What if four letters written from a prison cell could transform the way you see faith, community, and the very foundations of Christianity? This episode dives into the powerful messages behind Paul’s prison letters—Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians—exploring how they were delivered, the living test cases they created, and why reading them together changes everything. Discover the surprising connections, real-world challenges, and timeless lessons that still echo today. If you’re ready to experience the New Testament’s heart in context, this episode will take you right to the chains where it all began.

"Christ is enough. He is not a supplement. He is the substance behind every shadow the old system cast." - Tim Winders

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Episode Resources:

• NT90 Hub – This is the central website for the 90-day New Testament reading plan, with downloadable, printable plans, background information, and links to all episodes and resources.

Episode Highlights:

00:00 Four Letters One Chain

01:11 NT90 Journey And Feedback

04:04 Episode Setup Prison Letters

06:23 From Romans To Rome

10:57 House Arrest And Visitors

12:13 Thread Through The Letters

14:42 Ephesians The Blueprint

18:38 Colossians Christ Enough

23:25 Philemon The Real Test

28:54 Philippians Joy In Chains

34:53 One Message Four Voices

36:18 Modern Misreads And Application

38:14 Living Room Scene And Legacy

39:40 Next Episode And Read Again

One man, chained, four letters, and one message that outlasted

the empire that chained him.

Between AD 60 and 61, Paul sat under Roman guard and wrote Ephesians,

Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians.

Three of those letters left the house at the same time,

carried by a man named Tychicus.

Walking beside Tychicus was Onesimus, a runaway slave, returning to the man

who owned him with a letter that would redefine their entire relationship.

The theology Paul had been building for years was about to be tested in a

living room between two real people, with the whole church watching them.

What happens when you read those four letters back to back

in order from the same chain?

That is what we're doing today

Welcome to Seek Go Create.

This is Tim Winders.

Not too long ago, I read the entire New Testament in 90 days.

I did it in context, in the order it was written, not the order

that's in your Bible, the order that the letters actually went out.

What I found was really cool.

I loved how it just revealed things, like I brought up in the opening.

Those four letters that Paul wrote all almost at the same time, all q- sort

of bundled together, are powerful when you read them in order and in context.

It just helps you understand scripture and the context so much better.

This series, this kind of add-on to what I did with that NT90 program, that 90

days reading the New Testament, is just all the things that spun off from it.

Discoveries, questions I'm still asking.

I don't have all the answers, but boy, I sure do have a better grasp of

things than I did before I did this.

If you'd like to do that, I encourage you and challenge you to.

The reading plan, it's free.

It's k2m.foundation/nt90.

You know, recently I've gotten a little feedback on this.

A listener named Susie wrote me an email, and in it she said, "I decided to start

the NT90 journey because I like your approach to the word, what it means in the

context of who it's written to and why." And then sort of a relative of a relative,

Lisa in Charlotte, sent a message over to our Seek Go Create Facebook page,

and, and I know Lisa is a deep studier, and she says, "I've started the NT90

along with a couple of my friends."

And she said, "I already have 12 pages of notes, and I've not even finished

James. Thanks for giving me a new way to experience the word of God."

12 pages of notes, oh my goodness.

Good job, Lisa.

Before finishing James.

That sounds like about what I was going through when I was doing it.

And then I went over, during that timeframe, early part of 2026, and

for every post that I did, I did comments there, and then also did the

same thing over on YouTube where we did post about the daily readings.

So check all that out, but it sounds like Lisa is having a great

time with it, and so is Susie.

So thanks for sending me that.

It means a lot, 'cause sometimes I wonder, do people just wanna be

spoon-fed, or are they willing to get in and dig and do the study?

I think people that are coming here, that are listening to this, that are

doing this study, they wanna dig.

And you know what?

That's what I challenge you to do.

Go get this reading plan and, read it in order.

The link should be down- In the show notes.

All right, so this is episode 15, Paul's prison letters, I'm calling them.

He was on a chain, we believe.

We, as I said earlier, there were four letters that were written that we have.

There could've been more, but four letters during this time.

But there was sort of one message that went across all of those.

The last two episodes we had covered some hard ground.

War, slavery, sex, abortion.

Oh my goodness, that was some tough stuff.

But what the New Testament actually says about the topics that the

modern church fights loudest about was a little bit different if we

look at the New Testament context.

That's what we did over the last few episodes.

This week, gonna shift gears a little bit and look at a topic that kept

boiling up in me as I was reading the New Testament in order and in context.

