Just One Letter Project - Week 5
Your Questions Can Be Friends or Foes

So we spent some time last week catching up on the Just One Letter Project.

This week and the coming weeks, we will start pulling together ideas and gaining a better grasp of the intent that Paul had when we wrote to the church he had started in Phillipi, one of the first churches on the European continent.

To get us moving in that direction, we have to first address QUESTIONS.  You have them. You probably been asking questions each week as you have been reading this letter. You may not hear yourself ask them but they are there running around your brain.  You are asking questions all the time.

At First ... Questions Can Be Your Foe Not Your Friend

Probably, those first questions you ask are more like a foe than a friend. Don't get me wrong, the questions are great. You want to have questions. But when you first began reading this letter , the questions often get in the way. They can be your foe because they can distract you and take your brain down rabbit trails that have no end. Or they can discourage you because you don't know the answer immediately ... which set some us down a fatalistic trail of "well I guess the Bible is just too complicated."

Even in the first paragraph or two of this letter, some words or phrases can

• " Paul and Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus" (1:1) - What does this mean? Was Jesus a slave owner?
• "...including the elders and deacons (1:2)? - Who are they? What are they? 
• "on the day that Christ returns" (1:6)?  So what is taking him so long? So do I have to become a weird prophecy person like those people on TV and endlessly talk about "end times"?

Initially, these kinds of questions can be like ... "white noise" that keep you from seeing and hearing what is more easily understood.

So this week, when you read through letter to the church at Philippi, keep an index card or a post-it note nearby and just jot down those questions that begin to rattle in your brain. 

But then press on ... ignoring them for now. And listen for what is clear initially not what is unclear!

Later ... Questions Are Your Friends not Foes 

Then ...  if we can let the questions sit for a bit and not distract us ... we can start seeing and hearing the bigger themes in a letter like this one. Themes like ...

• What I learn about God and how he relates to this group.
• What I learn about the letter writer - and the example of his life. 
• What issues are being addressed in this community and what is the counsel given. 
• What instructions or directions are given for understanding God's gospel are offered.

So as you read the letter this week, try to note, highlight or summarize answers to these questions above, instead of being initially distracted by the other questions. And you will leave this reading having a first grasp of some of what was important to Paul when he first wrote.

Then with these BIGGER themes in place, we can come back and evaluate the importance of some of the other questions and then begin investigating answers. Then these questions that were once foes will really become friends.

Just One Letter - Week 3
Following The Road Signs

So ... we are at week three of the Just One Letter Project.  From here on out, you can expect to begin noticing things you have not noticed so far. As you become more familiar with the words in this letter, you will be free to notice the things that are actually being said. You will find yourself asking questions about meaning and purpose. And even having "raised eyebrow" responses of confusion!

This is good. It may be a little frustrating, but hold on, it will get better.  In a week or two, you will start to have some of your own "aha" moments and things will come together.

Trust me. It will be S-A-W-E-E-E-E-T!

As you read Paul's letter to the church in Philippi this week, watch and listen for statements that take the form of a request or a command. Here are a couple of examples.

             "Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven ... " (Philippians 1:27)

             "Don't be intimidated in anyway by your enemies ..." (Philippians 1:28)

There are at least 20 commands in this letter.  This "imperative mood" is one of the common features of Paul's letter. (Now I know I just dropped a English grammar bomb on many of you ... I did it only to see if there were any English teachers out there reading this post!)

The Death Spiral of Wrong Assumptions about the Bible

Now let's pause for a moment and deal with our heart posture. Just writing that sentence, "there are least 20 commands in this letter" generates a reaction within me. A reaction that can quickly spiral out of control.  Here is the death spiral of false assumptions about commands in the Bible:

• Commands in the Bible have a "yelling voice" attached to them (like my mother or father on their worst days).

• God is yelling at me

• Commands in the bible automatically mean prohibitions.

• Prohibitions rob me of my freedom (like this morning ... I tried to buy beer today at 6:45 am and the law in my state does not let you buy beer until 7:00 am ... It was not a pretty response, just saying!)

• God is against my freedom. 

  

  Many think the Bible is just a book of prohibitions

• God is against me!

• Screw God!

