Author: Rich Gorecki

MANual Lessons: Paul’s Unity Letter to the Church in Ephesus

October 4, 2021 No Comments

My year-long journey through The MANual, my NIV Bible for Men, continues with Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus. While some of the Apostle’s “epistles” were dated earlier, Ephesians seems out of place since it follows Galatians in the New Testament. Why? Read on to find out. Paul’s Letters Not in Chronological Order According to a post titled Why is Ephesians after Galatians?, modern copies of the New Testament generally order Paul’s epistles according to length. Romans is the longest and first of Paul’s letters, while 2 Thessalonians is the shortest and last of his letters. For this reason, I wrote my previous posts on the Book of Romans, Paul’s Letters to the Corinthians (which combined 1 and 2 Corinthians), and an upcoming post on 1 and 2 Thessalonians (probably also will get combined), in sequential order as they appear in the New Testament before Paul’s “Harsh” Letter to

Don’t be a Poser!

October 1, 2021 No Comments

Do you pretend to be someone you are not? One of my heroes in the men’s ministry space is John Eldredge, author of the book Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul. In his best-selling book, Eldredge dives deep into the issues that impact how men kive for God. In this video from his current small group teaching series, Eldredge gets to the core question of the masculine soul: “Do I have what it takes?” Other variations of the same questions are “Can I come through?” and “Can I handle whatever life throws at me?” These all mean the same thing: I am afraid of not living up to what people expect of me. As you will hear in the video, Eldredge uses this verse from Genesis about Adam’s encounter with God in the Garden of Eden: He (Adam) answered, “I heard you in the garden, and

MANual Lessons: Paul’s “Harsh” Letter to the Galatians

September 27, 2021 No Comments

My year-long journey through The MANual, my NIV Bible for Men, is now in the section of the Apostle Paul’s epistles or letters to the various churches he visited. This next post contains his lessons to the church in Galatia. More about Paul’s Letters to the Churches Most scholars believe 13 of the 27 books of the Christian Bible’s New Testament (NT) are attributed to Paul. Some believe the number is actually 14 because there is debate regarding the true author of Hebrews. Depending on your source and translation, this results in over 1/4, or approximately 32,000 words, of the NT being attributed to Paul. Surprisingly, nearly 38,000 words are linked to Luke, who accompanied Paul on parts of his trips. To no surprise though, Luke, the physician, wrote in great detail for his Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts. So while I have already written on The