We're going back inside the text, back to Paul, back to a chain, and

back to four letters that contain some of the most powerful writing

in the entire New Testament.

You know, I had so many times when I was reading things, I would say to myself,

"You know, if I just had one letter to give s- to someone, it would be

Colossians," or, "If I just had four, it would be these," or, "If I could just do

this." And in all actuality, it probably needs to be the entire New Testament all

in order and in context, but I would be reading it going, "Oh, this is so good.

This is something that someone should start with." But I actually believe

that starting in order and context is probably a good way of doing it.

So if you've been following along in this series, you know that the Kingdom

of God, we've talked about it a few episodes ago, was Jesus's primary message.

I mean, that was mostly what was talked about in the New Testament.

Sometimes we miss that.

Episodes 11 and 12 laid that foundation.

This episode shows what that kingdom looks like when it lands on paper or in the real

world, written by a man who's imprisoned, who cannot see any of it with his eyes.

All right, let's get into it because this is really, really

cool and really, really awesome.

All right.

The last letter that Paul wrote before we get to these four that

we're about to cover was Romans, and that was around AD 57, 57 AD. Okay?

Let me give some context here.

I'm trying to kind of go through this history of Paul so that we can get

ourselves placed in this prison cell as he's preparing to write these.

So that was around AD 57.

He wrote it from Corinth, and he was a free man, and he had

big plans during that time.

He was talking about delivering a collection of money to Jerusalem.

Um, he was gonna visit Rome, then on to Spain.

Romans was his masterwork.

It was systematic, comprehensive, written from a desk with the

whole world ahead of him.

Then Jerusalem happened.

Sometimes things change, right?

Our plans aren't always our own, and Paul was that way.

Paul went to the temple when he went to Jerusalem, and a mob tried to kill him.

That was in Acts 21.

Jewish leaders accused him of bringing a Gentile past the dividing wall.

Roman soldiers pulled him out, probably saved his life.

40 men took an oath not to eat until Paul was dead.

That was in Acts 23.

The commander transferred him to Caesarea under armed guard, If you

go back and read that story, there were groups trying to kill him.

There were 200 soldiers, 70 horsemen, 200 spearmen protecting Paul during that time.

Paul sat in a Caesarean prison for two years.

That's in Acts 24 and 25.

Governor Felix heard his case, did nothing.

Festus later replaced Felix.

He kind of reopened the case.

Paul could have been sent back to Jerusalem.

He had a chance there, but he knew that that probably meant death, so

he appealed as a Roman citizen, which he was, to Caesar Then there's this

incredible voyage that we see in Acts 27 through 28, a storm that lasted

two weeks, cargo thrown overboard.

The ship broke apart off the coast of Malta.

Paul washed up on a beach.

There was a snake bite, and then finally, after a lot of other stuff,

I'm skipping around here or I'm moving fast, finally he gets to Rome.

And then at that time, it seems like it's around 60 AD, so AD 60, Paul is under

house arrest, is the way it's described.

He's chained.

We believe, s- what's described, he's chained to a Roman guard.

There's a guard there with him.

The trial has not happened.

He cannot travel.

He cannot visit the churches he planted.

He cannot stand in a room and teach in front of people.

The man who wrote Romans from a desk in Corinth with plans for Spain is now

in a rented room or seems like a rented house or a rented place with a guard

attached to either his ankle or his wrist.

That is not a three-year gap year, gap years that Paul did.

That was sort of a crucible.

There was a lot that occurred during those three years between Romans and

where we are now in 60 AD. The religious system he came from tried to kill him.

The temple establishment he once served rejected everything he was teaching.

He survived a death plot, shipwreck, snake bite, and now

he has a chain and time to think.

That is why reading in order matters.

When you now read Ephesians without knowing what came before it, it just

sounds like theology, and that's why we often will just try to just

make it apply to our world today or our lives or our situations.

I'm not saying that it doesn't, but if we take it out of that context, in all

likelihood, I've done it, probably you've done it, I know many have done it, you're

going to misapply the scriptures because we do not understand it in context.

When you know what Paul walked through to get to that room in Rome, it sounds like

a man who tested everything he believed and found that it held But here is what

is important about this imprisonment.

It was not a dungeon.

Paul had rented quarters.

People came and went.

Coworkers visited.

Epaphras brought news from Colossae.

Epaphroditus nearly died getting to him from Philippi, and Luke seems to

be right there with them the whole time, really on the whole journey.

