I would like to begin with a small piece of devotion before we get into the technicalities of this course, and that is the Book of Acts ends on one significant and telling word. That you wouldn't find in your English translation, but in the Greek text, the last word of the Book of Acts is unhindered, unhindered. If we read the whole verse in chapter 28 of the Book of Acts, it says this, about Paul, boldly and without hindrance, he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ. And you see here, in the English phrase, it makes more sense for that adverb without hindrance to be in the beginning of the sentence, but it is very significant that at the end of this wonderful progression of the ministry of the word that goes out, that breaks through all kinds of barriers, you have the triumphant last word unhindered. That's after Stephen's martyrdom, that is after a lot of calamity, a lot of persecution, a lot of inner struggle, a lot of seeming difficulties and oppositions, even the custody of Saul, of Paul is included here, and yet the word goes out unhindered. I believe that is not by accident, and I also believe that it's more than just a legal term. Some people have argued that this word unhindered simply means that he was not hindered while under investigation, while under legal custody. That is true, but I don't think that the whole message of the Book of Acts allows a limitation of that word to legal brief solely. Rather, it speaks of the fact that we're going to get a message from the message of the Book of Acts, and that is God's work goes on, whether you are involved or not, whether you do or don't, the starting position of God's work, and this most significant work of salvation, is not dependent and contingent upon Saul, upon Peter, upon Stephen, upon you, or me, it is going to go out. And the only question is, are you going to be part of it or not? Am I going to be part of it or not, or am I going to stay on the side and just kind of watch or see or hear? So that's the question that we are left with after reading the Book of Acts, where are you? Are you used and part of that work of God or not? But it lifts the weight in a wonderful way from our hearts, that we are not the doers and shakers. God is the one that is going to move this out in an amazing way and with amazing and overwhelming opposition. It is disheartening to see the kind of opposition that the gospel is met with in the Book of Acts, and we can second that from our own hearts, our own lives, our own dynamics, internal and external. There's all kinds of opposition, and you know as well as I do that, the majority of Christians at this very moment is being persecuted. So much hasn't changed, but praise God, one thing definitely has not changed, and that is that God is accomplishing His work. I can't understand it all, I can't explain it all, I don't even understand all my personal challenges and difficulties let alone why thousands of people in the Sudan Christians are being persecuted at this very moment. I can't explain that all, but there is a wonderful confidence that the Book of Acts conveys to us the word of God and that is God is triumphant with His purposes. So what we're doing in these evenings is really aligning our minds, our hearts, our purposes, our desires to the purposes of God with a prayer. That somehow we would be found in the midst of God's work, wherever you are, whatever denomination you're involved with, whatever relationships you have, whatever professional careers you're pursuing, that's really not that significant. The significant point is, are you involved? Are you being used? In that triumphant work of God that is definitely going to happen. I'm hindered. So I would like to begin with prayer on that note, and then we're going to get started with our course. Let us pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we thank You and praise You that in our weakness we can have the privilege of joining together for this course and this evening in particular. I pray that You would quiet our hearts, our minds, and that while we are here to learn much, we pray even more that You would soften our hearts and that You would give us a spirit led and spirit motivated devotion, dedication that would move us to witness to Your glory, to Your great work, into the fact that Your purposes are going to be lived out and fulfilled according to Your Word. I thank You for each one here, and I pray that although it is an evening hour, you would give renewed strength, renewed concentration, and that we would meet with You and delight in Your words together. Let me pray this in Jesus' name. I want you to read the course objectives yourself. I don't need to go into that. The required texts are Luke, historian, and theologian by Howard Marshall, and then Paul Apostle of the Heart Set 3. Page 2 is really what we briefly need to look at. What I am basically planning is three exams, short, relatively short exams. I'll still have to think about the exact extend of time, and the important thing is that these exams will be cumulative. That simply means those of you who are masters of short-term memory cramming from 12.30 at night till 4. Proceeding the day when we are going to have this little exercise here, you will be hard pressed because what you cram that night should be ready again two months down the road or months down the road. That's a little bit to help you to see how you can internalize things in a little more long term. That will be the basic format of exams. I still have to think how much I will put essay type questions into those exams. There will be some true false, some multiple choice, but I hope to put a little bit of essay in there just to appeal to