Volume 3, Issue 11

April 22, 2025

I pray you had a great Easter weekend, First name / friend. This year, Easter Sunday was shared with my birthday. It has only happened a handful of times in my lifetime, but it is always extra special when it does. 

 

Also, I apologize for missing the newsletter last week. I am training my replacement at the shop, so I didn’t have the time or bandwidth to write it. Hopefully, there is enough meat in this week’s newsletter to make up for it.

While each of the psalms is self-contained, they all seem to fall into one of the following categories:

In the study notes of my ESV Study Bible, the commentators include some principles to follow for reading the Psalms:

Because you’re beginning 1 Chronicles this week, here is a blog post to help you read and understand genealogies.

Laodicea was the nearest city to Colossae (about 9 miles away).
There was a close relationship between the churches of Colossae, Laodicea, and Hierapolis. At the end of Colossians, Paul encourages them to share this letter with the church at Laodicea and to read the letter he sent to them. Unfortunately, we do not have a copy of the letter Paul wrote to the Laodicean church. Interestingly, in the book of Revelation, the church at Laodicea is a recipient of one of the seven letters. That is the church that is accused of being lukewarm rather than cold or hot.

One of the teachings that had snuck into the Colossian church included the doctrine of asceticism. I wasn't sure what this doctrine was, so I looked up the definition of the word. According to dictionary.com, an "ascetic" is "a person who renounces material comforts and leads a life of austere self-discipline, especially as an act of religious devotion; self-denial & devotion; recluse or hermit." And "asceticism" is "the doctrine that the ascetic life releases the soul from bondage to the body and permits union with the divine."

 

So an ascetic was someone who would abstain from certain things as a means to become more spiritual. This abstinence would make them feel superior to others. So, while it may appear to be spiritual, it actually promotes nothing more than confidence in self rather than in Christ.

Remember when we studied the book of Hebrews and we discussed that Jesus is better—better than everything? All of the laws and rituals set in place in the Old Testament were but a shadow of the coming covenant, the Messiah.

 

Paul reinforces this idea in Colossians 2:16-17 when he talks about some looking down on the new believers because they didn't follow all of the Jewish traditions. Those traditions were set in place to help Israel look forward to the coming Messiah, but once the Messiah came, they were no longer necessary.

 

In fact, if we continue reading the passage down to verse 23, we find that holding on to these traditions and regulations leads to legalism. It becomes the "appearance of wisdom," not true wisdom itself. We often hold others to a standard we have set up because it gives the appearance of godliness when it is actually a "self-made religion."

 

So, how do we know which "rules" we should follow and which ones are legalistic? Here is a blog post to help you answer that question:

If this is your first Faith FULL Echoes newsletter, you can access previous issues by clicking the button below. Feel free to reach out to me to let me know what topics you would like discussed in the future.

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