During the same period, Luke had compiled his two-volume account of Jesus and the

early church, that was the Gospel of Luke, and the Book of Acts was written

during or just before this imprisonment.

Acts ends with Paul in Rome proclaiming the Kingdom of God and teaching

about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.

That is not a man in crisis.

That is a man with a desk, a mission, and a stream of visitors.

Remember that, because the second time Paul goes to prison, part two of this

series, none of that will be true.

So while he's there, he has guests, he writes while he

is chained to a Roman guard.

In a span of months, Paul produces four letters, four of the most powerful,

tremendous letters that we will get to read thousands of years later: Ephesians,

Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians.

Each one goes to a different audience.

Each one addresses a different situation.

But when you read them back to back, one message runs through all

four like a single thread that's pulled tight Christ is enough.

He is not a supplement.

He is not a starting point that needs additions.

He is the substance behind every shadow the old system cast.

And the people who carry his name, the ones gathered in living rooms

across the empire, are his body.

One body, no walls, no hierarchy of Jew and Greek, slave and

free, insider or outsider.

Here's what most people miss.

Three of these letters, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon, were written at

the same time, or right compressed, really close to the same time, and sent together.

They went to the same house, same season, same carrier.

A man named Tychicus picked up all three and walked them across the

Mediterranean, and walking beside him was Onesimus, a former slave,

returning to his owner, Philemon, with a personal letter from Paul.

That means the theology and the test case traveled in the same bag.

The letter about one new humanity and the letter asking a slave owner to

receive his slave back as a brother were delivered on the same day to the

same room in front of the same people.

I don't think that's a coincidence.

That is the gospel in motion, in living fulfillment that we get to

experience if we're reading these in context and just visualizing ourselves

in that room when those letters were brought there and then read.

All right, let's move on and Let's look at each one of these letters

that Paul wrote while in prison, so we can kind of get a feel for, what was

going on and how it all ties together.

Ephesians starts with this one.

I know a lot of people, Ephesians, probably one of your favorites.

There have been times in my journey as a Christian, as a follower of Jesus,

that this was one of my favorites.

It's the biggest picture that Paul ever painted.

If the prison letters are a house, Ephesians is probably the blueprint.

Romans was the argument, written form of all that he wanted to share,

and written from a desk, actually.

Ephesians is more the vision, written while he was chained.

Paul opens with the longest-- It's fascinating.

Paul opens with the longest single sentence in the Greek New Testament.

It just keeps going and going, verses three through fourteen of

chapter one, one continuous thought.

Every spiritual blessing chosen before the foundation of the world, predestined

for adoption, sealed with the Holy Spirit.

The word for adoption is huiothesia, Roman legal language.

In Roman law, the adopted child received full inheritance rights.

All previous debts were canceled.

The old family had no claim.

For Gentile believers hearing this read aloud, the message is plain.

You're not second-class members of God's family.

Full rights, full inheritance, full access.

Then in chapter two, you were dead, but God made you alive.

By grace you have been saved through faith.

Not your own doing, the gift of God, not as a result of works.

We are his workmanship.

That Greek word there is poiēma, his poem, his masterpiece.

Then the wall comes down.

The Jerusalem temple had a literal wall separating Gentiles from the inner court.

Stone signs in Greek and Latin warned that any Gentile who crossed it would

be responsible for their own death.

Archaeologists have found two of them, and here is the irony.

Paul was arrested for allegedly bringing a Gentile past that very

wall, Now, while he is chained up, he writes that Christ has broken it down.

One new humanity.

First half of Ephesians is identity, second half is activity.

Walk worthy of the calling.

One body, one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism.

Seven ones in a world of many gods and many allegiances.

At one time you were darkness, Paul says.

Not in darkness, you were darkness.

Now you are light in the Lord.

Then he gets practical.

Stop lying.

Stop stealing.

Work with your hands so you have something to share.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving.

Kingdom living is not theory.

It is Monday morning, Tuesday morning, Wednesday morning, every morning behavior.

Then the thing that many of us love, the armor, the armor of God.

The imagery comes from Isaiah.

In Isaiah, this is what God wears when he goes to war.

Paul is dressing the church in God's own armor.

Acts 19 tells us Ephesian converts burned their magic

scrolls when they first believed.

50,000 pieces of silver worth of spells and incantations went up in smoke.

Now, from a chain in Rome, Paul tells those same people, "You do

not need any of it. Stand in it."

From chains, Paul writes about freedom.

From a room in Rome that he can't leave, he writes about heavenly places.

From a man's tested theology to the whole body of Christ Now, one

of my favorites right now that I have been loving, Colossians.

