In Ephesians chapter 3, Paul speaks of a mystery hidden for generations, but which is now fully disclosed in Jesus Christ. This mystery, he says, is that Gentiles are now fellow heirs with the Jews of the all promises made throughout the Old Testament. On this program, the hosts will read and interact with many of those prophecies, such as the one we find in Isaiah 49:6 where God says of his coming messiah, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob… I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
SHOW QUOTE
“The language that we see in the New Testament concerns a ‘deposit’ of the faith, the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. Paul talking to Timothy exhorts him to guard the deposit that he had received. The faith had been handed down to the apostles by Christ and they were planting churches, ordaining elders. These men were going to guard the faith that had been given to them and passed on, not to add to it, but guard it.
“You also see that in the church fathers, this idea of the rule of faith that the church is supposed to hold on to and guard. It’s relevant for us today. The job of ministers and pastors in our present day isn’t to create new foundations or lay something other than Christ. It’s to go back to the ancient deposit of faith that was once for all delivered to the saints and to placard Christ before our people.”
Adriel Sanchez
TERM TO LEARN
“What to Preach”
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil your ministry (2 Tim. 4:1–5).
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men (1 Cor. 1:20–25).
For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. But the righteousness based on faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) “or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.… How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ (Rom. 10: 5–9, 15–17).
But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh (1 Cor. 3:1–3a).
About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil (Heb. 5:11–14).
(English Standard Version)
