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The Letter to the Christians |
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in Birmingham |
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1. From Paul, Jesus
Christ’s preacher by the will of God; 3. Three cheers for our Lord Jesus Christ’s Father-God, who through Christ has cheered us along the heavenly way with every possible spiritual encouragement! It was he, you know, who picked us out before the world began to stand before him as a people apart and pure. In love he chose us to be his family through Jesus Christ. This was his gracious will, and it reflects his marvelous kindness which he has freely given us through his dear One. For it was by this One’s supreme sacrifice that we got our "emancipation," the forgiveness for the mess we made of things. This act was an expression of his overflowing goodwill which he lavished upon us with wisdom and insight. 9. Now he has let us in on the secret of his plan, which is to make Christ head over everything, both spiritual and material. He’ll do this in his own good time, when he thinks things are right. And it has already been determined at "headquarters," from which come all directives that get things moving, that we who have put our trust in Christ shall take part in this plan and be a credit to the cause. 13. You all, too, when you listened to the message of the truth, the good news of a "new way of walking," and put it into action, then the promised Holy Spirit put his OK on you. This is our "certificate of membership," entitling us to engage in the liberation movement set up for God’s glory. 15. This is why, when I heard about your Christian living and the love you show towards everybody in the fellowship, I couldn’t stop thanking God for you all every time I prayed. And I asked the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, our glorious Father, to give you spiritual wisdom and a better understanding of him. May he give clear sight to your soul’s eyes. May you know the hope which his call inspires and the wonderful resources available to Christians because of their membership in his family. May you experience the incredible outburst of his power in us who rely on his might and his abundant energy. This same energy working in Christ raised him from the dead and gave him spiritual victory and authority over every ruler and every governor and every judge and every sheriff and every other title you can name both now and in the future. Furthermore, it brought everything and everybody under his rule, and made him the head of everything in the fellowship, which is his body, the full expression of him who gives meaning to everything everywhere.
1. In days gone by you all were living in your sin and filth like a bunch of stinking corpses, giving your allegiance to material things and ruled by the power of custom. You can still see this spirit working now in the lives of those who won’t listen. In fact, at one time or another all of us were following our selfish inclinations and doing just as we pretty well pleased, because we were naturally just as big scoundrels as everybody else. But even though we were a bunch of corpses rotting in our mess, God in his overflowing sympathy and great love breathed the same new life into us as into Christ. (You have been rescued, I remind you, by divine intervention.) With Christ Jesus he resurrected us and elevated us to the spiritual household. This clearly demonstrates forever the untold richness of his favor which he so kindly bestowed upon us in Christ Jesus. So again I remind you, you have been rescued by his kind action alone, channeled through your faith. You didn’t get this on your own; it was God’s free gift. So nobody can brag that he himself achieved it. For we are his doing, made for the good deeds which God intended all along for us as Christians to practice. 11. So then, always remember that previously you Negroes, 1 who sometimes are even called "niggers" by thoughtless white church members, were at one time outside the Christian fellowship, denied your rights as fellow believers, and treated as though the gospel didn’t apply to you, hopeless and God-forsaken in the eyes of the world. Now, however, because of Christ’s supreme sacrifice, you who once were so segregated are warmly welcomed into the Christian fellowship. 14. He himself is our peace. It was he who integrated us and abolished the segregation patterns which caused so much hostility. He allowed no silly traditions and customs in his fellowship, so that in it he might integrate the two into one new body. In this way he healed the hurt, and by his sacrifice on the cross he joined together both sides into one body for God. In it the hostility no longer exists. 17. When he came, he preached the same message of peace to those on both the inside and outside. In him we both found a common spiritual approach to the Father. So then, you are no longer segregated and pushed around, but you are fellow citizens with all Christians and respected members of God’s family. This is based on the unshakable foundation Jesus himself laid down through the apostles and other men of God, with Christ being the cornerstone. Around him all the rest of the building is fitted together into a dedicated temple of the Lord. And you all are a vital part of God’s spiritual dwelling place.