This is a kind of an interesting kind of look.

You know, Colossians is a smaller city.

They have a very specific problem, and we see a sharper focus.

Colossians is really a targeted strike.

If Ephesians is the blueprint, Colossians is the troubleshooting manual.

Paul has never been to Colossae.

It is a small city in modern Turkey where Jewish mysticism, Greek philosophy,

and local angel worship all overlap.

The church was planted by Epaphras, who has brought Paul troubling news.

Teachers are pressuring believers to add requirements to their faith.

Dietary laws, festival observance, angel worship, ascetic practices.

It is not rejection of Christ.

It is Jesus plus something that we see a lot in our modern-day churches.

The basics aren't enough.

We've got to add a bunch of stuff to it.

That was what was happening in Colossae.

Paul writes to shut every side door.

He opens with what scholars believe is an early creed or

hymn, Colossians 1:15 through 20.

He names every spiritual category the Colossians were tempted to honor,

thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities, and says Christ created all of them.

They answer to Him.

In a city swimming in spiritual hierarchies, Paul's claim is total.

Everything that exists or was created came from Jesus, exists through

Jesus, and it exists for Jesus.

And the hymn ends with reconciliation.

All things being reconciled, not some things, all things, whether

on Earth or in Heaven, made right through the blood of His cross.

We won't get into it here, but that is a big statement that can kind of

mess with you when we start dividing a bunch of people up in our modern

churches and our modern world.

Not universalism, but all things being restored in Christ and through Christ.

The same hands that created everything are pulling everything back.

Three uses of all things in six verses, created through Him, held together in Him,

reconciled to Him, origin, sustaining.

Restoration.

That is so powerful and can kind of start messing with your head if you really

think about it and meditate on that.

Then he lands the phrase that defines the letter, "Christ

in you, the hope of glory."

The mystery hidden for ages is now revealed, and the shock is

not just that God has a plan, it is where he chose to dwell.

Not in a temple, not in angelic hierarchies, in Gentile believers

in a small Turkish city.

Chapter two goes into your debt was not managed or reduced.

It was publicly and permanently canceled, nailed to the cross.

The rulers and authorities were disarmed and put to open shame.

The cross was not defeat.

It was a victory parade.

Then Paul names the pressure points directly.

Food laws, festivals, new moons, Sabbaths, angel worship, asceticism,

and he calls them shadows.

Not bad, not meaningless, but shadows of something real that has now arrived.

"These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance

belongs to Christ," Paul says.

Why go back to the outline when the person has walked into the room?

A man in chains writing to a church he has never visited, telling them they

do not need to add a single thing.

Paul hands this letter to Tychicus, but Tychicus is not traveling alone

let's move to the next letter.

The letter that goes with Colossians.

It travels with it.

Philemon, the shortest letter, biggest test.

Philemon, just one page.

Nice easy read.

Some of us probably have skimmed it quickly and go, "Yeah, that sounds

good. All right," and we kept moving on.

25 verses.

It is possibly, though, the most dangerous letter Paul ever wrote, the one that

had possibly the most implications.

Onesimus was a slave who ran away from Philemon, a believer in Colossae.

Somehow Onesimus ended up in Rome and encountered Paul in custody.

Paul led Onesimus to faith, and now Paul is sending him back to Philemon.

Not alone.

Onesimus walks alongside Tychicus, the same messenger carrying the

letter to the Colossian church.

They arrive together.

The church gathers in Philemon's living room.

Tychicus reads Colossians aloud.

That was the standard practice.

The room hears Paul say, "Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and

uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all."

And standing right there in the room is Onesimus.

and Philemon is about to open a personal letter that asks him to

receive his former slave back, not as property, as a beloved brother.

Paul does not issue a command.

He appeals to love.

He says, "I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart."

He offers to pay whatever Onesimus owes.

He reminds Philemon that Philemon owes Paul his own life, his conversion.

And then he writes the line that changes everything.

"No longer as a bondservant, but more than a bondservant, as a beloved

brother." The theology of Colossians 3 that we just looked at was about to be

tested in real time with this letter between two real people in that room.

Now- Gonna add this in here.

One thing that we don't know is that was a personal letter addressed to

Philemon, but tradition had letters read out loud in front of the group.

I'm just thinking through this going, "Hmm, do you think Philemon

read it by himself first?" Would they have allowed that to happen or

would they have said, "This is going to be read in front of everyone"?

Tradition also says that those that owned slaves rarely owned one.

