Josephus (AD 37-about 100) said Jerusalem Jewish leaders stoned James shortly before Jews rebelled against Rome in AD 66—a rebellion the Roman army crushed.

Timeline

1 Peter. Peter died in the AD mid-60s. Some scholars say Peter may have written this letter sometime between July AD 64, when Rome burned in a fire Nero blamed on Christians, and AD 68, when Nero committed suicide. During that stretch, Jews rebelled against Rome and temporarily ran them out of the country. Rome’s army returned in force, recapturing the country and destroying Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple, which has never been rebuilt.

2 Peter. If Peter wrote this letter, he did it sometime before Emperor Nero committed suicide in AD 68. Early church writers say Peter and Paul died in Rome during Nero’s persecution of Christians after he accused them of starting the July AD 64 fire that burned much of Rome to the ground.

Jude. Jude and 2 Peter sound so much alike that many scholars say they were probably written about the same time.

Map of Rome copyright Stephen M. MillerLocation

1 Peter. Peter uses the code name of “Babylon” to describe the city from which he’s writing (1 Peter 5:13, New American Standard Bible). “Babylon” is code for Rome because Rome conquered the Jewish homeland. Later, in AD 70, Rome would do something else Babylon did: level Jerusalem and its Temple.

2 Peter. Peter doesn’t say where he was at the time. Rome is one guess because he says he’s about to die soon. “It won’t be much longer. My body is going to get set aside” (2 Peter 1:14). So he may have been writing from Rome, where he was crucified.

Jude. Jude doesn’t say where he is when he’s writing this open letter to believers everywhere. He may have remained in his family’s hometown of Nazareth, though the locals initially didn’t take kindly to Jesus. They wanted to “toss him over the cliff” (Luke 4:29). He might have continued Jesus’ work in the fishing village Jesus used as his headquarters: Capernaum. Jude’s brother James seems to have been the leader of the Jerusalem church, until Jewish leaders there stoned him to death for teaching what they considered heresy.

Destination of Letters

1 Peter. Peter writes to “Jews scattered abroad, north of Israel in the Roman provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia” (1 Peter 1:1). That territory in Turkey covers about a quarter of a million square miles, roughly the size of Texas. Peter doesn’t say “Jews.” He literally says “refugees of the dispersion,” a technical phrase referring to Jews living outside the traditional Jewish homeland of what is now Israel and Palestinian Territories.

2 Peter. Peter addresses his letter to all Christians everywhere: “Everyone with a faith that’s as precious as mine” (2 Peter 1:1).

Jude. Jude addresses this letter to “everyone who accepted God’s invitation, is loved by God the Father, and is being kept safe for Jesus Christ’s return” (1:1).

Intro Notes for James

portrait of Bible man by James TissotJames is the Gospel of Do Something.

James, whoever he was, writes a little like a man frustrated at getting appointed pastor of the First Church of No Volunteers.

He writes an open letter to “The 12 tribes scattered everywhere…to all of you out there” (James 1:1). Maybe he’s writing to the Jews, or to Jewish followers of Jesus, or to all Christians, with “12 tribes” as a symbolic way of saying they’re now part of God’s people.

Whoever he is and whoever they are, he’s giving them what sometimes reads like an updated version of Proverbs. Both feature wisdom one-liners and short-burst lectures we might expect from a worried parent.

Standout messages:

  • Christians prove their faith by doing good things for others.
  • Watch your mouth because your tongue can start a fire.
  • Don’t treat rich people better than others.
  • Stop humiliating the poor.
  • Don’t let your natural desires drag you into danger zones.

Writer

“From: James, who serves God and our leader, Jesus the Messiah” (1:1).

It’s not clear which James wrote this letter, though many scholars lobby for the brother of Jesus.

There are about half a dozen men named James in the Bible story of Jesus. Two of his dozen disciples are named James (Luke 6:14-15). James the brother of John was executed by Herod Agrippa in about AD 44 (Acts 12:2).

