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[Pavel Mosko]

Colossians 3: 15-17

There is a lot there in context. If I was commenting I would talk a lot about the Hebrew concept of truth, emeth and the epistle kind of exemplifies that (truth in turns of something that brings you peace, strength etc. in contrast to the Greek term which talks about truth in the objective sense of facts, reality). With the mannerly greeting/s, talking about Christ and what it means to be a Christian and how that translates into living with others.

But of course in watching the little Bible project film, I was reminded that Paul did not directly found this church, which actually somewhat explains his approach here. It is interesting, kind of reminds me of James epistle in reverse (James like to talk about the various problems people have and how that exemplifies that they are not really established in Christ).

The actual verses themselves hit many popular Orthodox Christian themes and tropes regarding spirituality and worship. e.g. "The Kingdom of God is within You. (Luke 17:21), Dostoevsky's "Beauty will Save the World", the general theme of the Eucharistic reality, that there really is one worship service that take place (as depicted in the heavenly visions of Revelation etc,) that we with our prayers etc. get to partake of that on Earth. And of course lots of ones about having the right phronema, aka "mindset" for how we conduct ourselves as Christians.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

Philippians 4:6


Philippians 4:6

New International Version

6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.


1) There is a popular saying in the Evangelical World about the number of times “fear not” appears in the Bible. That it appears 365 or 366 times, one for every day of the year, which is God’s personal message for you every day. (This fact however is affected by how you count things (translation vs. original biblical language) and what you count (including Deuterocanonical books would add to it). But the actual figure does appear at least 314 times, which is a lot.)


2) People today are often bothered by God’s apparent hiddenness. Atheists use it as a reason for doubt and lack of faith, and believers often tend to see it as reason for fear when they face dire circumstances. But we should realize that even obvious manifestations of God and miracles are not really a guarantee of being free from things like temptation and anxiety. The Children of Israel when they were wandering the desert were led directly the glory of the Lord in the Cloud, and they saw many mighty miracles. When they rebelled against God when Moses was absent from them, this occurred all the while it was raining bread from heaven every day, a sign that was supernatural, but the fact that it was taking place everyday had somehow become common place that it was taken for granted.


3) But God is the ultimate reality, He is the only thing that holds the universe together and sustains all things. It doesn’t matter whether or not we can see him with our naked eyes. He exists even when we don’t see any evidence of Him. (A less we should have learned from our days as babies when it comes to “object permeance”). We humans are the pinnacle of creation, and He has a personal vested interest in each and every one of us to help us and provide for us all that we need. So we should do our best to anchor our lives in this Truth, and set our focus and attention on God, who is a true father and is greater than our present day problems and circumstances.

 

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