and infographics

The Old Testament Laws, Why read them, How to understand them, and Apply them today

2023-02-18 by bible805

When most people get into the books of Old Testament Laws, especially in Leviticus and Numbers, with all the odd and obscure laws and regulations, they bail out.

And why shouldn’t they?

What do these laws and regulations have to do with us today?

We will answer all these questions and more in this lesson as we consider the importance of the messages in them and deal honestly with the reality that anything that is worth learning often involves challenging times to do that well.

We will then look at the topic of Typology and how the foreshadowing of lessons in the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New Testament. Plus you will get a clear explanation of the confusion between “type” and “antitype” which will help you understand this vital topic.

Below are links to a PDF of a handout that includes, notes, questions, the chart of God’s view of time, and a frameable image of Micah 6:8, the podcast, and a video of the lesson.

[Read more…]

The Time Between the Testaments, and what to do when God seems silent

2022-09-30 by bible805

Time Between the Testaments in the Bible — The New Testament opens with a very different world than we left in the Old Testament and this lesson will tell you all about it.

In the previous lesson in our series on How We Got Our Bibles, we looked at the Apocrypha, the series of books written between the Old and New Testaments and the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible done at that time.

As interesting as the writing of these two collections are (and they are fascinating—so be sure to check out the lesson on them) much more was going on at this time in between the Testaments and if we aren’t aware of it, it can be a rather jarring when we finish reading the Old Testament and jump into an entirely different world in the New Testament where Judea is now controlled by Rome politically and has the new religious groups—the Sadducees and the Pharisees.

How all these changes happened and who these new religious leaders will be covered in this lesson.

In addition, this time is often referred to as “The Silent Years” and we’ll look at why that description isn’t entirely accurate along with advice for what we need to do when it seems that God is silent in our lives.

This is the third lesson in our series on How We Got our Bibles and the next lesson is on How We Got the New Testament.

Click on the images below to download PDFs of the NOTES, charts, and the eBook talked about in this lesson

Following is a transcript of the lesson.

[Read more…]

How We Got the Apocrypha and its relationship to the Septuagint

2022-09-23 by bible805

Lesson on The Apocrypha — This lesson is quite complex, but worth the time to understand how the Apocrypha and the Septuagint are related.

Many people are familiar with the books that are placed in some Bibles between the Old Testament and the New Testament but what are they and are they important for us to read to learn about God and to grow in our Christian lives?

The best way to answer those questions correctly is to look at the history of when and how they were written and how they relate to the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament that was the Bible Jesus and Paul used and quoted from. If we didn’t have the Septuagint, we most likely would not have the Apocrypha in Bibles today as it was primarily their inclusion with the Septuagint that Jerome used to translate the Bible into the Latin Vulgate that they were considered part of the Old Testament scriptures.

Evaluated on their own, they were never included in the Old Testament canon.

In addition to false teachings in them including prayers for the dead and alms as contributing to salvation, you’ll see from this lesson how on the basis of their manuscript history alone, they have no place in the canonical Old Testament.

[Read more…]

How We Got the Old Testament, and why we can trust it as the Word of God

2022-09-18 by bible805

The Old Testament makes up a large section of our Bibles, but though many people are familiar with the first part of it with the stories of Creation and the early characters in Biblical history, many people stop there.

Unfortunately also is the idea many people have of the Old Testament is that it is a collection of ancient stories and fables and not something based on true history that can be objectively verified. This idea is unfortunate because nothing could be further from the truth!

The Old Testament can be proven to be historically valid and an essential foundation for the Christian faith. This lesson will demonstrate how it was put together and the sources for it including both oral history (including such interesting facts including that Adam was still alive when Noah’s grandfather was alive—and you think your grandpa has great stories to tell!) and written texts, plus the archeological basis for it that includes a fascinating overview of Ur of the Chaldees, the birthplace of Abraham. You’ll have a very different view of what Abraham was called out of and how that influenced his life after this lesson.

This lesson is part of a series on How We Got Our Bibles. It is not only a fascinating study, filled with images, archeological discoveries and ancient stories, but included are extensive charts, maps, and notes that will give you confidence in your Bibles—that you can trust them to contain the Words of God essential for our eternal salvation and instruction on how to live lives that are pleasing to God today.

Below are the notes, charts, podcast, and video on this lesson:

Chart of Long Lives of Old Testament Characters — Click on the chart to download a copy of it.

Comments on Incorrect Dating of Old Testament Prophets — Click on the image for a download of it.

Long lives of Old Testament characters Incorrect Dating of OT Prophets, et al

[Read more…]

The Bible, Novel or Short Story and why it matters tremendously, now and forever

2022-09-17 by bible805

To convince you that the Bible is indeed the very words of God given to us for our eternal salvation and how to live our earthly lives, is the purpose of this lesson. We begin by talking about the importance of our presuppositions when we approach the Bible and then we go into these four areas:

#1 Evidence for God as the One Author of the entire book, emphasizing his view outside of time

#2 The unity of the plot of the entire book follows the traditional structure of a novel of Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Denouement

#3 The use of Progressive Revelation in the entire book

#4 The voice of the One Author in the entire book

This lesson is a little longer and more complex than some, but the issues discussed in it are tremendously important, worth your time, and foundational to your understanding of the Bible and your confidence that God is the ONE author of it.

When you see the Bible as one book by one author, our Sovereign God, it can make a tremendous difference not only in how you read it but in many ways and more importantly how you respond to it.

In contrast to seeing the Bible as one book by one author, if we believe the Bible is the creation of human authors, what I call the “short story view of the Bible,” though we feel it might have some inspiring and morally valid advice, it is our choice as a fellow human to pick and choose what we believe or obey.

If on the other hand, we truly believe the Bible is written by God Himself, our Creator and the One to whom we will one day give account, in what I refer to as the “Novel view of the Bible” above all else we should work to understand and obey it.

This lesson will give you the confidence to do that.

To access the lesson: all the links here and content here are free.

In addition, a paid version of the lesson is available for $4.99; $36 for a yearly subscription to all the lessons. It was designed for you to share in small groups, Sunday School classes, Bible classes, Home Schooling, and your personal study. The paid version is available on the Bible805 Academy and includes an ad-free, legal for you to show 1080p video, the PowerPoint file, reproducible files of Notes, Questions, PR description, images to share, and the audio file. It is available at this link: https://payhip.com/b/Ryipz

Below are links to the podcast, video, and charts talked about in the lesson and the notes are below them.

[Read more…]