your intellect as well as to your abilities of memorization. So I'll still think about that a little bit. So there may be a little repetition from exam 1 to 2 to 3. If I see that some things you like particularly well, I may put it back in there the next exam. Why should only I have suffered as a student? That's my pedagogical policy. I'm happy to pass that suffering along a little bit. Other than that, it's pretty straightforward. I give you a rough class content on page 2, and then the reading is just like everything else. You should have already come here having read chapters 1 through 8 of the Book of Acts today, and you obviously didn't know about that. So get into that reading rather quickly. The martial reading is not easy. It's a challenge. But I appeal again to your ability to catch the concern that martial has for the historical dimension of Luke Acts, and for the theological, the message dimension of Luke Acts, and you're getting pressed a little bit on that. Some things you will not agree with. I don't agree with either. But it will be good for you just to be challenged along those roads. Just remember that martial is a professor who has been very much exposed to critical scholarship that has said that Luke is basically useless as a historian. So that's the context he works in and argues in, and does a fine job if given that context that he is working in. You see, we will be reading through the Book of Acts and the Pauline Epistles. Again, you may use your favorite version if you want to fresh up your French. Read the scriptures in French or Spanish or whatever you would like to do that's completely up to you. I did have a student once in my great class who answered everything in Latin, and that was a challenge. He just wouldn't serve me with English at all. So all of the vocabulary tests, all the grammar tests, everything was answered in Latin, so he kept me going. Another thing I have tried to do also for the video course, but it certainly benefits you hopefully, is to give lead questions for each evening. Kind of an introductory question that leads into part or the whole of that evening. So for tonight, the lead question would be why is salvation necessary. It is very significant for me to realize that I myself, and probably some of you, and our culture, things context lists and are historical, which somehow conditioned not to think in context, and not to think in historical continuity, but to think in fragmented bits and pieces. I noticed that watching the Olympics a little bit, that each hour you watch about 17 minutes of coverage on the Olympics, and all the other stuff is advertising or other things, not related to the Olympics, 17 minutes out of an hour, and that's just somehow the culture that we are in. And so it's very significant for us to think in context and to think historically, and so I just want to press you a little bit why salvation necessary. I'm also giving summary questions that look back over that evening's class, some of the content, and challenges you to apply to your particular area of expertise, your particular area of concern of question, and also of learning. So the lead question is supposed to get you started, and the summary questions for each evening is supposed to lead you further. You see that we're spending a good bit of time in the book of Acts initially, and that may be surprising for you, because the title is Get Yourself. Life and letters of Paul, but I certainly do that quite purposefully to say if you want to understand Paul, understanding Acts is a very significant part against various tendencies of critical scholarship that would have pushed the book of Acts aside for those purposes. So this is kind of an exclamation mark statement here to look at Acts carefully, and to see, like an airport, how the letters go out in radiation type of thing, from the basic life of Paul, the basic theological concerns that exercise the early messianic church, what is happening here? We're trying to get a chronological feel for what is historically happening, but more than that, we want to understand what are the concerns that Paul brings into these letters, stemming from the beginnings of a church such as Philippi. So the correlation between the book of Acts and little bits and pieces of historical information we get in the epistles, and the message that comes out is significant, and we will certainly ask throughout this course, what does it mean to us? How is it relevant? Are those just arbitrary letters to particular situations, and who knows how they relate to us today? I hope to be able to transfer there fairly well. This letter had a basic exegetical approach, a German scholar from the turn of the century, a very esteemed scholar on my side, he said, if you study carefully, the historical and theological setting of a biblical book, the wall between you and that setting becomes thin, and the message speaks directly to you. So you don't have to do this big exercise of applying when you see that the Corinthians problems are hitting so home to our problems, or the problems that the Colossians encountered are so close to our problems, we just have to get over the hump of understanding what those problems were. What is Paul speaking about when he speaks about there being tempted about elastic tendencies, or proto-nastic tendencies in Colossae? What is that? And once you get that and see that in its context, it hits home. And so when that barrier becomes thin through historical and theological study, you suddenly see that Scripture speaks rather directly. From page 14 on there are a few additional handouts that I will refer to at various points of this class. For instance, the additional handout A on