All right, well, let me pray and then we will start to catch up and get started. So, Father, thank you for our time this morning to look to you and look to your word. Just that we have a desire to know you and a conviction that when you have spoken that it matters. Every word is inspired. And so we just pray that we'd honor you as we strive to be faithful workmen approved as we desire to accurately divide your word. We ask this in your son's name. Amen. Last time, I believe, my memory is a little bit vague, so people, if they do watch the video, they're gonna go, maybe they'll see a little bit of lag for us, a little repeat, but since we missed a week, thinking on background information, we're still working through, on the big picture, we're still working through observation. So we've not moved to interpretation. We've not moved to implication or significance. We're all sitting in the meaning by first looking at observation and by looking at background information. And so some of this is skill. Some of this is trying to, I think once you do it a few times, you're gonna be encouraged that if you keep looking, you're gonna find things. And not things that are, hyper-spiritual in the sense of no one has ever seen these things, but you're going to make discoveries for yourself. And that is the best way to learn, because that's just the way God has made us. And so we're looking for the background information. And what we're looking for, ultimately, is to answer these questions. The headset was uncomfortable anyways. Oh, thwarted by a fake pocket. Try that. Is that good? Is it picking it up? All right. All right, new toys. So looking at background information, we're trying to answer this question. The author wrote to a particular audience for a reason with a specific purpose, which hopefully as you guys looked at Jude a little bit, you'll see those things are all related and that's the point, but there's distinctions that are helpfully made that we've walked through on author and audience, but particularly when you get to the reason the purpose and the central theme, you're going to find a lot of relationship is probably the way I would put it. And so when we get to Jude here, you're going to kind of go, well, is that the purpose? I'm guessing. Someone's going to ask, is that the purpose statement or is that the central theme? And we'll talk through that. Just a reminder of how to discover the background information. We want to read the book, read the whole book, intentionally look for information as you read the whole book. That's what we're talking about. And we began this discussion with looking at the two kinds of central themes. The major topics in the book, that there are some that are explicit, some that are implicit. We didn't talk about Revelation. Someone did ask me. We're going to talk this morning. We're going to go back to try to help people hopefully understand. I thought, especially if a guest is visiting, and you jump into Revelation chapter 9, and you're going, man, why? This is just dark. We already saw a quarter of the earth killed by the end of chapter nine, another third, so half of the world's been killed. It's just a really dark, if you think about it, it's just a really dark passage, and it's like, well, why? Well, if you go back to Revelation chapter one, verse seven, which I think is the explicit theme of the book, behold, he is coming with clouds. Every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over him. Yes, amen. And so it is, broadly speaking, Jesus is returning, but more specific than that, Revelation is repeating this idea of Jesus is returning in judgment. So, the fact that you start to feel like, wow, chapter six was judgment, chapter seven was judgment, chapter eight was, I guess seven wasn't really judgment, because you had the sealing of the 104, chapter eight's judgment, chapter nine, and we're going to still see that throughout the whole book, but when you understand, oh, because every part of Revelation relates to the central theme, the central subject, it's not talking about salvation specifically is talking about the return of Christ and judgment and the taking back of the earth. So then it should help set our expectations that if it's a dark passage, it's because that's what you would expect based on what the theme is. So an explicit theme is when an author states the subject directly. Implicit is when the theme is left unstated. The tricky part with implicit, especially when you get in a narrative, is you have to look for how all these pieces go together. So we looked at a few of these, we're going to flip down to, we finished Acts, which Acts almost felt, I don't know if you guys feel this way, I mean it almost feels to me like Acts is explicit in one way, but you also realize as you read through chapter one, he doesn't explicitly say this is what I'm writing about, but then you start to look at the whole book as we said the different parts and you go, this makes sense that he's describing this growth of the church from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria to the ends of the earth. All right, so flipping over to Philippians and trying to understand how do we find this theme, which I would call this an implicit theme, and so you're looking at the whole book. So you're gonna approach the book, you gotta do the work, and you gotta figure out who's the author, Paul, who's the audience, the church at Philippi, and then you've gotta start thinking through what's the purpose of the book, what's the, the reason for the writing or the occasion of the book. So we get into Philippians. We talked a little bit a number of weeks ago about the nature of the purpose of the letter being a thank you gift. And so that's really helpful because you're going to go, well, six chapters of Philippians