Bible podcasts, videos, blogs, printables, and more to help you know, trust, and apply the Bible.

Read the Bible in Chronological Order! Motivation, how to, and helps to get the most out of it!

2022-12-14 by bible805

Read the Bible in Chronological Order--lesson and downloadable schedules — If you’d like to just immediately jump to the schedules to read the Bible in Chronological Order, just click on the image.

Where do we go for truth today? For a connection with reality in living our day-to-day lives and for our eternal salvation?

We certainly won’t get it from the media or the news or from asking one of the new AI chatbots (artificial intelligence online sources that are upending content creation on the web and in business). The only trustworthy place to find the truth is in God’s Word.

The Old Testament reminds us:

The very essence of your words is truth; all your just regulations will stand forever. Ps. 119:160, NLT

When Jesus prayed for his followers just before His crucifixion, he talked with the Father about the importance of His Word:

I gave them your word; The godless world hated them because of it, Because they didn’t join the world’s ways, Just as I didn’t join the world’s ways. I’m not asking that you take them out of the world But that you guard them from the Evil One. They are no more defined by the world Than I am defined by the world. Make them holy—consecrated—with the truth; Your word is consecrating truth. John 17:16,17 MSG

It is essential to get God’s Word into our lives and reading the Bible, all the way through, cover to cover, in Chronological Order is the best way to do it. From helping people do this in a variety of settings for many years, and in my personal experience, I’ve found reading the Bible in Chronological Order is one of the most life-changing things you can do. It will strengthen your faith and help you grow as a disciple of Jesus.

This lesson is an overview of the reasons why people don’t read the Bible in chronological order, the benefits of reading it in chronological order, and how to get the most out of it.

Below is a downloadable copy of the eBook collection of schedules and journal pages, and below that the podcast and video of the lesson.

PLEASE pass on and share this lesson with others and plan to follow along with the lessons in the coming year as we go through the Bible in Chronological Order.

CLICK HERE to sign up for the newsletter, so you won’t miss out on any of them.

[Read more…]

PR for Person to a People, and the balance between God’s Sovereignty and Personal Responsibility

2023-01-28 by bible805

With this week’s lesson, we move from studying one person’s life, Abraham, to how God transforms his people into the nation of Israel, who God will use as His representatives on earth, the ones who will write His Word, demonstrate His worship, and eventually be the family that bears the Savior of the world, Jesus.

The Patriarchs of this family, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, along with Joseph had a huge responsibility and as we look at their lives it is a good opportunity to consider questions about what did God Sovereignly determine in their lives and what were they responsible for.

The lesson goes over both topics. Below is a handout that has the notes, the chart of the 12 Tribes, and questions that go with the lesson, plus the podcast and video.

[Read more…]

Abraham, Hero of the faith, How God chooses and crafts his people

2023-01-20 by bible805

In Genesis, with the life of Abraham, we have a big shift, where God moves from working with all of humanity to a focus on ONE man, who will become the founder of the Jewish nation. Ultimately three major religions in our world today claim him as their founder: the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religions. As such, he is held in great veneration by all and in Christianity referred to as one of the first “heroes of the faith.”

And though we do want to honor him, we also need to clarify that description of him and here is why—In reality, there is only ONE true hero of the faith throughout the Bible

And it isn’t any human.

The only true hero of the faith in the Bible is our Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

It is so important that we understand this so that our admiration and praise is in the right place—directed to our God and not inappropriately to any human.

How this worked out in Abraham’s life and its application to us is what our lesson today is about.

Below is a copy of the notes, questions, and a map of the key locations in Abraham’s life plus links to the podcast, video, and audiogram, the text and sound only goof for viewing on your phone:

[Read more…]

A Bible class member wondered why is the story of Abraham, a man who traded his wife for wealth and protection considered a great man in the Bible?—here’s the answer

2023-01-20 by bible805

Abraham sending Hagar away — Abraham was far from perfect in his relationships with the women in his life, especially when seen from contemporary eyes. But reading how God called, saved, and used him can give each of us with our many faults, hope.

Before I share these lessons with you online I teach them to an adult Bible class at my church. Some of the class members are relatively new to following Jesus and have never read through the Bible before. I encourage questions as I teach, and we have discussion following the presentation. I’ve found their questions and comments absolutely invaluable as they help me see things in a new light.

For those of us who have read the Bible many times and with the rose-colored glasses of church interpretations, we can forget how shocking some of the behavior is of the so-called “heroes of the faith.”

I had already planned on discussing this prior to her comments, but I wanted to emphasize in sharing the lesson with all of you that the key teaching I pray people get out of this lesson is that there are NO human heroes in the Bible.

There is only ONE true hero of the faith, and that isn’t a human. The true hero of our faith is our Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

In this lesson (Lesson #3 in Through the Bible) I use the life of Abraham to illustrate the balance of grace on God’s part in that we did not earn or deserve anything that calls us into the faith and yet our responsibility to take action based on that grace.

[Read more…]

What about people who have never heard of Jesus? Why do innocent people suffer?How can we help people who are suffering? Week Two of Thru the Bible, Genesis & Job

2023-01-14 by bible805

One of the great answers we discovered the first video of this series is the assurance that Life after death is a great promise to those who believe in Jesus. Yet that assurance brings up another question that we will answer in this lesson which is:

“What about those who have never heard of Jesus?”

We have two more questions in this series, “Why do innocent people suffer?”

And along with that one the final question, “How can we comfort those (including ourselves) who suffer?”

We will look in depth at answers to these questions in this lesson.

Below is a PDF of the Notes and Questions, plus the podcast and video and below the video with the podcast is the audiogram, a new version of the lesson.

[Read more…]

A new format to share the content of Bible805—Audiograms of the Bible805 Podcast—Lesson #1 and how I did it

2023-01-10 by bible805

Audiogram image of Genesis and Job, part one — This is a new format for the lessons from Bible805 – the audiogram, a text-only video of the content of lessons.

I am deeply convinced that going through the Bible in Chronological order in whatever media format you choose to do it (read, listen to, watch a video) will help disciples of Jesus grow in spiritual maturity and to help as many as possible do that, I finally figured out a way to put the weekly lessons as we go through the Bible into a new format—the audiogram—which is a video of the words of an audio file.

I did this because many current studies show people want to consume content in video format, but a huge percentage of the people who do that have the sound turned off, which is part of the reason for the increase in popularity of closed captions. I understand that as I do that frequently myself.

Also, somehow clicking on YouTube is so easy that I’ve found myself doing that with some podcasts I like and being able to see the words helps when I may not hear something correctly. Though I like doing that, I don’t think looking at someone reading into a microphone is especially helpful and so instead of that, for my audiograms you will get the content only against the Bible805 logo image.

Here is the first lesson I put into this format. Below the video is an explanation of how I did it in case you are interested.

The process of making an audiogram

The process to make an audiogram isn’t difficult, once you figure out the software you want to use, but it is time-consuming and takes a specialized program to do it. [Read more…]