Paul was making his way to Macedonia (northern Greece) and he left Timothy at Ephesus, to fight the wolves and to feed the sheep.
We are often tempted to a ‘One slogan fits all’ approach to life, even the Christian life. The biblical approach is much fuller – Galatians 5:13.
This was apparently raised in a letter from the Corinthians – 7:1, 25; 8:1a. There are two frameworks here: one is conceptual (the issue of idolatry), and the other is relational (how to interact with others).
James Montgomery rightly wrote in 1822 of ‘great David’s greater Son’. The focus is all-encompassing – ‘all authority’, ‘all nations’, ‘everything I have commanded’, and ‘always’. Jesus is the King who rules over all.
‘I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content’ (Phil.4:11).
Ecclesiastes 3 sets out a poetic and memorable reminder that life has its seasons, and there is a time for everything – to be born and to die, to plant and to reap, to kill and to heal, to break down and to build up, to weep and to laugh, …
Is this like the six supposed appearances to three young Portuguese shepherds of the Virgin Mary in 1917?
The women are afraid, then joyful; the guards are afraid, then corrupt.
Note the mixture of doctrine and practice. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: ‘I spend half my time telling Christians to study doctrine and the other half telling them that doctrine is not enough.’