page 14 will be relevant today, I hope, if I don't get carried away too far, that would be absolutely horrible. Then a handout B pages 15 through 18 is an attempt at putting the life of Paul, the chronology of Paul, the geography of Paul's itinerary, and his letter writing on a few pages. So that's a very concentrated piece of writing. It's not only my own doing, I drew a lot from FF Bruce's work, from Howard Marshall's work, a few other commentaries, and a little bit of my thinking, so this is not just my work, there's a good bit of work that has gone before. That should help you at any point during this course, to say, where are we? What's happening with Paul, you can go back here. When we talk about a certain letter, when was that written? What was the situation? I do also go over this material at one point in the course itself, but those handouts are kind of references that you can use throughout this course just for your own orientation. Okay, let us begin and reflect a little bit on the question of the Old Testament background to Luke Acts and the Pauline epistles. I have mentioned that we have the tendency to think are historically and without context. I recently taught in a church and asked the question, why did Jesus call to discipleship? And there was this muted silence. That's the fact. Jesus called to discipleship. That's just what he did. That was his concern, make disciples. The thought that maybe that is fulfillment of a long anticipated and greatly needed concern of the Jewish people and of mankind to be called into discipleship of the living God did not enter most people's minds in that group. That's exactly my concern here, that we don't start with Luke Acts with a book of Acts or with a Pauline epistles as if that was an oracle from Delphi, something starting out of nowhere and it just happens. The book of Acts, there's this outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the church just talks about the message of Jesus Christ and it's just wonderful and we've got to be involved in that. Without asking why was that necessary, what precipitated this momentous development, what was behind it? And so really the biblical worldview and mindset is what we need to briefly characterize first before we ask the particulars of what does the book of Acts, what is the life and writing of the Apostle Paul really accomplish. And I would say there are three basic elements to a biblical worldview and that is to understand life in terms of creation, in terms of fall and in terms of redemption. It is amazing if you go through the little exercise of thinking about anything in life, in terms of creation, fall and redemption. Now that answers pressing questions that otherwise are not answered and I can't get into that, it would be wonderful for us to have a little excursus on Blaz Pasca. And his understanding that there's something glorious about man and creation, there's something miserable about man and creation and there is a hope to get back from the misery to glory. Fantastic thoughts never systematized, documented in Pasca's Paul says where he speaks about la gloie, la gloie, the glory of what we have surrounding us and then he speaks about La Miserie, the misery of what we see when we look at a human heart, at the fragility of a human heart, at the corruption of a human heart. And all of that comes out of that and then the possibility and the hope that there would be some kind of a solution to the dilemma of seeing the glory and the misery coexist so horribly throughout the ages in terms of the salvation in Christ. So it's a philosophical, it's a world historical, it is a global question of understanding reality and scripture gives this wonderful three step answer. There is a good perfect immaculate impeccable creation of God and there is a fall, there is a fracture, there is a great rift, a great breaking up. Looking up of that order when man exalts himself and reads himself of the accountability to create a God and establishes either himself or objects to be his God and then to see how that hopeless state of man walking in the moors of his own mud, that there is a way of being saved out of that. Self by self effort because the fraction, the break has been so radical, so deep that we cannot get ourselves out of that, pull ourselves out, bow in hair, but there is a way of salvation out. So every item in this life has character traits of glory is stained and marked by this dissociation from its original purpose to give glory to God in some way or other and then to be free to come back to its original state. If you look at economic structures, if you look at science, if you look at psychology, you name it and you run it through this grid of creation, fall in redemption, amazing how not that you have answers for everything, that would be quite wrong, that you have an approach to the deep problems of human existence that gives some hope, that does justice to the facts, doesn't deny the glory nor does it deny the misery that was one of Pascal's great points. You give me a philosophy that does justice to both of those elements, don't become an idealist and say there is no evil, don't become an existentialist who is completely depressed about life because there is no glory, glory is only an illusion, figment of your imagination, you see a lot of philosophy, a lot of worldviews that fall into one of those extremes does justice to its part but not the whole. So this is a wonderful, biblical, worldview understanding and in that total context, into that context of the glory of creation, the misery of the fall comes, the message of salvation, the incarnation of Christ, the only one who understands the purposes of God and can communicate