The Blue Church

The Last Days!  What happens next?                                     Life Lessons from Four Apostles  Do you walk with Jesus? Joy and Danger in the Last Days 2 John               Second and Third John are the two shortest books in the New Testament, but both carry powerful messages. Most likely, John’s readers had both his gospel and the follow-up letter we call “First John.” This little post card emphasizes the original message of Jesus: believe in Me, and love one another. John reminds us that our faith is both content and conduct, belief and behavior, centered in Messiah Himself. We can deny the faith either by rejecting the creed or by rebelling against the commandment. Those who would lead us away from obedience and the truth are the opposite of Jesus, i.e., “antichrists.”

The Last Days!   What happens next? Life Lessons from Four Apostles    A Well-Ordered Life Or, Providential Purposeful Productivity 2 Thessalonians 3:6-18               Paul turns to a subject only hinted at in his first letter (1 Thess. 5:14). There he says to warn the “idle,” but a better translation is “unruly,” or “undisciplined.” It wasn’t just that some had stopped working, but had done so because they assumed that “The Day of the Lord” had come (2 Thess. 2:1, 2). Time otherwise spent earning a living and helping others was wasted on idle chatter and heresy. That brings another guidance on how to deal with such troublemakers and how to live a well-ordered, God-honoring, Last Days life.