and, or four chapters of Philippians, you're not going to see every chapter, every section of Philippians be about thank you for this letter, or thank you for this gift. And so you go, well, this is a thank you letter. I do think that is kind of, what's the occasion? I want to say thank you. What's the purpose? I want to say thank you. But that's not the central theme. because you have chapters, like chapter two, and you go, well, what does this have to do with saying thank you? Nothing, right? And so that's not the central theme. That is the purpose. And this is just part of what every good missionary is going to do. Every good missionary is going to come and say, thank you for partnering in gospel ministry. Your gifts allowed me to do ministry this past year. In essence, this year, I haven't always in the past, but, you know, I wrote the little note on, and sent a little thing to Monty, who then sent out the giving receipts for church, giving statements, and it's just his way of saying, biblically, thank you, because we can't operate without your partnership and your gift, and that's the context here in Philippians. So, what we're looking for then, if the purpose is that, then what is the central theme, what is the main subject of Philippians that he is going back to in every chapter, pointing back to? If you think of Philippians, you start to see particularly the kenosis passage in chapter 2, how Christ becomes man out of humanity. Those are big topics, but I think we're going to see specific theme that is going to get pulled out. So Philippians chapter 1 verse 1, Paul and Timothy slaves of Christ Jesus to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi with the overseers and deacons. And so we're going to talk about this in a moment when we talk about the kind of tips for finding these central themes. And a lot of times based on the authorship or the audience or the blessing that comes after are going to give some hints. And I think there's even a hint here with the overseers and the deacons, that he's highlighting the leadership of the church, because obviously the leadership took probably the lead on raising that money for Paul. And so he's saying to them, grace to you, peace from God our Father, Lord Jesus Christ, I thank my God and all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, because of your fellowship, or ESV translate, partnership, in the gospel from the first day until now. For I am confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. Yeah, just looking at those first six verses. If you read a lot of commentaries on Philippians, a huge topic in there as well is joy. Because if you start looking, when we talk about repetition in a moment, one of the words repeated is joy. It's right there in the beginning verses. I thank you. I'm always offering prayer with joy in every prayer for you all. But you start, in my mind, seeing a joy doesn't fit every single section in Philippians, and so you almost start in these implicit, you have to kind of test. And so, in this case, I'm going and I see this idea of fellowship mentioned here, and that's the one that you're going to start testing. And it seems every chapter starts to look back at this idea of fellowship in the gospel. Partnership in the gospel of which makes sense because he's thanking you for the gift specifically, but he also wants to write to you about how the church as a whole is partnering with, really, with Christ because he's the one sending the church. to be His people in the world. And so, fellowship with the gospel. If you go to Philippians 4 to kind of play it out, you see the same terminology. Nevertheless, you have done well to fellowship with me in my affliction, which is where He's specifically thanking them for the gift. And you also You yourselves also know, Philippians, that at the first preaching of the gospel after I left Macedonia, no church fellowships, so again, he says, you know that no church partnered with me in the matter of giving, receiving, but you alone. For even in Thessalonica, you sent a gift more than once for my needs. Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you. Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of mutilation, for we are the circumcision who worship in the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus, but have no confidence in the flesh. So if you're starting to think, okay, I have this idea that I've not just made up, but I'm drawing from the text of fellowship or partnership in the gospel. And then even in chapter three, you start going, what does this have to do, just as a good example, what does this have to do with partnership? I'll open this question if anyone has any quick thoughts on, you're studying going, well, because if this doesn't have anything to do with partnership, then I would go, it fails the test. And this can't be the central theme of the book. So in some way this, which I picked it because it's a harder one. Is that water or coffee? Don't judge me. Anybody, take a wild shot in the dark. How would you connect these three verses with partnership in the gospel? I think exactly. So he actually has a, in chapter three, and we're not working through everything together, actually we're breezing through, but You see that topic of joy, which is there, yes, but he wants to write the same things, he wants to safeguard them, but what he has to do is he's talking about false teachers, and you don't partner with them. Them you avoid, and beware of evil workers, beware of mutilation, which he's talking about the circumcision party, and we partners because we're unified. We are, which is an interesting way of him phrasing it, the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh, which is to say we are God's people and it's in Christ, which Galatians is gonna have more to say