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| Our back yard, by the river |
This coming Sunday at Redeemer I'll preach on Colossians 1:12 - giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.
This sentence is nested in the intercessory prayer of Paul, writing in prison 120 miles from the Jesus-followers in Colossae whom he has heard of but never met.
Part of my message will include defining terms. I'll use socio-rhetorical and socio-cultural commnetaries to do this. Note: I will not use Webster's dictionary. No biblical scholar does, for the obvious reason that Webster gives us definitions in terms of current American culture. While at times current meanings are similar to ancient meanings or retain echoes of ancient meanings, often they are not the same.
I'll define:
- Joy - Greek εὐχαριστοῦντες - eucharistountes - thankfulness, gratefulness, blessedness
- Qualified; qualification
- Inheritance
- Holy
- Holy people
- Kingdom of light - stressing the importance of biblical 2-kingdom theology; kingdom of light vs. kingdom of darkness