Most of them owned multiple slaves.

So I am picturing this room with these letters being read,

Colossians and then Philemon.

That's why it's important to read in context, so reading them back to back is

powerful because I believe the original audience heard those letters back to back.

And in my mind, I'm saying that there were slaves, not Onesimus, there were

other slaves in the room hearing it.

Now, I don't know what was going through their minds.

I don't know what was going through Philemon's mind.

I don't know what was going through Onesimus' mind.

I mean, he had just walked and traveled probably for a few weeks

with Tychicus, and I don't know if he was anxious or scared or fearful.

But he was carrying a letter back to his slave owner that he

had abandoned and ran away from.

So man, it's powerful to think about all of that that was going on.

Under Roman law, a runaway slave could be beaten, branded, or killed.

Philemon had every legal right to do that.

Paul is asking him to surrender every legal right, give it up for

the sake of a better legal right, the kingdom of God's principles.

That is the gospel, not a theory.

A room, a slave, an owner, a letter, and a community watching, 'cause Philemon

was probably a leader in that group.

That community, again, possibly other slaves, possibly others just watching

to see if the words on the page would hold when they met the real world.

That is why the letters travel together.

Ephesians says there is one body, one new humanity.

Colossians says Christ is all in all, slave and free.

Philemon says prove it right now in front of everyone.

and then there's one more letter that we have that is really cool

to kind of throw in this mix.

Philippians is the letter that we hear about joy, and we believe, we feel

confident that Paul wrote it while he was imprisoned, chained up to a guard.

So let's look at kind of this personal letter that was also

written during that time.

Joy from chains.

Citizenship.

Philippians is the letter Paul writes to his favorite church, and it is

the most joyful letter in the New Testament, written by a man who possibly

could be executed in the near future.

And so the church in Philippi was a Roman colony, let's kind of look at

context here, in northern Greece.

Retired soldiers on imperial land grants in, kind of inhabited the area.

Civic li- civic life ran on loyalty oaths to Caesar.

The title Soter, savior, belonged to the emperor.

The confession Kurios Caesar, Caesar is Lord, was not optional.

It was actually civic duty.

This was the only church that financially partnered with Paul from the beginning.

They sent him money when no one else would.

Paul loves this church, and they know it.

They're his favorites.

Chapter two contains what scholars believe is an early

hymn the community already knew.

Though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a

thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a

servant, being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form.

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

That is the powerful message that that hymn says in chapter two.

Therefore, God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name above every

name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue

confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Now, that last line draws from Isaiah forty-five twenty-three,

where Yahweh says this about himself.

Alone, Paul puts Jesus in Yahweh's seat.

And Kurios I sukritos directly challenges that Kairus Caesar.

In a Roman colony, that was not theology.

It was treason to bow your knee to someone else.

Paul introduces the hymn with, "Have this mind among yourselves."

The way up is down.

Chapter three, Paul lists his old credentials.

He goes through this from time to time.

Circumcised on the eighth day, tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew of Hebrews, Pharisee, as

to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

He had everything the old system valued, every marker, and he calls it skubala.

The Greek is stronger than rubbish.

Rubbish is the word we use, but that Greek word, I think, is stronger than that.

It's closer to dung or a word that I will not repeat, but profanity

that some people might use.

The most credentialized Jew in the room renounced every credential.

Our citizenship is in heaven.

The Greek word there, polituma.

In Philippi, Roman citizenship was the most valuable thing a person could hold.

Paul says their real polituma is elsewhere.

Their real soter, savior, is not on the Palatine Hill in Rome.

Then the final line of the letter reveals something extraordinary.

All the saints greet you especially those of Caesar's household.

Let's think about this here.

He's probably not saying the imperial family.

He's talking about the vast network of slaves, freedmen, and administrators who

ran the Roman machine from the inside.

It seems as if the gospel had gotten into the palace.

Picture being a guard, that you probably have a, an assignment of sitting there

with Paul for four, eight, maybe longer hours, and you listen to and you hear

him speak and share this message to the visitors that are coming and going.

There's no doubt that they were touched, and many of them probably

went back and began sharing the gospel.

The empire chained Paul to its soldiers, and now people inside

Caesar's own network believed.

The system meant to contain the message, it became the delivery mechanism.

Joy.

Let's talk about joy.

16 times in four chapters from a man in chains.

Rejoice in the Lord always.

Again, I will say rejoice.

Not optimism, not a positive mental attitude, a citizenship

no empire can revoke.

