Every Sunday morning is a members meeting. The kind that guests are invited to visit.

The church gathering is that of locally committed, mutually affirming, publicly recognized believers in Jesus.

They are washed by the word. They practice the ordinances, and are led by elders and served by deacons. They are ministered to by people of various gifts that Christ has lavished his people with. They practice the one-anothers, and act in unity by one Spirit. They greet each other in the Lord. They are called out from the world to form an outpost of the kingdom.

How important! How fitting! How beautiful that we gather and govern as Jesus, our True Emperor, laid out in his holy word.

Lord, please encourage believers who are not a part of this to be convinced, to joyfully repent, and to dive in.

• Mary Magdalene separates from other women at some point. Either on the way to the tomb, or at the tomb (before the angels are encountered), or on the way to tell the disciples (before Jesus appears to the women).
• Matthew 28:2-4 is a flashback. The earth quakes and angel descends earlier in the morning, frightening the guards. By the time the women arrive, an angel is inside the tomb. It is from within that he says, “See the place where they laid him” (Mark 16:6).
• The women initially don’t tell anyone (Mark 16:8), but then decide to (Luke 24:10).
• Parts of the story are simplified or consolidated. Simplification: one angel is noted (Matthew 28:5) instead of two otherwise specified (Luke 24:4). Consolidation: the women “told these things to the apostles” (Luke 24:10). This consolidates Mary Magdalene reporting to Peter and John, and the other women reporting to the rest of the disciples.
• “The sun had risen” (Mark 16:2) could anciently mean essentially: at dawn.

See also: “A plausible harmony of the accounts and sequence of events” of the resurrection

Was Paul imprisoned in Ephesus? Did he write Prison Epistles (captivity letters) like Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon from Ephesus? Perhaps even Philippians? Or were they written from Rome?

Arguments for Rome

• “The elite ancients, and even some ordinary ancients, were far more mobile than we often give them credit for.” (Witherington)
• Onesimus could have gone from Colossae to Rome for anonymity, or Onesimus may have been sent to Rome by Philemon.
• Luke would not have overlooked an Ephesus imprisonment in Acts.
• Colossians reflects later theological development.
• Tychicus is in Ephesus; why write to the Ephesians if Paul can speak through him?
• Paul would have been willing to change/delay plans of traveling to Spain in order to tend to pressing needs of existing churches.
• “Eusebius says that Paul was brought to Rome and that with him was Aristarchus.” (Porter)
• “Some of the persons named in Philemon (and Colossians) are associated with Rome in other New Testament writings: Mark (if it is the same Mark) is associated with Rome in 1 Peter 5:13; Luke is associated with Rome in 2 Timothy 4:11 (and in Acts 28:16 if Luke is the author of Acts); Demas is associated with Rome in 2 Timothy 4:10; Aristarchus is said to have been with Paul in both Ephesus (Acts 19:29) and Rome (Acts 27:2).” (Powell)

Arguments for Ephesus

• The short distance between Colossae and Ephesus is more plausible: It is a shorter distance for Onesimus (runaway slave) to travel. This also makes better sense of Paul requesting a room from Philemon, and anticipating lodging soon.
• Prison epistles have “air of nearness and intimacy.” Journeys in prison epistles “seem to be treated in a rather casual way.”
• Paul mentions extreme adversarial conditions and previous imprisonments in 1 & 2 Corinthians, Romans; these could not have included the later imprisonments in Caesarea or Rome.
• We should not assume Colossians is of later theological development. Colossians and the Corinthian correspondence have substantial parallels.
• Ephesians is circular letter, written not just to Ephesus.
• Aristarchus was dragged before crowd in Ephesus (Acts 19); Paul describes him as fellow prisoner in his letters.
• “Of the ten companions of Paul named in these letters, four (Timothy, Aristarchus, Tychicus, Luke) seem quite certainly to have been in Ephesus with Paul, three (Epaphroditus, Epaphras, Onesimus) could have been there much easier than in Rome, The other three could have been there as easily as in Rome, while for no one of the ten is there any evidence (save inference from these letters) that he was in Rome, at least in Paul’s time.” (Bowen)

Click for more info.

Deep work definition: “Professional activities performed in a distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.”

Deep work hypothesis: “The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasing rare at the same time it is becoming valuable in or economy. As a consequence the few who cultivate this skill and then make it the core of their working life will thrive.”

Attention residue: “Every time you switch your attention from one target to another and then back again, there’s a cost. This switching creates an effect that psychologists call attention residue, which can reduce your cognitive capacity for a non-trivial amount of time before it clears.”

Persistent attention residue: “If you constantly make “quick checks” of various devices and inboxes, you essentially keep yourself in a state of persistent attention residue, which is a terrible idea if you’re someone who uses your brain to make a living.”