them, translate them into our human existence by living with us, by exemplary life, by wise teaching and by calling to salvation through giving his life for on behalf of the people who follow. So that is really the larger overview reason why salvation in the book of Acts is so significant and so important. Now God in his wisdom has established a symbol, a sign of salvation through choosing the people of Israel. There is a line of salvation that we can see by the calling of Abraham and by establishing an eternal document, an eternal fixed fact, namely you look at Israel and you see not a wonderful people, not a people that is great, not a people that merits great praise. No, you see reflected in that stubborn people the grace, the mercy, the faithfulness, the majesty, the greatness of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. You find God. You find the salvation of God. You find he who leads his people out of the dilemma of the misery and the glory, attention that our human existence finds itself without God. And so as we look at Israel, then we look at God's intervention in history on behalf of mankind as a document of salvation. And then within that there are prophetic utterances that speak of the coming final combination of God's salvation of his people. So the Exodus from Egypt anticipates in a type anticipates a final salvation that goes much deeper than simply, and I should say quote unquote, simply being saved from slavery. It's a major, major event, but that salvation, that liberation even is supposed to go deeper than that. And so we have Old Testament predictions that speak about a coming ruler who rules eternally. Second Samuel 7 is one of the big messianic, second Samuel, the big messianic anticipations where the rule of David is not only going into the rule of his son, but there are references that break that context of limiting that to a few successors on the throne of David to an eternal kingdom, an eternal rule of some sort. And from that time on, that people with which God documents his salvation plan, awaits that ultimate involvement of God with man in such an intimate and deep sense that history has not seen prior to that. Psalm 2 is another reference to the anticipation in the Old Testament of a messianic ruler, a ruler of God, and I had the privilege of being in a Sunday school just the last weeks, and we found out that there's a wonderful entry and exit to kings in the history of God. God is the master and the ruler of mankind before the fall, and then he calls for himself a people and then pretty soon they say, we'd like to be like the other people, they have kings, so let's have some kings. And so God in his mercy gives the people of Israel a king and a second king and a third king, but really the heart of God is to be reestablished as the only and the real king of his people. And that's the wonderful mystery that you have in the gospels that there's some inconspicuous prophet. This is let me tell you about the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God is like this and like that and like this, let me give you some examples. That's how the kingdom of God is. And only slowly does it dawn on the hears that the speaker of the kingdom of God is the king. And he says something really surprising, guess how I'm inaugurating that kingdom, it doesn't never say it explicitly. I'm going to give my life on behalf of the people. I'm going to begin my rule by dying. So it's amazing how that all unfolds, the salvation history, the rule of God. But we see that already in 2 Samuel 7 and Psalm 2 and in other passages there's this anticipation of salvation. And so when we come to Luke 2, 28, it is not as sudden what we find here in Luke and I want to read that passage briefly. Just to give you a connection to the Old Testament and its anticipation of salvation. Here, Simion says these very well-known and familiar words to you. Simion took him who, Jesus, in his arms, the baby Jesus, and praised God saying, and now listen to this wise old prophet who echoes centuries of expectation and yearning in hope, he says, and praise. Sovereign, Lord, as you have promised, now you dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel. This is pregnant with an anticipation of God's final visitation. And that's really the feel you need to get before you start the first word in the book of Acts, a sense of yearning and an existential sense of yearning for the presence and the visitation of God of His people. That's what really sparks then this wonderful movement of the gospel going out in such an amazing way. That's why it succeeds because God is behind it and one's God gets a ball rolling. You better watch out. And that's what's happening here. There's a long centuries long of waiting and anticipation. Now, how did the Jews anticipate God's intervention? Some of you were in my class of New Testament history and I spend a good bit of time there in New Testament history to describe some of the anticipation of God's intervention. It's not uniform. There's not just one way Jewish people were thinking about how God would finally visit His people. There were the apocalyptic and apocalyptic expectation. The apocalyptic expectation is you need to wait till God does it all. You can't do anything. It will be God's involvement and when he does it's going to be the end of the world. Nothing is going to continue. God is going to come and wrap this thing up and there will be a new heaven and a new earth like this. There were others whom I would call nomistic. They would say the way we anticipate the visitation of God is by self purification. God will not visit us unless we are pure. God will not visit us unless we keep His commandments. The