1. It is for this reason -- my own Christian convictions on race -- that I, Paul, am now in jail. (I suppose you heard about my assignment on your behalf which, by God’s grace, was given to me.) The secret was made known to me by a revelation, about which I briefly wrote before. If you will reread it, you’ll clearly understand my insight into this secret of Christ’s. You’ll also find that it was not made known to the people of former times as now it has been made crystal clear to his dedicated preachers and deeply spiritual men of God. 6. The secret is that the Negroes are fellow partners and equal members, co-sharers in the privileges of the gospel of Jesus Christ. As a result of God’s kindness, so freely bestowed on me and so undeserved, I am now an ardent advocate of that gospel. I just can’t get over it, that I, the least likely of all the Christians, was chosen for this honor -- the honor of explaining to the Negroes the untapped resources of Christ, and to make clear to them what their part is in this insight that God created everybody alike, but which has been so little understood in the past. Today, however, God’s richly colored wisdom has been gotten over to the authorities and the leaders in high places by the action of the church. This is in accordance with his eternal intent which he expressed in Christ Jesus our Lord. In him we have the boldness and the confidence to give such an expression to our faith. That’s why I beg you not to let the things I’m suffering for you get you down in the dumps. It’s for your ultimate benefit. 14. When I think of all this I get down on my knees before the Father who has stamped his image on every race in heaven and on earth, and I beg him to give you, out of his glorious abundance, the power to win by his Spirit ruling your inner life. God grant that Christ, through your faith, might establish residence in your hearts. May love be your tap root and foundation. May you have the strength to grasp with all God’s people the width and length and height and depth of the love of Christ which surpasses all human understanding. Let God’s fullness fill you. 20. Now to him who is able, by the power energizing us, to exceed all our fondest hopes and aspirations, be the honor in the church and in Christ Jesus, not only for this generation but for all time to come. Please may it be so.
1. As a prisoner in the Lord’s cause, I urge you all to walk in a way becoming to the calling with which you were called. Be humble-minded and gentle and patient. Bear with one another in love, and be careful to preserve the spiritual unity within the framework of peace. "One body, one spirit," is the principle on which you all have been called together into one active fellowship. "One Leader, one plan of action, one initiation, one Father-God of all, who is over all and in all." 7. Each one of us received a measure of Christ’s favor as he was pleased to bestow it. This is why the Scripture says: "When he went up front he captivated the leadership; he gave men gifts." Now when it says "he went up front" it implies he was also in the rear, or the lower reaches of the earth. This same one who was in the rear also assumed the spiritual leadership and is in charge of everything. The "gifts" which he made are appointments as missionaries, preachers, reporters, organizers and educators, who are to shape the believers into a working force, into a functioning Christian body. Their job is not complete until we all come into the oneness of the faith and the unifying experience of God’s Son -- until we become grown men, filled out to the measurements of Christ’s size. 14. They are to help us quit being babies, so easily swayed and carried away by every windbag that comes along with some clever gimmick, with some big show to snare the gullible. Rather, let us by practicing the truth in love, grow up in every way under Christ our head. Under his leadership all the rest of the body is coordinated and neatly fitted together with the necessary parts, each functioning in its own way so as to give a lovely symmetry to the whole body. 17. Now I want to say this to you, and I believe I’m speaking for the Lord: Forever quit living like the rest of society who live in the utter emptiness of their intellects with the shades of their minds pulled down, complete foreigners to God’s way of life. They got this way through lack of insight and by spiritual callousness. They are so greedy that God turned them loose in their stink and let them run wild in their shameful brawls. 20. You all were never taught that such conduct was Christian. On the contrary, if you really paid attention and were instructed in the truth as Jesus gave it, then strip off the old rotten clothes of your previous way of life, which was so full of lust and deceit, and let the Spirit rejuvenate your mind and make you a new person, created by God for righteousness and dedication and truth. 25. So then, let each one of you put away the false and speak only the truth to his brother, because we’re all in this together. Don’t sin by flying off the handle. Never let the sun set on a tantrum of yours, and don’t give in one inch to the Devil. Let the man who has been in the habit of stealing cut it out. Let him go to work and make an honest living with his own hands, so he’ll have something to share with the needy. 29. Let no off-color word fall from your lips. Instead, talk about any good thing needful for one’s uplift, so that you’ll benefit those listening. Don’t wring the heart of God’s Holy Spirit, who stamped his OK on you on your emancipation day. 31. Let every scrap of bitterness and resentment and anger and loud talk and running down of others be put away from you, along with all other evil. Deal gently with one another and maintain a good attitude. Show goodwill toward each other as God showed toward you in Christ.
