Thursday, June 15, 2017

Letters to the Church: Thessalonica


Welcome to our summer sermon series! This summer we will be focusing on letters written in the name of Paul to early church communities throughout what are now Turkey, Greece, and Italy. What do the issues small churches in these ancient cities have to do with the issues our modern church faces in Annapolis? That's what we hope to find out together!

Each week we will read excerpts of a different letter in worship, but I want to challenge you to read the whole letter before we gather in worship. This sounds like a lot, and some letters are a bit long, but this week's is not--1 Thessalonians (we are going not in the order the letters appear in the Bible, but in the order most scholars believe the letters were written--hence why this book, believed by most to be the first New Testament book written, is our starting point). Before or after you read the letter, watch the YouTube video below produced by The Bible Project, which summarizes the book beautifully in only 7 minutes (if you get this by email, go to the blog to see the video). There's also a visual map of the book, which will also be in our bulletin Sunday, which you can click on to enlarge and explore.

I look forward to diving together into this part of scripture in which we haven't spent much time together--I think it has vital things to teach us!




No comments: