We all start with innocent notions of love that our world can quickly shatter; turns out relationships are more complicated than a nursery rhyme! In the First Comes Love series we’re going to examine the biblical understanding of love by focusing on topics like friendship, singleness, loneliness, marriage, sex and family. In this reading plan, we will spend time in stories and teachings that will deepen our own understanding of the Bible’s instruction in these areas.  Read More

Highlight This week we’ve been reading Paul’s writings to the churches in Ephesus and Crete with instructions on how we should love one another the way Jesus has loved us. On our final day of this week, we are shifting our focus to a letter from Peter. Peter was a disciple of Jesus who was commissioned by Jesus himself to lead the first church (Matthew 16:16-20). Eventually Peter’s ministry expands, and 1 Peter is a letter commissioned by Peter from Rome to be circulated among the churches in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). The believers in Asia Minor were not Jewish, but they were suffering similar persecution at the hands of the Roman Empire in their region.  Read More

Highlight Titus is a Greek follower of Jesus that became a student and co-worker of Paul’s on his missionary travels. In this letter, Paul is writing to Titus who he has sent to work with a network of house churches in Crete, an island off the coast of Greece. Crete is home to a large port which Paul chooses strategically because there are so many people from around the known world who pass through and can be impacted by the Gospel and hopefully take it back to their places of origin. However, Crete’s unique, diverse and transient society also makes for some challenges in the church.  Read More

In chapter 6 Paul expands his encouragement to use our everyday relationships as a platform from which to display the love of Christ and the truth of the Gospel. After beginning with the example of how husbands and wives can love one another in such a way that it will point others to Christ, he adds opportunities in the relationships between parents & children and slave & master. Paul quotes from the Old Testament reminding the Ephesians of God’s instruction to honor their parents, but adds to this the expectation that parents love their children by teaching them how to follow and love the Lord. Here again, he is reflecting this picture of the Gospel where Jesus, who has all authority and power, chooses to love us with humility and self-sacrifice.  Read More

Highlight Now that Paul has given a broad picture of what it means to live as people of love by shining light on the love of Jesus, he begins to unpack examples of how this is lived out in our everyday relationships. These are commonly referred to as the ‘Household Codes’, and we’ll see these reappear as a teaching reiterated to other New Testament churches in our readings this week. Paul is helping the believers in Ephesus make their faith practical by explaining how loving and following Jesus should transform the way we love others.  Read More

Highlight The Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the church in Ephesus from prison. You can hear from the beginning of his letter the affection he has for the believers there. He planted this church on his second missionary journey (Acts 18:19) and over the course of his ministry spent years teaching and growing the Ephesian church. He spends the first part of the book writing beautifully about the love of God displayed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus which makes possible a new Kingdom family. Ephesus is a unique testing ground for this radical shift to include Gentiles (non-Jews) in the family of God. It was once considered the most important trading center in the Mediterranean region, a bustling port city and center of trade as well as of Greco-Roman worship to false gods and idols from all over the region. You can still visit the well-preserved ruins of the ancient city of Ephesus today in modern-day Turkey.  Read More