Maybe we shun the label heretic too quickly. What if the Apostle Paul aimed to create heretical communities across the Roman Empire aimed at bringing peace in the Way of Jesus?

On this week’s edition of Thoughts From the Edge, we take a look at a section of Scripture that contains what may be the most memorized, and quoted, verse in the Scriptures in the Twentieth Century. The great fear is that we have not memorized its context. Instead, we have lifted and separated it and used it in service to a reading that makes it the summary of the Good News without allowing it to be just that, Good News for the world.

If God so loved the world, then why is it that many today seek to limit world to one segment of the human population rather than, the world and everything in it? Paul seems to have that in mind when he opens Colossians 1. Could it be prevailing Western Culture, with an eye to the individual, has influenced Christian communities, churches, rather than represent the very heretical communities the Apostle Paul envisioned for subverting the Roman Empire?

There is much to consider, much too much for the normal time slot given to this podcast. But maybe it will spur some healthy conversation and prod us in our declarations that God’s Good News is indeed in Jesus, whom He raised from the dead.

Thanks for listening. Feel free to leave your comments, thoughts, and even your pushback.

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Until next time . . .

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