about. So in that way I'd go, does partnership in the gospel relate to this? And I If the answer is yes, then you can kind of move forward and go okay, I think that passes my test for what I would say sometimes you get into sections where it doesn't seem as connected. And then you get into chapter four where you have a positive So treat chapter three, avoid these ones and these ones because of unity that's in Christ and the partnership that we share in the gospel. Urge Eotikei, urge Synechei to think the same way in the Lord. Once you get into chapter two, you go, that's a huge part of how do you partner together? Well, you have to have the same Christ, the same truth, the same gospel. Indeed, I ask you also, genuine companion, help those women who have contended together alongside in the gospel, me in the gospel, with also Clement, the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life. And there's a unity element, and I would say this has a topic of unity that relates to a broader theme of partnership. And you can't partner with those who you aren't unified with. And his point is, Yodaki and Sineki may disagree, but you need to remind them and urge them to get along because they agree in the gospel. They both are believers. They both have their names written in the book of life. So you've got to get the gospel right first, unity and truth. Fight the very much, you've got to fight the right right fight. So, now we're at our homework. Central theme, so for those who did it, this is a lot easier. For next week, I want you to read Judges. It's a little more work. We're slowly getting into it. So, if you read it all, you get a gold star. Particularly, you're going to look for repetition in Judges. This was the easy one. central theme of Jude in the sense that it's only five verses. So author, I don't know if anyone did much study on this as far as author, but just the text, he names himself Jude One of the questions that pops up here is brother of James, which James? And everyone seems to be in agreement that it's the brother, the half-brother of Jesus. And so the James that was ruling in Jerusalem, not the James that's beheaded, James and John. Audience, pretty broad. but those who are called, which is also, when we talk here in a moment about introduction and what to look for, that's a different phrase than what's typical of, say, Paul or Peter. and usually when you see that, it's gonna have some relation to the central theme. So he's calling them the called, and calling, called out, kept is gonna be a huge word for Jude. Right, I would, yeah. And then you go as far as the text explains it. So sometimes you're left with, a general answer, the called. And sometimes you get more help historically if you do a little more with who this Jude is. Now you could find out, because that's what everyone else argues for Jude being the brother of Christ here, by rereading the Gospels. I mean, it's all there. It's in the text. There's reasons why everyone believes that are biblical, but most of us haven't done that kind of study. So if you cheat and look at a study Bible, it's OK. But understand, they're not just guessing. They're actually looking at all the Jews in the Bible and who this is most likely. Occasion. Anybody? What prompted the writing? I thought you told me five and six were the central theme. I thought you're the one who told me five and six. I'm just kidding. The angels who left their proper place. No, that's a joke. Anyone else go with four? Right. And so you could broadly say false teachers. And this is where I like, as a student of the scriptures, as a teacher of the scriptures, I like to think of sharpening the knife. And so I think that you can make the knife sharper. And you guys have all heard good sermons this way, where you've heard the general topic probably discussed, but someone did a really good job of explaining it, a really good job of drawing things out maybe you hadn't seen before. And that knife gets sharpened a little bit. And then when eventually it goes in, it's like, ooh, that was brutal. And there's a way that you could do that. I think the sharpening comes from, not just false teachers, because obviously that's the subject of, say, 2 Peter as well. Even 1 Timothy has a big part of its occasion is, yes, I can't visit you as part of the occasion, but another part of it is chapter 1 where people are misusing the law. So you could say false teachers generally, and this is where I like to use the text, you get a little more specific, ungodly persons, And then particularly, who are turning the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. So, these are very specific false teachers. And that's going to help you understand why his cure is what it is, why his illustrations are what they are. This is going to come up today in Revelation chapter 9. His illustration of 5, 6, and 7 with the angels and with Sodom and Gomorrah He appeals, just like I would in a sermon. He appeals to the Old Testament for authority and says, in essence, just so you know, I want to remind you that God saved his people. You go, let's just look at verse 5. having want to save people out of the land of Egypt, which is again an appeal to the Old Testament, appeal to Exodus, subsequently destroyed those who do not believe. And what she's saying is both are true that you have absolute confidence that the Lord is going to deliver you, which is pretty huge in Jude. Everyone loves the end of Jude. But also that he's going to judge the wicked. And he gives two illustrations of that where in Noah's day, he saves Noah and his people, but the angels who left their proper place are judged, and Sodom and Gomorrah, they are judged, particularly for, think of the sins too. I'd say both sins, if you were to talk way more about this on Sunday than we probably