James is also one of Jesus’s four brothers, perhaps the oldest, since he is listed first (Matthew 13:55). Many say it was this James who became leader of the Jerusalem church, and who apparently convened the first church leadership meeting (Acts 15).

Jewish historian Josephus (about AD 37-100) reported that the Jerusalem-based Jewish high priest ordered the execution of James “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ” (Antiquities of the Jews, book 20, chapter 9, section 1). Josephus says Jews stoned him to death, in about AD 62. That’s a few years before Nero is said to have ordered Paul beheaded and Peter crucified upside-down.

Timeline

If James the brother of Jesus wrote the letter and was the same James who led the Jerusalem church, James wrote the letter before his execution in about AD 62. Peter and Paul were both executed within a few years after that.

Location

James probably wrote his letter from Jerusalem, if this James was the brother of Jesus and the leader of the Jerusalem church described in Acts 15.

Destination of the letter

“To: The 12 tribes scattered everywhere” (1:1). Bible experts debate who James addressed. The 12 tribes of Israel were actually extended families descended from the dozen sons of Jacob, grandson of Abraham. Taken literally, the “12 tribes” would have meant the Jews.

It’s possible James meant just the Jews who believed Jesus was the Messiah. Paul led the mission work among non-Jews. James in Jerusalem, along with apostles such as Peter, seemed to focus more on convincing Jews that Jesus was the Messiah.

Some Bible experts speculate that James may have been thinking of all believers, since they now represent the new Israel. Paul put it this way: “You are the true Israel—the authentic people of God” (Galatians 6:16). Peter called them “God’s chosen” (1 Peter 2:9 Contemporary English Version).

Intro Notes for Hebrews

Jews readingGood Jews belong in church. That’s the letter of Hebrews in a sentence.

Scholars can only guess

  • who wrote this elegant letter,
  • when they wrote it,
  • and to whom they wrote it.

But why was it written? That’s easy enough, most scholars seem to agree.

Jewish Christians somewhere in the Mediterranean world were apparently leaving the church and returning to the synagogue. They were trading in Christianity for the Jewish faith.

Christianity wasn’t safe. Judaism was, since it was protected under Roman law.

Jewish Christians were under attack. They were persecuted as blasphemers and heretics by their fellow Jews. They were arrested by Romans as troublemakers whose oddball religion sparked riots. Romans started executing Christians after Emperor Nero blamed them for burning most of Rome in AD 64.

Jewish Christians were feeling the heat. They “weathered a terrible storm of hardship and suffering” (10:32). Apparently, some had already left the church and others were considering it.

It’s too late, the Hebrews writer says. The Jewish religion as it existed before Jesus is gone—replaced, as God said it would be.

Half a millennium earlier, God had promised to replace the contract agreement he made with the Jewish people—an ancient contract was based on laws they were to obey.

“This is the agreement I’ll make with the people when the time comes.

I’m going to write my laws onto their hearts.

I’m going to embed them into their minds” (Hebrews 10:16).

There was nothing for Jewish Christians to go back to but the ruins of an obsolete faith.

The writer makes that point every which way to Sunday. Some of his arguments relentlessly beat that nail like a hammer. He does that when he works his way through the human history to show that what God really wants from people is faith, not the animal sacrifices that Jews offer.

Some of his arguments would make no sense to many folks today. The weirdest shows up when he says Levi (father of the tribe that produced Israel’s priests) gave a tithe to the mysterious king and priest known as Melchizedek. It was Abraham who gave the tithe, but the writer says Levi was there, too: “After all, Levi was in his father’s body at the time, though unborn” (Hebrews 7:10).

Well, that’s a stretch. Abraham was Levi’s great-grandfather. Levi wouldn’t become a swimmer in his father’s pool for quite some time. Decades at least.

Creative interpretations of the Bible were welcome in early centuries of Christianity and in Judaism at the time. Often, symbolic approaches like this were valued above the more obvious and literal understanding.