1. Therefore, become God’s mimics, like children who are dearly loved. Make love a habit, just as Christ loved you and gave himself up for us as an offering and sacrifice to God like a fragrant perfume. Don’t let sexual sins or any lewdness or money-grubbing even be mentioned among you, just as Christians ought to behave. Smutty jokes, dirty language and running off at the mouth aren’t put up with either, only those things that are aboveboard. This should be absolutely clear to you that anybody who is sexually loose, or a punk, or a money-grubber has no place in God’s and Christ’s spiritual family. Don’t let anybody kid you with slick talk. That’s why God is mad at the people who have gone to the dogs. Don’t let them suck you in. For you once operated under cover of darkness, but now in the Lord’s light. Behave as people of light, for light produces only goodness and uprightness and truth. Test a thing to see if it is acceptable to the Lord, and don’t participate in meaningless and shady activities. Instead, bring them out into the open, for the things some people do in secret are so shameful you can hardly talk about them. Everything that is exposed to the light is clearly visible, and that which is clearly visible is obviously on the side of light. That s why it says:
Get up, you sleepyhead, 15. Take extra care, then, how you live -- not like nitwits but like wits. Use your time as though you had to buy it, because there’s a lot of wickedness around these days. Therefore, don’t be dumbbells but have an intelligent understanding of what the will of the Lord is. Don’t get drunk on wine and carry on a lot of foolishness; tank up on the Spirit and do your talking to each other with hymns and songs and spirituals, singing and strumming in your hearts to the Lord. Always give thanks for everything to the Father-God in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Put yourselves under one another with Christ-like respect. 22. You women, be subject to your men as to the Lord, because a man is head of the woman just as Christ is head of the church and is himself the nerve center of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also women are subject to men in everything. 25. You men, love your women, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her, so that, having bathed her in purity, like a bath in water, so to speak, he might stand her by his side, a lovely church without stain or dirt or anything like that, but that she might be true and pure. Men ought to love their women as though they were their own bodies. He who loves his own woman loves his own body. No one ever hates his own body, but rather he takes care of it and grooms it, just as Christ does the church, because we are parts of his body. 31. "For this reason a man shall sever his ties to Papa and Mama and shall be wrapped up in his woman, and the two will be a unified body." Admittedly, this whole thing is a puzzle -- I mean Christ and the church. Anyway, you all -- every one of you -- love your woman as though she were you, and let the woman have respect for her man.
1. You kids, listen to your parents, 2 for this is as it should be. "Respect your father and mother" is the first of the commandments with a promise attached -- "that it might go well with you and you will live a long time on earth." 4. You fathers, don’t aggravate your kids, but bring them up in the Lord’s guidance and counsel. 5. You workers, cooperate with those over you with humility and respect and with the same kind of loyalty you give to Christ -- not for praise or promotion, but as Christ’s workers, doing the will of God from the heart and carrying out your work with a good attitude as though the Lord, and not man, were your employer. Realize that whether you are a worker or an employer, whatever good thing you do will be noticed by the Lord. 9. And you employers, treat your workers the same way. Don’t go around breathing down their necks. Understand that both they and you have the same boss, the Lord in heaven, who makes no distinction between employer and employee. 10. Lastly, be strong and courageous men for Christ. Put on God’s uniform so as to be able to withstand all the Devil’s tricks. For we’re not fighting against ordinary human beings, but against the leaders, politicians and heads of state of this dark world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. So, put on God’s uniform so you ll be able to put up a fight on the day of battle and, having tended to every detail, to make your stand. Therefore, take your position when you have put on the pants of truth, the shirt of righteousness, and the shoes of the good news of peace. Above all, take the bulletproof vest of faith, with which you’ll be able to stop the tracer bullets of the evil one. Also, wear the helmet of salvation, and the pistol of the Spirit, which is God’s word. 18. When you offer a prayer or a petition on any occasion, let it be truly spiritual. Along this same line, be on your toes as you encourage and pray for all the members. Pray especially for me, that when I speak, the right words will be put in my mouth, and that I may boldly expound the gospel’s secret, for which I am now a delegate in the clink. Pray too that I may lay it on the line whenever I have a chance to speak. 21. To let you all know how things are with me, and what I am doing, I’ve asked Tic, my dear brother and faithful assistant in the Lord, to tell you everything. This is the very reason I sent him to you -- so he could give you the news about us, and that he might boost your spirits. 23. Peace to the brothers and love mixed with faith from the Father-God and the Lord Jesus Christ. May divine favor be upon all who unashamedly love our Lord Jesus Christ. Yours, 1
The Greek word which is commonly translated "Gentiles" has two
meanings: (1) From the standpoint of the Jew it refers to all non-Jews, just as
the Greeks referred to all non-Greeks as "barbarians." From the
standpoint of the white man, "Gentiles" would mean all nonwhites, or
specifically in the Southern context, Negroes. It should also be said that from
the point of view of colored people, all noncoloreds are "Gentiles."
(2) It refers not only to the nondescendants of Abraham according to the flesh,
but particularly to those who walk not in his ways. In this respect it would be
about the equivalent of non-church-member, or non-Christian. ©1968 by Clarence
Jordan. Used by permission of Koinonia
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