need to. If you go to Genesis 6, and you understand the sons of God as angels, you understand their sin as a sexual sin, immorality, then he also is picking two Old Testament examples of sexual immorality, and then you go back to chapter 4 or verse 4. And who are these false teachers? Well, they're teaching particularly turning God's grace into sensuality, so some kind of sexual perversion. So then you go, oh, this can make complete sense. Why, out of all the Old Testament, he pulls out these two stories, because they're related, and he says, both God saved Noah, God saved Lot, and God judged those angels, and God judged the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and destroyed them. So even that, like right there, you could start working through and seeing why it's important to identify. And it's just a process. And I think a helpful process that I work through to get there and to see why these things are where they are. And then it kind of opens up the text. So then with that, so occasion, purpose. How about purpose? So I would say, yeah, I think one, three. And I would probably, I would put the central theme in this explicit way in there as well. But it's, this is where it's a helpful discussion of looking at the way you word them matters, but also they're completely related. So on the purpose side, I wanted to do this. So he's saying, I wanted the purpose of this book to encourage you, wanting every effort to write to you about our common salvation, But I couldn't. So rather, it was necessary to write you an exhortation that you contend earnestly for the faith, which was once for all handed down to the saints. And so, I had to write an exhortation, not this encouraging letter that I really, really wanted to write to you. So, with that said, how did you guys, how did you word this central theme? Anyone who's brave. So contend for the truth. which you could maybe say is the negative side, but I would probably, again, I think contend for faith is good, and one of the ways then you go, okay, is that true? Is you have to start looking at every one of these things, and are they written in relation to contending for your faith? And in such a short letter, it's pretty easy to go and look and say, even these illustrations, why contend for the faith? Well, because God will judge. Why contend for the faith? because He will keep you, He will save you. Even verse 1, to those who are called beloved in God and the Father, kept for Christ Jesus. That's a unique greeting. Why does He say that? Because He wants to start with kept, and then what does He say at the very end? I'm going to keep you. So, you can fight the good fight, contend for the faith, even in the midst of all these false teachers, because you can trust that the Lord's going to keep you. So it's related in those ways. So contend for the faith is what I would put. Right. Generally speaking, with the caveat, you will learn that the chapter breaks were man-made and they're not always right. Particularly in the Gospels, I feel like this three verses goes with the previous section. I generally would say that the technical term is pericope. That just means a section of scripture where there's a contained level of truth. We would typically do it in English with paragraphs. But then we also understand you can write, well there's RD. Do you have to do much writing? Is your dissertation all experimentation? Right. So you end up with a main thesis, and then you end up with chapters, and then you end up with, obviously, paragraphs within those chapters. And you have subheadings and all of that. So that's the same idea that there's going to be something that is the main thesis statement, the main subject, the central theme. But then, yes, you're going to start to break out sections of that. So, and you might have nightmares with grammar, but it's really not as bad as some people make it out to be. It's really more of a general, you can get away with general blocking of ideas. Like this is an idea, he starts this idea, he seems to finish this idea, and then this idea relates to the main subject this way, and then he moves his argument this way. It's a little harder in narrative, but it's there when you're looking for it. That's a great question, though. But chapter breaks, I trust less than I used to. And then even the paragraphs, that's just not there. That's not in the Greek, I should say. But also, trust your Bible. Very smart people did make those chapter or paragraph breaks. So it's not that you're going to disagree often, but just be aware you will at times. Are you allowed to use a study Bible? Or do you have to? Like in school, seminary-wise? Yeah, I mean, definitely. Because you get the academic side of things, right? So you're definitely engaging. I would say, like, you would never, ever quote a study Bible. Like, that would be a, you wouldn't be able to do that. Like, you could read one and research it, like, use it as a source. But you definitely would not, like, a research paper, an academic would scoff at you, you know? You would need to go look at some, expert in that field who wrote a commentary on that or you'll find monographs, i.e. journal articles where that one verse someone actually wrote an entire book on or wrote a 30 page journal article on or wrote a 300 page dissertation on. So that's where they typically want you going with that. Right. Anybody? How'd you word it differently? So if we say, are we saying the purpose is content for the faith and the essential theme is content for the faith? Or are we saying there's a way to be they're related but communicate it distinctively. Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun. Now you want me to, now I want to wait for you. I wrote down for the central theme, he wrote to condemn the apostates and to urge believers to contend for the faith. He called for discernment on the part of the church and a witness against the biblical truth. That's what I wrote for my paragraph. So when I said apostasy, I was just a part of it. I should have finished. Right. You're talking central theme. Central theme. Right. So what did you put as purpose? One, I just, I literally quoted one brief. Okay. I felt that that, I wasn't going to say it better than I got. Right. He said so much. It's so hard to repeat. We all talk too fast. So the question that stands, though, is how to make them distinctively differently. So for me, again, it goes back to occasion. And I think of it in question, like what prompted the writing purpose? What did he want to accomplish? So what he wants to accomplish probably is going to involve, and the way I would word it, is the exhortation. He wants to exhort them. He wants to remind them of things in chapter four. And so I would probably include all of that like that, but it's leading to that same idea of, let's just say, the purpose of Jude is that he wants to exhort them and remind them of God's faithfulness so that they remain, you know, so they contend for the faith. And then I'd be fine with them going, and what's the central theme? Contend for the faith. But sometimes people struggle because it's like, well, it seems like the same thing. And it's like, well, you're asking a little different question. And sometimes it's more distinctive than in other places. All right, so we're going to talk tips for identifying the central theme, just best practices, helpful ideas. We've already seen it in Jude, just to pick up again real quick. Whenever the introduction says more than the standard greeting, The added comments relate directly to them. So a standard greeting would be, this is who I am. This is, I am Paul. This is who I'm writing to, my audience, and there's a blessing. It's just a standard New Testament, not just in Christian letters, but in any letter written in the first century. This is just how you write letters. It's not dear R.D., you know, sincerely Josh. This is how they wrote. And you see that pattern. So whenever the writer deviates from that pattern, it will directly relate to the main topic, the central theme. Just picking back on Jude, I don't have it on my slides, but Jude is slave of Jesus Christ, that's pretty normal. Brother of James, identifying the author, that's somewhat normal. You might ask a question, why do we need to know that? He clearly wants you to make some connection if he's maybe less known, but to those who are called, beloved in God the Father, kept for Jesus Christ, may mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you. I would say in that greeting, the audience is what's expanded upon. So the audience is expanded to be not just the typical to Theophilus, to the church at Philippi. He expands it and he says, the called, beloved, and God and the Father and kept for Jesus Christ, even full Trinitarian language. And then you start to realize, OK, well, I'm just that's the red light. This has some relationship to the central theme. This is a good example of just normal standard greeting. Paul, Silvanus, Timothy to the Church of Thessalonians and God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace. So I would consider this standard. Nothing in here necessarily gives you an indication of the topic of the day of the Lord that's going to get discussed later. And that's okay. Right, so I think the question is toggling between how do you know it's standard or not standard. And you can get there, I think, even just comparing New Testament letters. The general practice would probably, I'd say, pay attention to the beginning of the book and the end of the book is probably the general practice. I just would say when it's not mentioning anything unique, and that's a little relative to that standard greeting of the New Testament letters, which you can kind of see. When it doesn't say anything unique, that's okay. I'm just, when it does say something a little different, it should spark your interest to go make a note. Maybe I'll track that, chase that. So, but when it does change, it just should send up the signal to go look further. All right, Galatians. Just a good example of this is helpful, because this is not a standard. And what I mean by standard is usually just it's expanded. It's not just author, audience, blessing. It is an expansion. So Paul, and just what would be another phrase Paul would typically use? Well, what does he typically use? Yeah, typically a lot of times a slave of Christ, different things. But here he says, Paul, an apostle. So that at least kind of strikes you as, it's a little rare for Paul to go out and be an apostle. You know, I've got the sticker or the badge. And then specifically he's saying, I'm an apostle. Let me remind you, not sent from men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead. What's interesting about this, and I know some of you are going, well, how would you know this? Well, this is where you read and re-read and you study your Bible years and years and you'll start to see some of these things a little more quickly. But you can get there. And if you don't get there, re-read, re-read, re-read. But, if I read this, there's somebody missing. And I know Paul believes in the Holy Spirit. But he doesn't mention the Holy Spirit. Maybe that's nothing. Maybe it's something. But he wants you to know he's an apostle. You know he's not sentenced. He's expanding on the author. And it's not from man that I got these things. I didn't make them up. Because, of course, you look at Corinthians, the question of Paul's apostleship is a little bit, depending on who you're talking to, he's not one of the original. 