Sometimes, the writer of Hebrews plays the good cop. “Let’s think about how we can encourage each other to be loving and to do kind things for others” (Hebrews 10:24).

Sometimes, the bad cop. “You don’t seem to pay attention. You’re catching on at the pace of a slug… Doggone if you aren’t spiritual babies who still need to suck milk” (Hebrews 5:11-12).

The Hebrews writer attacked the problem from a dizzying array of angles, apparently hoping that if one argument didn’t strike the heart of a backsliding believer, another angle would.

Writer

Anonymous.

Paul gets most votes as writer. But there’s a good argument against that theory. Paul’s ministry began with a vision of Jesus, which he considered direct contact with Christ. He identified himself an apostle, one of the people with first-hand knowledge of Jesus. He would not likely have written the following, some scholars say: “Our Lord himself taught us about salvation. We got first-hand confirmation from people who heard what he said” (2:3).

Apollos gets some votes because some scholars say the writing reflects a style used in his part of the world, Alexandria, Egypt. Also, he was a great speaker: “He knew his stuff when it came to the Jewish Scripture. When he talked, people listened because he had a wonderful way with words” (Acts 18:24).

Other contenders: Luke, Barnabas, Priscilla, Silas, Epaphras, Jude, and more.

Timeline

Uncertain. Timothy was still alive and newly released from prison (13:23). So, that probably keeps us in the first century.

It’s likely written before AD 70, when Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple. The writer probably would have used the Temple’s destruction to defend his argument that the time for animal sacrifices was over. Jews could sacrifice animals only at the Temple. So, the sacrificial system ended when the Temple fell because the Temple has never been rebuilt.

The writer may have written before Emperor Nero blamed Christians for the AD 64 fire that burned most of Rome. That’s when he targeted Christians for execution in the arena, as entertainment. The Hebrews writer says the readers had suffered, “but it didn’t kill you” (12:4).

map of ItalyLocation

Uncertain. The writer may have written from Rome, since he says, “our friend Timothy has been released” (13:23) and “Believers here in Italy send their greetings to you” (13:24). But the reference to Italy is waffling. It’s literally, “those from Italy send greetings.” The writer could be sending greetings abroad, from Italy. Or the writer could be sending greetings from Italy natives abroad to the folks back home in Italy. From people in Italy or to people in Italy, that’s the question. Flip a denarius.

Destination of letter

The writer addresses Jews who were followers of Jesus as Messiah. The name of the letter is a giveaway. “Hebrews” is the ancient name for the people whose descendants became known as Jews. Historians say that name became part of the letter by the end of the AD 100s, if not earlier.

It’s unknown were the Jewish readers lived. If they didn’t live in Italy, it’s anyone’s guess where the readers were. By the AD 60s, churches were popping up throughout the Mediterranean world, from North Africa to Turkey, Greece, and Italy.

Intro Notes for Philemon

Apostle Paul writingPaul is somewhere in prison, possibly Rome, when he meets a runaway slave named Onesimus (oh-NESS-uh-muhs), from what is now Turkey.

The two become good friends. Paul says he thinks of Onesimus as a son. Paul loves him so much that he sends Onesimus back to his slave master, Philemon (fi-LEE-muhn)—at a time when Roman law would have allowed the slaveowner to execute the young man. Which sounds like a bad idea.

But Paul sent a cover letter, which ended up in the Bible as the one-chapter book of Philemon.

It’s a strange letter that seems to reveal some of the complex layers of Paul’s odd personality. I’m being polite. It’s possible that Philemon didn’t much like the letter.

Paul starts off by softening up Philemon with sincere compliments. Then he asks Philemon for a favor, but he does it in a way that could come across as, “I’ve heard you’re a good Christian. Now prove it.”

Paul wants Philemon to forgive Onesimus for running away, welcome him back like he’s Paul’s real son, and then return him to Paul as a freed man.

