The way some Christians try to pitch the faith, you’d almost wonder what religion they really believe in… because it looks nothing like what Christ gave us.
Do you really think that some kind of scolding list of rigid rules would produce the kind of explosive growth and determined faith of people who would rather be ripped apart by lions and gladiators than bend the knee to Caesar?
Nope. That doesn’t track at all.
The Jesus-is-my-prom-date music and lavender color scheme of so many Evangellifish churches talk a big game about your ‘best life now’… aren’t rocking the planet because they can’t. It’s because are missing the point at the center of the gospel.
They are like little children playing with mom’s costume jewelry, not realizing they are standing on a box with the real gold inside.
If you want to see the kind of REAL treasure so lavish that it flipped entire cities on their heads… the kind that caused riots in wherever the Apostle Paul visited… the kind where Idol-makers wanted Paul’s head on a plate because his message of grace had a habit of obliterating the sin business… let’s see what the man himself had to say about the real treasures that satisfied someone like him, despite all of the shipwrecks, imprisonments, and beatings he suffered for the gospel’s sake.
There’s so much packed into these verses that it will take at least two Sundays to unpack it. Here’s part one.