Joy

All right, now let's look at how all four of those letters kind of fit together.

There were four letters, four audiences, four situations, but one message.

Ephesians says you're one body.

The wall is down.

There is no insider and outsider anymore.

Colossians says Christ is the substance.

Everything else, the dietary codes, the festivals, the hierarchies, the

angel worship, those were shadows.

The real thing has arrived.

Stop studying the menu.

Philemon says prove it right now in this room between these two people.

Philippians says the way up is down, your citizenship is changed,

and joy is possible even in chains.

When you read them scattered across your Bible or one and then wait

and read the other, they feel like separate theological essays.

When you read them in order from the same chain or thread in the

same season, you hear one man saying the same thing four ways.

Christ is enough.

The walls are down.

Prove it.

And none of it was written from comfort.

Every word came from a man who survived a mob, a death plot, a shipwreck,

and was chained to a Roman guard.

That is why it holds.

Now, let's look at what it meant then.

A prisoner redefined everything.

Paul gave all his credentials, but here he was, a prisoner.

Identity, allegiance, status, ownership, citizenship, all of that falls into that.

These were operating instructions for communities trying to live

as one body inside a system that sorted people by rank.

Ephesian 5 became a marriage counseling passage.

This is kind of what we've done.

These are some modern misreads that we've taken and sort of added to these.

I'm not saying that's not good, but unless we really keep that

foundation of what it was for We might be missing the mark on that.

Ephesians 5, we've seen it.

That's become a marriage counseling passage.

13 has really become a motivational poster.

The armor of God became a Sunday school craft project.

And Philemon, where theology gets tested between two real people, barely gets

noticed at all because it's so short.

Now, what does it still mean for us?

You know, we could look at some things that maybe we've taken it out of context,

but let's look at how we can apply it.

Every division we rebuild is a wall that Paul said Christ already demolished.

Every Jesus plus requirement, and there are massive amounts of those

in our modern church culture, every one of those requirements is a shadow

being treated like the real thing.

And your deepest allegiance is not to a nation or a party or a political

system or any of those things.

It's to a kingdom that does not need political power to advance.

All right, there were four letters.

All of them fit together so well, all written from someone in prison.

I keep coming back to the scene in that living room, though, that

ties to me all of that together, and in many ways, the gospel.

Tychicus finishes reading Colossians.

The room has just heard Paul say Christ is all in all, slave and free.

Onesimus is standing right there, and Philemon has a letter in his

hand that is about to ask him to live out every word that he just heard.

That is what the gospel looks like.

Not a theory, a room.

Two people, community watching, and a letter from a man in chains who believed

the kingdom was real enough to test.

2,000 years later Nero's throne is gone, doesn't even exist.

The temple is just a foundation wall.

Rome is really just a tourist destination now, and someone is still reading and

talking about those letters that Paul wrote while he was chained and in

prison in Rome in AD 60, 61, maybe 62.

The substance remains.

Paul was released probably around AD 62.

He walked free, he traveled again, and then he began training

the next generation of leaders.

Then he was arrested again.

In the next episode, we're gonna go back to prison again, but this

time it's a little bit different.

Different type prison.

There were no coworkers around.

We don't believe he was chained to a guard.

D- Demas has deserted him.

The persecution has gone from political inconvenience to systematic execution.

And from what we believe is a Roman dungeon, Paul writes his final letter.

One last charge to Timothy.

One last list of names.

One last request.

"Bring my cloak. Bring the books. Come before winter." That

is Paul from prison, part two.

We'll get to that next episode.

And if you've read these letters before, this is what I ask you to do, especially

these four that we talked about.

Read them again soon, back to back to back, just like we've talked

about them here with this context, in order, Ephesians, Colossians,

Philemon, and Philippians.

But this time, remember what we've talked about here.

Remember what you know now.

These are not theological essays written from the library meant to be standalone.

I believe they are connected, and they are the heart of the gospel,

written by a man chained to a Roman guard, and the ink was still wet.

Some people say his wrist might have been chained.

I'm picturing him either trying to write or he could have had someone

writing for him as he dictated.

Read them knowing that, and they will not sound the same.

Go get this reading plan, k2m.foundation/nt90.

All that I've shared here came from reading, in context, in order, this plan

that you have the opportunity to get.

Go get it.

Start whenever, wherever you want, but try to go in order.

Try to do it somewhat quickly so these are compressed.

And if what you were taught doesn't match what you read, trust the text.

This is Tim Winders.

Keep digging, keep studying.

See you in the next episode.