To which Philemon might have mumbled, “Would you like me to throw in my youngest daughter?”

Paul says he could order Philemon to free Onesimus because Paul is Christ’s apostle, which makes him Philemon’s boss. But he wants Philemon to decide for himself to do the right thing. And Paul, using all his persuasive skills, makes sure Philemon knows what the right thing is.

Paul offers to pay Philemon for any losses Onesimus may have caused him. Then, with no subtlety whatsoever, Paul reminds Philemon that he owes Paul his spiritual life.

If that’s not enough—and apparently, it’s not—Paul copies in the entire church that meets in Onesimus’ home. Some might call that peer pressure.

Paul wraps up the letter by telling Philemon to fix up a guest room for him because he’s coming to town. Some might call that chutzpah.

For the record, about 50 years later a church leader named Ignatius wrote a letter to the bishop at the church in Ephesus, about a five-day walk from Colossae. The bishop’s name: Onesimus. It’s anyone’s guess if he’s the man Paul wanted to see freed to help him during his last few years of ministry.

Writer

“From: Paul, a prisoner for the sake of the Messiah Jesus, and from Timothy” (Philemon 1:1).

Timeline

Paul seems to have written this letter during his two years under arrest in Rome, while he waited for his trial in the emperor’s supreme court (Acts 28:30). That would have been from about AD 60-62.

map of Rome and ColossaePaul’s location

Paul is “a prisoner” (1:1), apparently in Rome. But it’s possible he was writing from jail somewhere else. Some argue that Rome, 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from Philemon’s home in Colossae in what is now Turkey, would have been too far for a runaway slave to travel.

Destination of letter

Paul wrote to a slave-owning believer named Philemon, who let Christians meet in his home in Colossae, a city in what is now Turkey. Paul apparently sent the letter with runaway slave Onesimus, accompanied by one of Paul’s associates: Tychicus (Colossians 4:9).

Intro Notes for Titus

Apostle Paul writingPaul’s three-chapter letter to his colleague, Titus, reads like a short version of the six-chapter letter of 1 Timothy, which Paul seems to have written about the same time, to another associate and dear friend: Timothy.

Reading between the lines, it seems as though Paul and Titus had gone to the island of Crete sometime after the stories reported in Acts. Since Acts ends with the cliffhanger of Paul under arrest in Rome, and waiting for his trial before the emperor’s supreme court, the presumption many Bible experts make is that Paul was found not guilty at that trial, and released.

By the time Paul wrote this letter to Titus in Crete and a similar letter to Timothy in Ephesus, Paul was back on the road somewhere, perhaps headed to Spain. He said he wanted to go there (Romans 15:24).

In the letter Paul wrote to Titus along with the two letters Paul wrote to Timothy, he gave his two associates advice about how to select church leaders, what to teach believers, and how to deal with troublemakers in the church. That’s why these three letters, written from one pastoral leader to another, are sometimes called the “Pastoral Epistles.” “Epistles” is a two-dollar word for a one-nickel word: “letter.”

Writer

“From: Paul, a worker for God and an apostle of Jesus the Messiah” (Titus 1:1).

Timeline

One popular theory: Paul wrote Titus, along with 1 Timothy sometime after his trial in Rome (about AD 62). The book of Acts ends with Paul waiting for his trial in the emperor’s supreme court. As the theory goes, Paul was found not guilty and released. He hit the road again, possibly taking the story of Jesus to Crete and even as far away as Spain, on the Roman Empire’s western frontier. The theory says he was arrested again after Emperor Nero blamed Christians for starting the fire that destroyed much of Rome in AD 66. Paul may have written 2 Timothy in about AD 67, while waiting for the Romans to execute him after a second trial.

map of Crete and NicopolisPaul’s location

Paul doesn’t say where he was when he wrote Titus. Some scholars guess that he wrote it during his continuing mission trips that aren’t mentioned in the Bible—possibly on the trip he said he wanted to make to Spain (Romans 15:24).