12 apostles to the Gentiles, but he wants to state as well that it's Jesus Christ and God the Father, and then specifically it's God the Father who raised him from the dead. And then he moves on, and it goes back to standard, all the brothers who are with me to the churches at Galatia, and then he gives the blessing, grace to you and peace from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ, and then expands gave himself for our sins so that he might rescue us from this present evil age according to the will of God and Father to whom be the glory forever and ever. Now if we've done a little bit of study on Galatians, which I can't remember, we did talk about Galatians. Did we talk about the central theme of Galatians? Was that an example? I just don't remember off the top of my head. Anyways, we'll get there. But with a cursory glance of Galatians, you're going to see the fight over the gospel, the true gospel, and it's not hard to see. Between the Judaizers, the circumcision party, and those like Paul who are saying, no, this gospel is not Jesus plus anything. And so you start to see here that he wants to identify Where this message comes from, one, which is it doesn't come from man, it comes from God. That relates to the central theme. Two, that this gospel that he has is not, the son and the father are not in disagreement. Because if you think about Judaism and you think about the circumcision party, who are they looking to? God the Father. And so, no, there's no opposition between God. Do I follow Jesus and follow the law of Moses? There's no opposition here between the Father and the Son. In fact, it's the Father, let me remind you, who raised Him from the dead. There's no opposition because that's going to be a big question in the book. When you get to verse 4, who rescues us from this present evil age? Is it, if you're the reader, the original audience? Is it circumcision? Is it the law of Moses? Is it the old covenant? And he's very explicit to say, let me give you a blessing and remind you that it's grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And let me expand on that. He gave himself for your sin so that he might rescue us from the present evil age. It's Christ who rescues you, not the old covenant, not the law of Moses from the present evil age. So even if you knew nothing about Galatians, you can start to get a flavor really quickly of where this letter's going. Why is he saying this and not saying something else? Which we're going to come back to. I think actually I have it on this slide if we get there of that central theme. So let's look at another example of 1 Corinthians where we talked about the development with an author, development of the blessing, and then let's look at this development here with the audience. So 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verses 1 through 3, Paul called as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Sosthenes, our brother, you'd look at that and go, I don't see a lot there. To the church of God, which is at Corinth. And then that would probably be where you'd go, okay, and then you'd expect the blessing, but you have an expansion. To those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, call the saints with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." And so you look a little bit more about 1 Corinthians, you know a little bit more about the book of 1 Corinthians, all the disagreements going on, they're suing one another, there's particularly heinous sins that are going on that are being allowed in the church, they're not disciplining the way they should discipline. and there's disagreement, you go to verse 10, and I exhort to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree that there be no divisions among you, that you be made in the same mind and in the same judgment. So I would argue 1 Corinthians, without working through the whole book, this is the explicit statement of what he wants to discuss. This is his central theme. You could call it unity in the Lord, you could call it same mind, same judgment, and everything in 1 Corinthians is going to go back and it's going to revolve around this idea that we need to be in unity together in the Lord. Again, lots of topics, lots of subjects within that. But when you go back to this, you can see that hint in the expansion of the audience. He's indicating that, hey, church at Corinth, and if you really contrast this to how harsh he is to the church at Galatia, hey, church at Corinth, He doesn't go in charging, because most people would argue that because it's not the same level of gospel issue that's going on in Galatia, He goes in a little softer, and He reminds them of their identity, and reminds them that you are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called as saints, with all and in every place, calling the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours. And so you start, even there, you start to see His expansion points to this idea of not only unity, a reminder that all these disagreements, all these people you're disagreeing with, they are in the Lord. And every place that they name the name of Christ, you need to strive for unity. And this idea of being sanctified in Christ Jesus is called the saints. If you were the original audience, you would probably If you were guilty, or if you were part of that church, you probably would blush a little bit. Because if you go home and you read 1 Corinthians, there's nothing sanctified about it. There's nothing that makes them look saintly. I mean, they're fighting and suing one another over every little thing. And in essence, in 1 Corinthians, multiple times he shames them and basically says, you're an embarrassment. And so he leads with this expansion. Let me remind you who you are. The reason he does that is because it relates to verse 10, which I think is the theme, unity