Status Updates From Paul: A Biography

To think of Godish coming kingdom in this 2-stage way. Knowing what time it was would be crucial for how they would’ve been live. In fact, though the question of the Lord’s “ Royal appearing” might seem to be quite unrelated to the earlier. Questions of sex and money, they are all of a piece. If you are already living in the new world, they are new ways of behaving.

Sex and money are important, but they are not to be worshiped. Sexual priority, and financial generosity, or to be built into the Christian DNA from the start.

Money was part of Christian. Discipleship from the start. Paul had agreed with the “pillars” in Jerusalem, that he would go on “ remembering the poor”; that was one of the signs of the new community that would carry forward as an identifying Mark for centuries to come.

Unbridled, crazy, and inflamed lust is a sign that one does not know God. Sexual holiness isn’t just a “rule,” in arbitrary commandment. It is part of what it means to turn from idols and serve the true and living God. It is part of being a genuine, image-bearing human being.

When the Romans closed in on Jerusalem in the last months of the war, crucifying so many Jews that they ran out of timber for crosses, Josephus records sorrowfully that more Jews were in fact killed by other Jews than by the Romans themselves.