Destination of letter

Paul wrote this letter to one of his associates: Titus. Paul had given him the job of recruiting church leaders for the island of Crete. “I left you in Crete to finish the job we started. You need to appoint church leaders in every town I told you to target” (1:5).

Intro Notes for 1, 2 Timothy

Apostle Paul writingPaul had itchy feet. He didn’t seem to stick around towns very long. He usually seemed to stay just long enough to tell the story of Jesus, and to convince some folks that Jesus was the Messiah that prophets said God would send as a savior. In a few days or weeks, Paul moved on.

Not so in the town where he assigned his associate Timothy to stay: Ephesus. Paul lived there for three years, getting the church up and running. That was a huge investment of his time—twice as long as the year-and-a-half that he spent in Corinth.

Paul was not about to let fake Christians infiltrate and brainwash his congregation, which is what they were trying to do.

After Paul’s three-year stay in Ephesus, he and Timothy made a follow-up visit. They found a group of supposed Christian teachers spreading a warped brand of Christianity. Paul doesn’t say much about what the heretics taught. But it seems as though they tried to spread fake news that “the resurrection has already happened” (2 Timothy 2:18).

Paul couldn’t stay long enough to neutralize the theological poison, so he left Timothy there, perhaps as an apostle’s delegate. But for all practical purposes, Timothy may have served as the pastor or possibly as the bishop over several pastors in the region.

In the two letters Paul wrote to Timothy, he gave him advice about how to select pastors and how to be a good pastor. That’s why Bible experts call these letters, along with a similar letter Paul wrote to an associate named Titus, the “Pastoral Epistles.” “Epistles” is a two-dollar word for a one-nickel word: “letter.”

Two Timothy is a deeply personal letter. When Paul wrote that letter, he knew he was about to die. He asks Timothy to come to Rome as soon as possible because like most folks about to die, Paul wants the people he loves most to be with him when it happens.

The Bible never tells us if Timothy was able to make the 1,000-mile (1,000 km) trip in time.

Writer

“From: Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 1:1; 2 Timothy 1:1).

Timeline

One popular theory: Paul wrote 1 Timothy along with Titus sometime after his trial in Rome (about AD 62) and 2 Timothy about five years later. The book of Acts ends with Paul waiting for his trial in the emperor’s supreme court. As the theory goes, Paul was found not guilty and released. He hit the road again, possibly taking the story of Jesus to Spain, on the Roman Empire’s western frontier. The theory says he was arrested again after Emperor Nero blamed Christians for starting the fire that destroyed much of Rome in AD 66. Paul may have written 2 Timothy in about AD 67, while waiting for the Romans to execute him after a second trial.

map of Route from Ephesus to RomePaul’s location

Paul doesn’t say where he was when he wrote 1 Timothy. Some scholars guess that he wrote it during his continuing mission trips that aren’t mentioned in the Bible—possibly on the trip he said he wanted to make to Spain (Romans 15:24). He wrote 2 Timothy from prison in Rome (2 Timothy 1:17).

Destination of letter

Paul wrote both letters to the man who was perhaps his best friend: Timothy, whom he called “my true son in spirit” (1 Timothy 1:2). Paul had assigned Timothy to stay in Ephesus, a bustling port city on what is now the west coast of Turkey. Timothy’s job: “Stay in Ephesus, and keep telling those certain folks who are spreading warped teachings to stop it” (1 Timothy 1:3).

Intro Notes for 1, 2 Thessalonians

Apostle Paul writingPaul hadn’t planned to take the story of Jesus on the road to Europe.

He was busy starting churches all over what is now Turkey when he had a vision of a man pleading with him to come to what is now northern Greece, a territory Romans called Macedonia. “Help us! Please come to Macedonia!” (Acts 16:9).