in the Lord. Philippians chapter 1, we talked about Philippians a little bit. implicit theme, Paul, Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi with the overseers and the deacons. Talk about that phrase, that expansion, not just the saints, but also purposely pointing out the overseers and the deacons, which I would at least note. And then I think when you see in chapter four, the gift side, you go, this makes sense because who's handling that money? It'd be them. And he specifically points them out. First Timothy, Chapter one, maybe do these a little quicker here, but just because there's good examples throughout all of scripture. But Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, according to the commandment of God our Savior and Christ Jesus our hope, to Timothy my child in the faith, grace, mercy, peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. What would you look for? This is the last one for this and we'll shift gears. Anything you'd highlight from that? that seems a little bit different or expanded. Okay. Which definitely relates, which is interesting. In the whole letter, the assumption is Timothy is timid, he's getting a lot of guff, and there's an encouragement that comes along and says, My genuine child. According to, and like I said, you'd have to look at a lot of different introductions. Let me see if I can just find one off the top of my head. Well, I'll just go to First Timothy. But as you look at First Timothy, And this is one that was a little fresh off my brain because I recently taught First Timothy. But commandment, and if you look at that Greek word, is rare in the sense of this is the only time it's ever used in an introduction. It's never, Paul never ever elsewhere says, Apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the commandment of God. And I just remember thinking, well that doesn't, why would that be? And you might find nothing, but in this case, this term comes from a whole litany of terms that relate to stewardship, and estate stewardship in the first century. And so even that, I go, even there, something very small you would miss, but if you even just took the time to go into Lagos Bible Study, where you didn't know Greek at all, and you double-clicked on this word in English, it would pop a Greek word, you could hit Bible Study in Lagos, and it would take you and kind of tell you about this word, and it would let you know, oh, this is a technical term that is talking about, it's an authoritative term, and so when you get into the rest of the book of 1 Timothy, it makes a lot more sense why he would use commandment of God, because he's giving authoritative instruction to Timothy of how to put the church in order. Particularly that, I've received the commandment from God, as an apostle, and I'm giving it to you, passing it off to you, and you have that authority, and you need to put your house in order. So, beginning, and we'll talk more about endings, but just to say, beginning and the end are always important, and when there is something different, or something that's surprising, or something that just makes your curiosity spark, chase it down. In the beginning of, especially New Testament letters, because you're going to get into Old Testament stuff, and you're not going to see the same thing. All right, this is going to lead into next week. But repetition is thematic. Repetition is always going to be thematic. Repetition is going to be used intentionally to direct the reader to the point. I'm going to keep driving something home by. either using the exact same word or using a synonym, a related word, or just repeating that concept over and over and over again. So repetition is thematic. This is where, this is why it's on my brain, because Galatians, when you start thinking later about the central theme, If you keep going in 6 through 12, which this is where it was in my notes, I thought I did it a few weeks ago, but you're going to see this repetition of gospel, gospel, gospel, gospel, gospel, gospel in these six verses. Every verse is going to, except for verse 10 maybe, every verse is going to talk about the gospel. Verse six, I marvel that you are so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another, only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we are, or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to the gospel we have proclaimed to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is proclaiming to a gospel contrary to what you received, and of course you've got to remember back, this is all chapter one, and remember who I received the gospel from. Where I'm from, my apostleship comes from God. If any man is claiming the gospel contrary to what you see, let him be accursed. For am I now seeking the favor of men or God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a slave of Christ. For I make known to you, brothers, that the gospel which I am proclaiming is good news, is not according to man. Could cue back up with introduction, right? This didn't come from me. My apostleship didn't come from man. The gospel doesn't come according to man. And so if we're just counting in these six verses, you have these six mentions of gospel, gospel, gospel, gospel, gospel. You want to underline that stuff. You want to circle that stuff. Highlight that. Whatever you do, you want to note, and then if it's multiple times, it means something. You know, if it's two times and maybe you saw it, sometimes you got to look a little deeper to go, is this the exact same word translated? But even concepts can be repeated. Just go a little bit further in Galatians chapter two, verse five, but we did not yield in the subjection to them for even a moment so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas, for everyone, if you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews? And