Four rules for cultivating deep work:

1) Work deeply. Don’t wait for lots of free time. Schedule deep work blocks and protect them.

2) Embrace boredom. Frequently expose yourself to boredom. Don’t “bathe yourself in novel stimuli at the slightest hint of boredom.”

3) Quit social media. Don’t measure social media value only by advantages. Disadvantages outweigh them.

4) Drain the shallows. Shallow work doesn’t require uninterrupted concentration. Aggressively minimize optional shallow work.

• Front cover (First glance)
• Table of contents (statement of faith)
• Author blurbs (Leadership page)
• Flip through pages (recent sermons)
• Publisher (Affiliation, network, convention, denomination, association)
• Foreward at front, recommendations on back (Influences, pastor’s “likes” on FB, resource links)
• Reading the first few chapters (visiting for a few Sundays)
• Committing (joining church body life; expressing commitment in membership)

“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there among them.” (Matthew 18:20)

Read in light of 18:15-19: Christ stands in unity with the gathered, recognized, identifiable church as it acts in agreement in receiving or removing believers from fellowship, after practicing due diligence through gradual escalation and protocol. Even if the church is three people big.

This does not mean that a church (acting properly?) can be a mere ad hoc or irregular or accidental gathering of believers, let alone one that has no regard for protocol, due diligence, measures of escalation, or awareness of membership.

As I survey the landscape of literature concerning the eternal functional subordination of the Son I see five basic views:

1. The Son never submits to the Father, even after the incarnation. Authority and submission are seen as incompatible with intimacy and love and the kingdom of God.
2. The Son submits to the Father only after the incarnation. The incarnation itself is not an act of obedience. Obedience is only creaturely.
3. The Son submits to (or at least obeys) the Father before the incarnation (e.g. in creating the world), but only economically and ad extra (with respect to creation).
4. The eternal Son submits to the Father before creation and ad intra (in the internal life of God) and this is grounded in the Son’s eternal generation from the Father.
5. The eternal Son submits to the Father before creation, but this is agnostic to or in lieu of eternal generation.

Views 3-5 agree that the incarnate Son’s willing submission (or obedience) is suitable or fitting in light of his eternal Sonship, of his “filial identity.”

Views 4-5 see the Father’s primacy of authority as a personal property and not an essential divine attribute.

---

Update (Oct 5, 2021). Matthew Barrett describes a spectrum of views:

I very much affirm and teach (1) eternal generation, (2) one divine will in the triune God, and (3) two wills in Christ incarnate (dyothelitism). However, affirming these three doesn’t automatically put me in a “camp.” So hold off your assumptions. Those who have read the Ware/Starke book (and Fred Sanders’ review of it) will recognize that just as there is diversity among those who reject eternal submission, so too is there diversity among those who affirm eternal submission in the Trinity (something carelessly overlooked by the initial responses). This means, then, that some affirm all three of the above points but still see some place for “obedience” or “submission” (some prefer different words) in the Trinity in eternity. In other words, there is a spectrum.

About this spectrum, it’s obvious by now that there are two polar opposites of the spectrum: (1) Those who reject eternal generation, one will in the Trinity, and two wills in Christ and by consequence go the route of a (soft?) social trinitarianism, and, on the other end of the spectrum, those who (2) affirm the three previous beliefs but see absolutely no place for the obedience and submission of the Son to the Father in eternity. I do not align with either polar opposite and my reasons have to do, at least in part, with the pactum salutis…

I think that those who reject any and all forms of obedience in the Godhead in eternity overreact (understandably to the social trinitarianism they see). I agree with them in their affirmation of eternal generation, one divine will in the Trinity, dyothelitism Christology; however, to go to the other extreme and say that there is absolutely no place for obedience in eternity is a problem precisely because it ignores the biblical reality of the covenant of redemption.

From Observations Concerning the Scripture Oeconomy of the Trinity, and Covenant of Redemption (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1880), 21-36. Quoted in Reformed Reader, edited by William Stacy Johnson and John H. Leith. Text taken from here. (Update: I found it here too. See also here.)

Continue reading “Jonathan Edwards on the Oeconomy of the Trinity” →

“He by whom all things were made
was made one of all things.
The Son of God by the Father without a mother
became the Son of man by a mother without a father.
The Word Who is God before all time
became flesh at the appointed time.
The maker of the sun
was made under the sun.
He Who fills the world
lay in a manger,
great in the form of God
but tiny in the form of a servant;
this was in such a way that
neither was His greatness diminished by His tininess,
nor was His tininess overcome by His greatness.”

Augustine, Sermon 187

“Nothing was so necessary for raising our hope as to show us how deeply God loved us. And what could afford us a stronger proof of this than that the Son of God should become a partner with us of human nature?”

