The DEEPEST Truth Paul Ever Taught

Now, a few of you know who this person is; I wish you wouldn’t say. I’d like for somebody to make a wild guess at it. Does anybody want to make a wild guess as to who he is? He is my second favorite Bible character, and a brother and a half. Okay. Someone who knows, please tell us his name and where he is from. Danielle, are you going to flunk this? You don’t know. Yes, you do. Epaphroditus. Epaphras in that city, in that country. That was his Asian name. He went back home to Philemon. By the way, Philemon met him at the door; they rejoiced and said, “Oh, by the way, I just bought myself a new slave.” Epaphras says, “Wonderful,” and Philemon says, “You know, I paid too much for him, but I’m expecting to make a real profit.” Epaphras reaches out to shake hands with this young slave and says, “What’s your name?” The young slave says, “I don’t know. He hasn’t named me yet.” And so, Philemon says, “I think I’ll name him Profitable. He’d better be Profitable.” Or you may know him as Onesimus. Okay.

Epaphras begins preaching the gospel in Colossae, and a church is born. Then he preaches in Laodicea. Church is born. By the way, that’s a really decent church. It takes a long time for it to get a bad reputation. It does happen. Then he went to Hierapolis and preached the gospel there.

When Paul was in Antioch, he wrote to the Galatian churches when he found out Blastinius Drachrachma was up there messing the churches up. He got to Corinth, and he wrote 1st and 2nd Thessalonians to the church in Thessalonica, which was only three months old, and it was all about the second coming of Christ. When Paul was in Ephesus, some brothers, such as Stephanas, came over to tell him, and Chloe’s family also, telling him that things were really bad, so he wrote 1st and 2nd Corinthians. Then Paul left Ephesus and went to Corinth, and he wrote a letter to his 29 friends in Rome and wrote what is probably the greatest single piece of literature in human history. We call it the book of Romans. Go back and read it sometimes in the context in which I’ve just presented it to you.

And those are the books he’s written so far, but now he leaves Corinth, goes to Jerusalem, and he makes a big mistake. He takes all eight of his brothers with him, and one of them is Trophimus, and Trophimus, unfortunately, looks very much like a Jewish brother in the church in Jerusalem. Now, we’re leaving a lot of this story out, but he goes to the church in Jerusalem, and they are told, “Paul, you and Peter are both in big trouble,” and the book of Galatians has been passed out everywhere, and everybody’s convinced you do not believe in Moses and that you’re trying to tear down the Jewish religion. The Daggermen are trying to find you and kill you. Now go shave your head and go to the temple and make a sacrifice, and we’ll have this brother from the church in Jerusalem shave his head and go in there with you, and everybody will maybe be happy.”

Things were really electric in Jerusalem. Unfortunately, someone had seen Trophimus with his hair, and he saw this young Jewish believer without his hair, and he thought the Jewish believer was Trophimus. And what happened? Well, there was a riot. Paul almost got killed and managed to get to the capital of Israel, Caesarea, spent two years there, and went to Rome; a very bad time of the year to sail a boat. He had a shipwreck, his fourth. Not his third, but his fourth. He got to Rome; he had sent Timothy, Titus, Aristarchus, and Secundus to meet him there. Secundus and Aristarchus and Luke, and possibly Timothy, were probably on the boat with him when it was shipwrecked. Luke, of course, was with him. Titus was also there, and probably Trophimus, but for sure Tychicus, were all there in Rome, either waiting for him or coming with him. Just about a month or two after he got there and was put in chains and rented a room in one of the insulas, Paul looked up, and the doorway was once more filled with a very big, young man. It was Epaphras. In Greek, his name was Epaphroditus, and he had just left his homeland in Asia and gone by way of Philippi, which is the right route to Rome unless you’re going through Brindisi. You know where Brindisi is? Have you ever been to Brindisi, Peter? There have been more emperors and generals who have gone through that town than any other city in the world, and you can’t even get a good plate of spaghetti there, I understand. Epaphroditus came all the way from Colossae to Rome to see Paul.

The greatest books that Paul ever wrote, if you don’t agree to that, let me put it this way: did you ever wonder what Paul of Tarsus taught and preached? What did he say when he first came to Ephesus? What did he first say when he first came to Corinth? What did he first say when he went to Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea? He wrote three letters to churches where he had never himself preached. What’s one of them? Colossians. Romans is another one. What’s the third one? Second Colossians. Second Colossians: Paul never wrote a letter to the church in Ephesus. He wrote two letters to Colossae. They are so rich that it is unbelievable, but I think the thing we forget most is that they were written to churches. And so was the letter to the Romans. Written to a church. Do you know why they call it the book of Ephesians? It was never called the Book of Ephesians until about 400 A.D., about 350 years after it was written. I don’t know how it ever got the word Ephesians. It’s very, very clear in both letters to whom it was written. The first one was written to Colossae, to be passed out in Hierapolis and Laodicea, and the second one was written to Laodicea and Hierapolis to be read by the church in Colossae. The second book should be entitled either “The Circuit Letter to the Churches in Colossae, Hierapolis, and Laodicea,” or it should be called “Second Colossians.” Unfortunately, we call it Ephesians, but we now know where it was written.