Pharisees would be one group of those. But see, there were some groups in 1st century Palestine who said the Pharisees were way too lax. They went out in monasteries, the Essenes, in small groups and the Kumran community is most likely one of those is seen groups that said the only way God will visit us is if we are much more radical than the average Jew and Jerusalem. The temple has been desecrated. There are opportunists there. The hierarchy of the spiritual leadership in our country has become corrupt. We must separate ourselves from our people. We must pray. We must dedicate ourselves to keeping the laws. We must make very strict rules of who is allowed and able to come to our community. As we purify ourselves, we will be astonishing enough the preparer of the way of the Lord. Kumran quoted for itself Isaiah 40 verse 3 which John the Baptist also used for his own ministry. For a time there are two competitors. John the Baptist as the preparer of the way of the Lord. We are also preparing the way of the Lord. Now you know the rest of the story. You know which one of those prepared the way of the Lord. The 3rd group would be the zealots general group in Palestine and they said God has given us muscles. God has given us arms. God has given us intellect. Why would he not use that to usher in his rule? We must be active. We must do something. Not sit on our hands like the apocalyptic or just keep the law like the Pharisees. We gotta do something. And so you have some zealotic groups and factions that even have contact with Jesus at some points and Jesus is very clear. Are we here to fight? Are we here to take our arms? What battle are we fighting here? And so Jesus is very clear to associate himself from this militant activist group the zealots. Really the way the kingdom comes, the way the salvation comes is neither of these three. John the Baptist had at most right as the prophet of God who said repent turn around. Get yourself ready somebody is coming after me who will baptize you with spirit. Now there were some things that John the Baptist said that could be understood in an omistic sense. Do works of righteousness. Do not any more conduct yourself in ungodly way. Yes because John the Baptist preached just like the gospel. Grace produces good works. There is some outcome of God's goodness. But really he was pointing towards the Savior and that was his great merit. That was his wonderful prophetic deed over against the kumran which did not point towards the coming of the slide. That is really what makes John the Baptist the great prophet because he said there is somebody coming. There is someone coming and when he is here you will be baptized with the spirit. So we have come very close, this white funnel, creation fallen redemption, the people of Israel that has been chosen by God as an example. Their expectation and now the specific anticipation of the Jews at the time of Jesus and then John the Baptist as the final point of this salvation historical line that I briefly sketched for you pointing towards the Messiah, pointing towards a Savior. And then as Jesus comes we see that Jesus is the king of hearts. Now some of you card game players, I don't mean that, king of hearts. He is the king over hearts. He has an analysis of the societal and human dilemma that cuts right to the quick of the human heart. He will not be stuck in systems, in programs, in organizations, he will move right to the real root of the evil. And it is interesting that I have heard and I have not verified that of a Nobel Prize winner. I think from India who did an associological analysis of poverty and something was in his analysis that said if you simply change an external system, you will not help these people. Something in their own mentality has to change. Some of you are nodding you no more than I do. I was fascinated just to hear about it briefly because that's really what Jesus is saying. He is not disinterested in the social injustice. He is not disinterested in problems that economically burden large societies know. But he knows that glory and the misery, questions and challenges are only addressed when they are really coming to the heart of the matter. And once there is liberty and overcoming of the powers of sin, the powers of self-centeredness, once that is broken loose, there is real hope. There is real hope for situations to work well. So now we briefly move to the Book of Acts and then I will be finished with this introductory lecture, namely Acts and the Pauline Epistle. That's kind of the final stage and I should really spend much more time on the ministry of Jesus as the one who speaks about the rule of God and turns out to be its ruler. It's God-appointed ruler. The Book of Acts shows that the message of Jesus takes, the message of Jesus takes. It's part of the Gospel. Don't think that the Gospel ends with chapter 24 of Luke. The Gospel ends with chapter 28 of Acts. If you ask me, what's the Gospel? I will tell you it is the message of the rule of God. Jesus is its ruler and it hits home to your heart. That's the Gospel. You have to have that it hits home to your heart as part of the Gospel. I come from a German tradition and I have even after I became a Christian held for many years that if you understand something you have it, it's part of your life if you understand it. If you grasp the message of Jesus and what he is teaching about, if you know that it's true, you finish the task. Now there are some people who hold that if it works, you have it. If your life somehow works out okay, you have it. The Gospel speaks about both. Know the truth. Know why you believe but it works. It hits home. It needs to be lived out. It needs to be drawn