apostle

Church Leaders Who Help Church Growth (Ephesians 4:11)

Note: This study is from my book, God’s Blueprints for Church Growth. Once upon a time, in a local church, there were four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was asked to do it. But Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Then Somebody got angry about it, because it was Everybody’s job. But since Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, and Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it, it ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody and Nobody did the job that Anybody could have done in the first place. Right about this time, a fifth person visited the church. This person’s name was Confused. He looked around, saw what was happening, and never came back. All too often...

Who is a saint? YOU are! (Ephesians 1:1)

I am returning to verse-by-verse studies through books of the Bible. We begin in this podcast episode with Ephesians 1:1. The episode also contains a brief discussion of the humanitarian crisis at our southern border, and also a question from a reader about how to understand the violence of God in various biblical passages. Listen to the podcast for these two sections. Here are some brief notes on what I explain from Ephesians 1:1 The text says this: Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 1:1) The author of the letter, of course, is Paul. First, he is an apostle of Christ Jesus. An apostle is one who is sent by God with a message to those who have not yet heard the good news. It should be noted that there are ...