so, when you're looking at Galatians, which I think is a little more implicit, How do you know what the main subject, central theme is? You start to go, repetition helps you, gospel, gospel, gospel, gospel, truth of the gospel, truth of the gospel, and you go, what is Galatians about? It's not just the gospel in one sense, it's the truth of the gospel. That this thing is true, it's from God, not from man. And it's true between the God the Father and God the Son are on the same page. And the distinction being made in the circumcision party that they're in opposition or that you need Jesus plus is absolutely false. And a huge part of seeing that is recognizing repetition of words. Another one, 1 Peter 1, verse 14. As obedient children, not being conformed to the form of lust which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your conduct. Because it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy, and if you address this Father, the One who impartially judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your sojourn." So you're in chapter one, you're reading your Bible, you're reading the introduction, and this idea of conduct starts to pop. conduct. You get to chapter 2 and you go, "'Beloved, I urge you as sojourners in exile to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul by keeping your conduct excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing which they slander you, as evildoers they may, because of your good works, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.'" You go, okay, I saw conduct twice in chapter 1, I see conduct in chapter 2, And then I get to chapter 3, and sure enough, when he starts addressing the family, and then husbands, he doesn't use conduct with husbands or with masters and slaves, but the same idea there is it's behavior, but he uses the exact word here in three when he introduces the section on family, that in the same way you must be subject to your own husbands, so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives as they observe your pure conduct with fear. And so whether you're in chapter two and you're talking about conduct towards government, or if you're talking about conduct with a wife, a conduct with a husband, you start to see, okay, I think we're talking about conduct. We're cheating a little bit, but the important side of this is you can sharpen the knife. So it's not just conduct, act like a Christian, yes, but it's the conducts or the context of first Peter where the context is suffering persecution, tribulation. So this is actually my favorite marriage passage if I was like with premarital couples and things. A lot of people go to Ephesians 5. This is my favorite one because the context is suffering. And I think that if, so this is a great example of how central theme helps because this context is a government persecuting you and it being very difficult to live godly in the midst of political persecution. And he's saying, conduct yourself in front of the Gentiles in this way. that you might glorify God. When he gets to the family, the assumption here is, why does he mention the wife? Why does he mention disobedient husbands? Correct. Well, yes. But as you read it, it's interesting. Can a believer be disobedient is the word? Well, so because he's addressing to believing wives, what are you going to struggle with most? Where are you going to struggle with how to conduct yourself what's the hardest thing you're gonna run into? A husband who doesn't believe, a husband who's disobedient to the word, and you need help. And I need to address this issue because maybe you're not outside suffering and you don't need to know how to conduct yourself with political persecution, but you're inside the home, this is your most difficult scenario you're gonna run into. So I need to address that. Which I think also finds it interesting because then the husband, I would argue, the context of the husband living with his wife in an understanding way as the weaker vessel is also his advice to the husband. Your struggle is going to be understanding this woman and the way she's acting and you need to get over it and realize she's a woman, not a man. Live with her in an understanding way. So, I think he's addressing marriages that are difficult in both cases. Because the whole context is suffering in marriage. So that's very practical advice. And it's not to say wives shouldn't live with their husbands in an understanding way and it's not to say Husbands shouldn't conduct themselves and adorn themselves internally rather than externally. Husbands should be people with character, but I think he's addressing particular subjects that are probably, this is what the wives are struggling with right now, this is what the husbands are most likely struggling with, and I think you probably bear that out in most marriages. Right. Most people take it as an unbeliever because it's most applicable to that scenario. Disobedient to the word is probably a technical phrase. It's probably more of a technical phrase of unbeliever. However, would I encourage a wife who's got a husband, because the question always comes in difficult marriages, ultimately it's church discipline, everything else, someone who's being habitually sinful, eventually you get there. Either way, this is an encouraging thing of how do I conduct myself? What are my actions? Oh, it's just, it's depending on the English Bible. It's not necessarily a reference to deity or to God, the father or the son. So it's just, yeah, yeah. So awesome. So judges next week, we'll pick up, we'll talk a little bit about Colossians because Colossians is a great example of, you don't just have to have repetitive words exactly. You can have repetitive concepts that relate to the central theme. So awesome. Thank you guys.