out. So I think those who would be pragmatists without asking for a theoretical undergirding are in great danger because they will just go for something that works and there are lots of things that work and they're not true. But those like myself who would only think that if I understand it and know it to be true, then I have it fall off in the horse on the wrong side as well, namely there's something to the Gospel that needs to impact the heart. Then the Gospel is fully preached. And so the Gospel message then God's ways says understand and live. Both. Don't just live. Don't just understand. Hold those two. Think and live. And that's a powerful message of Luke Acts that says the way I bring salvation paraphrasing is to the whole person and I have created thoughtful people. I've created people with rational abilities and I have created people who need to live and act out and follow through with convictions that I build into their hearts. That's Luke Acts. That's the salvation that is being brought. That's briefly look at Paul and then conclude this. I believe Colossians 3.17 is a very eloquent summary of all of what Paul is really concerned about. Now obviously it's much more complex than this. But it's a fascinating summary in Colossians 3.16, 3.17 of what Paul is really concerned about as he preaches the Gospel of Christ and this is it. He says in whatever you do whether in word or deed do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to God the Father through him. And in the name of Jesus does not mean that you add to your prayers or your deeds. I do this in the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus means for his sake, for the sake of that person. I am being faithful at the sync out of faithfulness to my Lord. I am being faithful in a tense difficult situation and I'm not going to move out of it out of faithfulness to my Lord. I live and think connected to my Lord. That's how I operate. That's how I manage my life. And obviously if you are at all anything like myself you will find yourself failing in this over and over again because the misery of the fall is still operating in your bones and in your disposition. And our natural disposition is at every turn to deny God. Deny God in our thinking, deny God in our plans, deny God in our wishes, deny God in our circumstances and situations. That's the one thing. And the purpose that Paul has for writing the letters is to pick up the Corinthians where they are, the Galatians where they are, the Colossians where they are, the Philippians where they are and lead them to understanding what it means from their point of departure to think Christ the centric, God's center. That's a big job. And he understands very well where the individuals are. And that's what we're trying to do this semester, understand what are the Philippians all about, what are the Colossians all about, what are their problems and then hopefully to see, uh huh, it's amazing. His home. Similar to where I am in my church situation, where I'm in my life, what I have experienced in the past, whom I can help. Maybe I believe this is the purpose of the epistles of showing how the relevancy of the supremacy of Christ hits every area of life. And probably the epistles don't cover all the basis that they cover. I'm an amazing array and a very colorful palette or a group in selection of situations and circumstances that we find ourselves in in our churches and our personal lives. So that in a very brief arch is the answer to the question of why salvation and what is the Old Testament or biblical context for acts and for the Pauline epistles. That's what I mean by not thinking contextless but to perceive things in context and in literary context, obviously, but here in biblical historical context to see those lines and how the wheels of God work. And if you see that, you must take great hope in the fact that this will wheel, this direction, this vector that God has established in history, will not stop at this point just because we are going to have some economic troubles or we have some traumatic situations in our family or church situation or you name it, it's not going to stop that vector. It's been anticipated so long. It is related to creation the following was surely hit home and reach its final goal unhindered. There's no way you can turn it any other way. However, the mercy of God is so great that he still consoles us in our particular challenges. So I'm not playing these great vectors of God against the individual traumatic and difficult situations that we find ourselves. But I think before we encounter some of our major problems in life, it is good to see those vectors and to see how God has drawn lines over his charts and they are sure they are they are self directed missiles and they hit home perfectly. It's good to know that before we get troubled and absorbed in the contingencies of our lives that sometimes bring us to the brink of of what's life when we say in germ of just giving up hope nearly. So I think it's good that we spend this time reflecting on the Council of God and reminding ourselves of that Council of God so that we may be able to stand in times of trial and tribulation where we get focused. When you have a sickness you have one wish. When you get sick you have one wish. If you're healthy you've got a thousand wishes and you get to strike when you're sick you have one wish. So trauma and difficulty focuses you on the problem and you may lose sight of the purposes of God and so it is very good for us to train ourselves, encourage each other, teach each other to know what God is about in this bigger picture. Before we then seek to align our own lives particular lives to the purposes of God.