So this death spiral can lead us to a default heart posture that the Bible looks like this sign.

Just look at that sign! Balloons, sitting and eating are prohibited. Wherever this is, I know I don't want to go there! I am guaranteed to be arrested for something.

And this default posture is not at all helped by the experience many have with Christian preachers of various stripes!

Could the Bible Actually Be Offering Direction 

to Experiencing Whole LIFE?

Now prohibition signs, like the ones above, are commands not to do something. But there are other kinds of signs that are commands that tell us to do something. These signs offer direction, understanding of the road ahead and prepare us to navigate different situations. These signs keep us alive. They help us actually be safe while we drive at 70 miles per hour and get us to our destination in one piece. If you are a driver, you see these signs all the time. 

These signs are actually "shouting commands" at us. But somehow our hearts don't hear them yelling, we hear them helping us drive safely, protect our passengers and get us HOME in one piece. 

What is your assumption about the Bible? As you read this week and look for commands, pay attention to your default heart setting towards the commands. Which set of signs reflect how you think the Bible is oriented?

Here is where I land ... the commands in the Bible are more like the road signs offering me direction. Sometimes they include prohibitions ... which in general are there to keep me from driving over a cliff (which I have done with my life a number of times!)

Oh yea ... one last thing ... the apostle Paul is not yelling because God is not yelling. The gospel of Jesus is not about yelling. Just saying ... in case you were wondering.

Just One Letter - Week 2
Keeping an Eye Out for Gold

So .... welcome to the second week of The Just One Letter Project.  It is the second week where we will read the entire letter Jesus' apostle Paul wrote to the church he had founded in the Macedonian city of Philippi.  This week, I want you to think of yourself like the person who looks for gold using a metal detector.

Yellow caps just need to be illegal!

At the outset here, I have to confess that I have a fairly jaded impression of "metal detector-ists" (not sure if that is an official job description ... but at least you heard it hear first!).

You've seen this guy. He is working the beach on a blistering hot day, sweating up a storm, swaying his metal detector back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Periodically digging up something he hopes will be gold. Most of the time, it is just lost keys, old cans, scrap iron and other stuff that would comfortably fit in the category of "trash". Just saying.

But sometimes, these "metal detector-ists" hit it big like the guy in Australia who found the gold rock that leads off this post (the word nugget just seems a little small).  A little searching and you discover that these big finds are more common than I imagined. So my respect for "Metal Detector-ists" (note the caps) has increased!

Your eyes, ears, imagination and heart is like a metal detector

So this second time through the whole letter, let you eyes, ears, imagination and heart work like a metal detector and posture your heart as one that is looking for gold. Listening for the sound that says, "there may be something there!"

And for me, one of the most valuable pieces of gold when I read a letter like this one ... are statements that directly or indirectly communicate how God interacts with us. Often, these statements are imbedded in other thoughts being communicated. So I can miss them ... like gold hidden in the sand.

Here is an example. It comes from another letter written to some of the first churches by Jesus' close friend, Peter. The words underlined are the gold.

          So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up 

          in honor. Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.

Now read that one more time and listen for your heart to make one of those metal detector sounds ... you know ... "whir -WHir - WHIR".

Just think for a minute. How valuable is a statement like "God cares for you"? What do those words do for your soul? Sit with those words just for a minute.  Say those words to a friend, your spouse, your parent or your child. Watch their heart come out of their eyes. Why? Those words are gold.

There is GOLD in that there letter 

As you read through the Philippian letter this week, look for gold like the kind Peter left in his letter.  Your eyes, ears, imagination and heart can work a bit like a metal detector. Scanning words, phrases, and ideas and learning to hear the "whir - WHir - WHIR" of your heart when it runs over those statements that tell you something directly or indirectly about how God interacts with the church ... and just maybe ... by association ... with you.

Hint = 3

So here is a hint. There are at least three places where there is gold to be found in Paul's letter to Philippians. There is some gold in chapters 1, 3 and 4. Don't give up on the last one. It's there. There may be more gold than just those three. I may have over looked some areas of the beach. If you find some, I invite you to post your discoveries!

And when you find them, read them all together - one after the next in succession. Read them alone,  as if these were the only three statements you had from this letter.