Augustine

“Man’s maker
was made man,
that He, Ruler of the stars,
might nurse at His mother’s breast;
that the Bread
might hunger,
the Fountain
thirst,
the Light
sleep,
the Way
be tired on its journey;
that the Truth
might be accused of false witness,
the Teacher
be beaten with whips,
the Foundation
be suspended on wood;
that Strength
might grow weak;
that the Healer
might be wounded;
that Life
might die.”

– Augustine, Sermons 191.1

“Man exalted himself and fell;
God humbled himself and raised him up.
Christ’s lowliness, what is it?
od has stretched out a hand to man laid low.
We fell,
he descended;
we lay low,
he stooped.
Let us lay hold and rise,
that we fall not into punishment.
So then his stooping to us is this: ‘Born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary.’ His very nativity too as man – it is lowly and it is lofty. Whence lowly? That as man he was born of men. Whence lofty? That he was born of a virgin.”

Augustine

---

Do me a favor? If you know of any more similar Augustine quotes, please email them to me.

(Hat tip to Tadd Winter, Spencer Smith, Jonathan Brown, and Cynthia Petermann for the quotes.)

---

See also:

“What is this novel mystery?
The judge is judged and is silent;
the invisible is seen and is not confounded;
the incomprehensible is grasped and is not indignant at it;
the immeasurable is contained in a measure and makes no opposition;
the impassible suffers and does not avenge its own injury;
the immortal dies and complains not;
the celestial is buried and bears it with an equal mind.”
– Alexander of Alexandria, Epistles on the Arian Heresy, ANF, vol. 6, VI

---

“There is only one physician, who is both flesh and spirit, born and unborn, God come in flesh, true life in death, both from Mary and from God, first subject to suffering and then beyond it, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians, Chapter 7).

---

“There is therefore one and the same God, the Father of our Lord, who also promised, through the prophets, that He would send His forerunner; and His salvation—that is, His Word—He caused to be made visible to all flesh, [the Word] Himself being made incarnate, that in all things their King might become manifest.” (Irenæus, Against Heresies, 3.9.1)

In the NT the term “apostle” is used in three different ways.

First, there are the Twelve that Jesus named “apostles” (Matt 10:2–4 = Mark 3:16–19 = Luke 6:13–16; Acts 1:13). This seems to refer to the office of the apostle. Acts 1:21–22 indicates that to qualify as an apostle one must have been with the Lord in his earthly ministry and must have witnessed his resurrection body (Acts 1:21–22; 4:33; 2 Pet 1:16; 1 John 1:1). The witness of the Twelve to Christ’s resurrection is affirmed by Paul (1 Cor 15:5).

Second, there were apostles in addition to the Twelve. There were Barnabas (Acts 14:4, 14; 1 Cor 9:5–7), James, the Lord’s brother (1 Cor 15:7; Gal 1:19), and Apollos (1 Cor 4:6, 9), probably Silvanus (1 Thess 1:1; 2:6 [GT 2:7]), Titus (2 Cor 8:23), Epaphroditus (Phil 2:25), and possibly Andronicus and Junia(s) (Rom 16:7). Paul mentions James and all the apostles (1 Cor 15:7) as distinct from Peter and the Twelve (15:5). In Gal 1:18–19 Paul states that when he went up to Jerusalem he visited Peter and he did not visit other apostles except James, the Lord’s brother. Hence, Paul recognized apostles beyond the Twelve. These are most likely those who were endowed with the gift of apostleship because they did not meet the above mentioned qualifications for the office.

Third, there was Paul who was an apostle (1 Cor 9:1; 15:9) and yet had not been with Jesus in his earthly ministry but did, however, see the Lord in his resurrection body. Hence, he claimed that he was born out of due season (1 Cor 15:8). Rather than trying to include him in either of the two categories above, it is best to see Paul as an exception to the rule and make a third category. It seems that he had the office of an apostle for the following reasons: (1) he used authority as an apostle (1 Cor 4:9; 9:1, 5; 11:5; 12:11–12); (2) he performed miracles (Acts 13:8–11; 14:3; 19:11; 2 Cor 12:12) that seemed to be done by those who had the office (Acts 2:43; 5:15–16; Heb 2:4); (3) his laying on of hands brought the Holy Spirit to the believers (Acts 19:6) such as happened to Peter (Acts 8:17); and (4) his greetings in most all of his letters (see passages above) are similar to those of Peter (1 Pet 1:1; 2 Pet 1:1). It would not be likely that he would have referred to himself as an apostle in his formal greetings if he had only the gift. Thus, this third category is an exception exclusive to Paul.

Hoehner, H. W. (2002). Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary (pp. 134–135). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. Emphasis and paragraphing mine.