Paul left right away. When he got there, he started the first church in Europe, out of the home of a woman named Lydia, in the city of Philippi (Acts 16:15). Paul and Silas, one of his traveling associates, ended up getting beaten and imprisoned for exorcising a demon-possessed girl who could predict the future. Her masters had them arrested because these slave masters couldn’t make any more money off of her after Paul healed her.

Paul and his team later accepted the invitation of city officials “to leave town” (Acts 16:39). The mission team moved on to Thessalonica, where they planted another church. But after only three weeks there they got run out of town again (Acts 17:2, 10).

As Paul and his entourage traveled south toward the city of Corinth, where he would spend a year and a half starting a new church, Paul felt worried about the community of new believers he had to leave behind in Thessalonica. So, he sent Timothy back to check on them. He also wrote them two letters: 1, 2 Thessalonians. First Thessalonians is a how-to letter for living the Christian life. Paul wrote the follow-up letter of 2 Thessalonians perhaps a few weeks or months later. He seems to have written it to answer questions the people had about the Second Coming of Jesus.

Writer

“Paul, Silas, and Timothy” (1, 2 Thessalonians 1:1).

Timeline

This may be the first of anything written in the New Testament. Paul probably wrote these two letters about 20 years after the crucifixion of Jesus. Paul on his second mission trip, wrote 1 Thessalonians shortly after he left the town of Thessalonica, in about AD 51. The two letters were written perhaps just a few weeks or months apart.

map Thessalonica coastlinePaul’s location

Paul likely wrote these letters from Corinth, a port town about a 300-mile walk (480 km) south of Thessalonica, 400 miles (645 km) by sea, which could be faster with good winds. Both towns are in what is now Greece. Paul and his mission team had left Thessalonica and traveled south. When they reached “Athens,” (3:1) Paul sent Timothy back to check on the Thessalonian believers. Meanwhile, Paul moved on to Corinth, where he spent a year and a half starting the church there. That’s when Timothy returned with good news that the Thessalonian folks were holding onto their faith (Acts 18:1-5). Paul wrote the letters after that.

Destination of letter

Paul wrote to new believers in north Greece’s port city of Thessalonica, in the Roman province of Macedonia.

Intro Notes for Colossians

Apostle Paul writingHere’s the big question: Why would Paul write to a group of Christians in the town he had never come within 100 miles (160 km) of visiting?

The most common guess—and it is just a guess—is that a man who seems to have been the founding pastor, Epaphras, somehow got word to Paul that the church was having trouble. Scholars have to guess what the trouble was.

A popular guess is that Jews in the town were trying to convince Christians they had to be law-abiding Jews if they wanted to follow the Messiah.

Paul tells the Christians that all they need is faith in Jesus. He tells them to skip the religion rules. “You know what rules I’m talking about. ‘Stay away from this! Don’t eat that! Don’t even touch this!’” (Colossians 2:21).

After dealing with that problem, Paul moves on to give this church the same kind of warm pastoral counseling he offered to churches he helped start in Ephesus and Philippi. He may have written all of these letters the same time; they are that much alike.

Paul has a lot of great one-liners in the short letter.

One of the most popular and most practical is this: “Whatever you say when you open your mouth and whatever you do wherever you go, do it all as a representative of the Lord Jesus” (3:17).

Writer

From: “Paul, a God-approved apostle of Jesus the Messiah, and from our brother Timothy” (1:1).

Timeline

Paul doesn’t say when he wrote this letter. Many Bible experts guess that he wrote it when he was under house arrest in Rome, sometime around AD 60-62. He may have penned Colossians the same time he wrote Ephesians and Philippians; he offers the people at Colossae some of the same advice he gave the folks of Ephesus and Philippi.

map of Ephesus and ColossaePaul’s location

Paul is writing from somewhere in “chains” (4:3), possibly Rome, at the trial in the Emperor’s supreme court, reported in Acts 28.

Destination of letter

Paul addressed a group of Christians in the city of Colossae, in what is now Turkey. It’s about 120 miles (192 km) east of the west coast city of Ephesus.

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