Now, brothers and sisters, you’re going to get to go home, go back to your bed, and I promise not to give you any more background, but I am going to tell you what we’re going to do. Brother Michael, do you see that brother taping right back there? I’ve had a real struggle about what I want to talk to you all about here, but I’ve finally decided to leave a legacy for you, brothers, and for the new people who come in. You can either show them videos or let them listen to tapes and say that this is part of our beginning, and I would like for them to know a little bit about just how deep the message of Jesus Christ is, even to a group of young Christians who had never seen the face of Paul Tarsus. If that book, if those two books say anything, it’s this: that Paul did not waste time giving out little morsels of truth. He went to the deepest, most profound words a man has ever read or written in those two books. I think we do ourselves great injustice when we try to begin with simple stuff. We can’t possibly understand the deep stuff, so why don’t we just start there? And after a year or two, it dawns on us.

You’re going to go home tonight, and you’re going to read chapter one of 2nd Colossians. You are going to underline every new topic Paul introduces in chapter 1, and when I say “new,” it is not repeated a single time. Now, the word grace is repeated four times in 2nd Colossians (Ephesians 1), so that’s no good. Topics that are addressed without definition or explanation in Chapter 1. How many different topics, beginning with verse 3? You’ll find the word revelation—that’s mentioned, I think, once. Wisdom, once. Grace, I think it’s three or four times. But you’re going to mark or even circle the number of topics he introduces without explanation in chapter one. That’s one thing you’re going to do.

Now then, I can’t tell who’s back there on the stage with Charlie, but whoever you are, who is it, Mikey? Mikey, I can see the seven. Mikey, I want you to come forward there and see if you can find a stack of something called Second Colossians. Will you bring it down here, please, sir? And Brother Charlie, I don’t know if you want to cut this off now. Maybe you’d just go ahead and let it run. Tonight, you’re going to have one of the great treats of your life. You’re about to read three chapters. Are you ready for this? Hold your heart. You could have a heart attack. Three chapters out of the Edwardian New Testament. It’s never been seen by the eye of man. And by the way, I did it in one afternoon, and I haven’t corrected it. All of this got done just before I got on the plane.

That’s 2 Colossians 1, 2, and 3…by me. Are you excited? Tell me, Jan, does that excite you? It doesn’t excite you a bit, does it? I know you’re tired, and I am, too. It’s not a paraphrase. I’ll talk to you a little bit about that tomorrow morning. What I did do…but there’s something I did insert, and hopefully, if this ever gets printed, and God willing it will, these words will be in italics, just like they are in your King James. Those italic words mean they’re not in the text. The only thing I’ve added here, really, is the word “all.” One, that’s one of them. I often say, “all of you” and “you all” to remind you, the reader, that this was not written to an individual. This is not a place where you dig for blessings. The only other thing I think that I have in here that I recall, at least, it says “those of you who gather in Colossae,” to remind you that it was written to a church. That’s all.

Now, what I want you to do is go home tonight; you have this done by tomorrow morning. I want you to take your version of the Bible, and I want you to underline every word in chapter 1 that has not been mentioned any other time in that chapter. You will be amazed. You should also know that in chapter 1 in Greek, there are only two sentences. The first sentence is the greeting, and the second sentence is the rest of the chapter, and I am never going to forgive Paul of Tarsus. You cannot understand chapter 1 of Ephesians. It’s a mystery hidden in an enigma. I only know of one person in the world who really understands Ephesians 1, and that’s Peter (laughter). So, if you have any questions, you’re going to ask him.

It’ll drive you crazy trying to understand chapter 1 because he just keeps switching subjects and piling superlatives on superlatives. Another word you’ll find in chapter 1 written over again and again is “riches.” The word “glory,” the word “grace,” and the word “riches.” He just can’t say it enough. There are three anthems in chapter 1 when Paul stops and says, “To the praise of the glory of the grace of God,” or “To the praise of His glory,” or “To the praise of the glory of His grace.” And if you ever try to figure that out, it’ll drive you crazy. “To the praise of the glory of His grace.” Very difficult to follow.