Author: Rich Gorecki

My year-long journey through The MANual, an NIV Bible for Men, brings us to the short book of Philemon, the eighteenth book of the Christian New Testament. It’s a good example of a very private, personal letter and how to handle a disagreement with a friend. You may remember from my previous post on the lessons from Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, the Apostle Paul wrote four “prison letters” (Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, and Philemon) while he was under house arrest in Rome from approximately A.D. 60–62. Who Was Philemon? Philemon was a first-century Christian and a minister (possibly the bishop of Gaza). He was a wealthy man who hosted a church in his home in Colosse (sometimes more properly written as Colossae). Philemon’s name means “affectionate,” or “one who kisses” in Greek.  The only mention of Philemon in the Bible is in the opening line of the book that bears

The Apostle Paul had a wonderful gift of providing encouragement and instructions to young leaders in the early church. In this next post during my year-long journey through The MANual, an NIV Bible for Men, I provide the lessons from Paul’s three pastoral letters with guidelines for Christ-centered living. Paul wrote two letters to Timothy and one to Titus that each became separate books in the New Testament known as the “pastoral letters.”  Who was Timothy  Timothy was a close associate of Paul and his young protege who became an overseer of the church in Ephesus.  Timothy was born in the region of Lystra and Iconium to a Gentile man and a Jewish woman so their marriage was likely disfavored by the community at large. From infancy though, Timothy was raised in Hebrew Scripture. His grandmother, Lois, probably converted from Judaism to Christianity and led his mother, Eunice, to the

The Apostle Paul wrote two separate letters to the church in Thessalonica; a place he visited on his second and third journeys. In this next post in my year-long journey through The MANual, an NIV Bible for Men, I provide the lessons from both letters to the Thessalonians, written to first encourage them to return to right living and then to correct their misconception about the resurrection and second coming of Christ.  About Thessalonica Thessalonica was Macedonia’s capital and most populous city with over 200,000 people. Founded in 315 B.C. by Cassander, a relative of Alexander the Great, who also was one of his generals. The city was located on the Thermaic Gulf, a large gulf in northeastern Greece, across the Aegean Sea from Troas, Ephesus, and Colosse; Paul’s other stops in modern-day Turkey (see last week’s post on Paul’s Letter to the Colossians for a map of that region).