Now listen to your heart ... is it going "whir - WHir - WHIR"?  God makes our heart make that sound. He is the gold we are really looking to find.

Just One Letter - Week1
Reading Like Sherlock Holmes

I will assume this week is your first week actually reading the New Testament letter that Paul of Tarsus wrote to a small gathering of Jesus followers in the ancient Macedonian city of Philippi. And as I write, I am also assuming that you have not ever read this letter before or the Bible at all.

So starting out this week, keep in mind a few things.

• You are reading someone else's mail! ... so there will be things you do not immediately get because you don't have the background and context.

• Because you don't immediately have the context and background, it will take a few readings before some things become clear. So not "getting it" the first time puts you right in the "normal" category.   Don't let those first feelings of being a deer in the headlights" discourage you. It happens to the best of us. You will get it, trust me. 

• Read it like a detective. Looking for and and listening for clues about the situation or the issues that seem important. Often your detective work will start with questions that you cannot answer immediately (think Sherlock,  Foley's War, CSI New York or if you are old enough Columbo).

So now ... the first time reading it, try to read it through in 1-2 sittings. And as you do, don't try to be or feel like you have to be a bible scholar just yet. Just be a human; just a regular person.  

Just be a person reading someone else's mail!

This first time through, just listen to words, listen to what you get and what you don't get. What makes you guy, "huh??, what does that mean?" ... Take note of simple things like:

• Who - Who is mentioned? Who are they? What is their relationship?
• What? - What is being said about what subjects?
• When? - Is anything about time mentioned?
• Where? - Are there places mentioned? Do you know where they are?
• How? - Are instructions given to do something?

And use the back of the "The Just One Letter" version to record your questions ... these questions may or may not be answered later.  And take note of any things you feel - hope, anger, curiosity, longing, joy, frustration. And if there are any images or pictures that come to your mind, sketch those too.

Resist the temptation

If you have read this letter before (so I am talking to those of you who may be Christians and have read the Bible a little or a lot) ... resist the temptation to underline anything or highlight your favorite verses. Resist, resist resist! Just be a person reading someone else's mail. And pretend, you are reading it for the first time. And don't assume, you got this figured out because you have heard it preached, taught, discussed or dissecting (one of the worst things ever done to the Bible!)

The “Just One Letter” Project
Introduction

copyright 2013 Printery, Greensboro, NC. 

So … the Bible is not a book really … it is more like a small portable library of many stories, lectures, letters and poems written over many centuries.  Each one telling pieces of one central Story that leads to or from one central Character – Jesus.

Included in the “portable library of many stories, letters and poems” is a personal letter written from Paul, the apostle of Jesus, to a young church in the Macedonian city of Philippi.  They had been a community for about 10 years[i] when they received this letter.  A decade[ii] after some of them first heard from Paul himself about the grace, forgiveness and restoration that had come to all through Jesus.  Beyond this relational connection, Paul wrote the letter while in prison[iii], which gave it some urgency, importance and added weight.

And since Guttenberg’s printing press was still a few years off and Tim Berners-Lee’s HTML was even still more years out, this short letter may have been the only “Bible” this young church ever knew.

So … this was all they had. This was their Bible.

Just … one letter … from …

            a friend;
            the person who introduced them to God’s grace and forgiveness;

            the guy who personally encountered the resurrected and risen Jesus;[iv]

            the guy who went from Jesus persecutor to Jesus follower;[v]

            the guy who went from Christian hater to Christian community organizer;[vi]

            the guy who believed all this so much … he took beatings

            and imprisonments.[vii]

The only had this one letter.

So what would happen if this were the only “Bible” you had?

As a whole, the Bible can be a bit intimidating when you first pick one up and think to yourself, “You know, maybe I should read this thing.”  When I first started with the Bible, my longest read up till then was a Sports Illustrated article that probably ran only 8 pages. So picking up the Bible felt like I was setting out to read an encyclopedia.  At that time, I didn’t get very far since I didn’t know about the “portable library” idea!

How helpful would it have been to be encouraged just to read one of the short letters to get started? Like the one Paul wrote to this church in Philippi.  And listen with the mindset that they had when they first received it. What about you? How helpful would that be for you?

What if for next couple of months, you imagined yourself being part of that ten-year old church who had just received this letter?  And imagine further: you are the guardian of the letter for the entire community.  So you keep it with you or near you at all times (since the “cloud” isn’t here yet either). So it stays with you – on your nightstand, on your desk or in your purse (or if we must … your murse!).

It is not been placed in a large white, gilded paged book designed to look pretty in the living room either.  It is “just one letter” – personal, utilitarian and accessible.  And since you have it, you read it. You read it alone. You read it with friends. You read it with your kids. You read it with family after dinner. You read it at night. You read it in the morning. (And … even if you don’t like green eggs and ham … you can read it with a fox or you can read it in a box.)

So you do … each week.  The "Bible" that is … “just this one letter.”  Like a  project, reading the only “Bible” you have until you

• become familiar with the words and ideas; 
• hear the encouragement and love; 
• appreciate the song of humility; 
• empathize with the tension and conflict; 
• note the example of the lives portrayed;

Until you find that it magically has gotten inside you! And the “Bible” has become more accessible, more real, more human, more personal, more communal and more helpful than you imagined possible.

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[i] You can see how this community came about by reading the account by Luke in the “Acts of the Apostles” in the New Testament, chapter 16, verses 6-40.  Luke wrote a two volume account of the “Good News Of Jesus” – The Gospel of Luke (volume 1) and Acts of the Apostles (volume 2).

[ii] Scholars date Paul’s arrival in Philippi (as recorded in Acts 16:6-40) around AD 50 with the letter written around AD 60 (written at the same time as the letters he wrote to the churches in Ephesus, Colossae and the personal letter to Philemon … all found in the Bible’s New Testament).  All these dates are developed using evidence from Luke’s two volume accounts and are supported by solid archeological evidence. As one modern scholar has stated, “Luke was a first rate historian”. 

[iii] Since the early centuries, Christians have held that Paul wrote this letter while imprisoned in Rome. In recent decades, others have thought the city of Ephesus.  It is not known for certain but Rome is probably still the best assumptions for many reasons.

[iv] One of the places you can read Paul referring to that event is found in his letter to the Church in Galatia. In the New Testament, it is found in Galatians 1:11-17.

[v] Paul’s Jewish name was Saul. Luke, his future traveling companion and coworker, tells us of Saul/Paul’s past reputation and conversion beginning in Acts 8:1-3 (chapter 8, verse 1 through 3) and Acts 9:1-30. If you read that, pay attention to the first word Saul hears from the mouth of a Christian then consider what that must have felt like when he heard it!

[vi] Paul was given a two-fold mission by Jesus, “to preach the gospel to the non-Jewish world (the “Gentiles”) and to bring out the plan of the church,” the communities of Jesus followers in cities throughout the world.  You can read Paul’s own understanding of this mission first hand in the letter he wrote to Ephesians found in the New Testament found in Ephesians 2:8-10.

[vii] In a letter to a church in Corinth in about AD 56, Paul said this about his life over the first 10 years of his public ministry to the Gentiles.

Five different times the Jewish leaders gave me thirty-nine lashes. ²⁵ Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. Once I spent a whole night and a day adrift at sea. ²⁶ I have traveled on many long journeys. I have faced danger from rivers and from robbers. I have faced danger from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the Gentiles. I have faced danger in the cities, in the deserts, and on the seas. And I have faced danger from men who claim to be believers but are not. ²⁷ I have worked hard and long, enduring many sleepless nights. I have been hungry and thirsty and have often gone without food. I have shivered in the cold, without enough clothing to keep me warm.

This was before the imprisonments that he is experiencing when he writes the letter of the church in Philippi, 4-5 years later. Like the way Nelson Mandela’s life and imprisonments force me to listen and consider his words and leadership, I similarly find Paul a disruptive figure. I am intellectually forced to listen to what Paul has to say because what he says is what gets him beaten and thrown in prison. Over and over again, he does not back away or change his message. Then, to add to the disruption, he receives beatings and imprisonments not only from the Romans but also from his own ethnic group, something Mandela did not experience as much.

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