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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.

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Focus on the things that matter and not “the multitude of trifling things”

2022-11-08 by bible805

Though this quote comes from a secular, self-help site, it is an incredibly important truth to keep in mind as we all try to grow in our Christian discipleship. A.W. Tozer expressed a similar thought in this way:

The wise man will simplify his life by going to the center of it. He will look well to the foundations and, having done that, he will not worry about the rest.

Life, as we know it in our painfully intricate civilization, can be deadly unless we learn to distinguish the things that matter from those that do not. It is never the major things that destroy us, but invariably the multitude of trifling things which are mistakenly thought to be of major importance. These are so many that, unless we get out from under them, they will crush us body and soul….

Every believer as well as every minister of Christ must decide whether he will put his emphasis upon the majors or the minors. He must decide whether he will stay by the sober truths which constitute the beating heart of the Scriptures or turn his attention to those marginal doctrines which always bring division and which, at their best, could not help us much on our way to the Celestial City. A.W. Tozer The Next Chapter After the Last, 11,14.

To repeat his key phrase: It is never the major things that destroy us, but invariably the multitude of trifling things which are mistakenly thought to be of major importance.

Oh, it is so important that we learn to distinguish between the two!

The best way to do that is to spend time in God’s Word, looking at what are His priorities for life and how we should be living. Then, we need to take some time to consider, journal, whatever we need to do to make certain our priorities, how we spend our time and money line up with His.

If we need to make changes, we must do that so we are not destroyed by the “multitude of trifling things which are mistakenly thought to be of major importance.”

Halloween as a time for evangelism—please consider it with the Apostle Paul as our inspiration

2022-10-06 by bible805

Halloween as outreach — We don’t normally think about it in this way but Halloween can be an incredible time for evangelism as people are thinking about death and we KNOW the one who conquered death–Jesus!

When the Apostle Paul went to Athens it says he was “very distressed” (Acts 17:16) at the pagan idols he found in the city. That’s not surprising. What is surprising is that a few days later he is asked to speak before their council and when he does, here is how the Bible describes it:

Paul, standing before the council, addressed them as follows: “Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious in every way,for as I was walking along I saw your many shrines. And one of your altars had this inscription on it: ‘To an Unknown God.’ This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about. (Acts 17:21-23)

Instead of berating them for what he knew was evil, he took their interest in what they didn’t know, an “Unknown God,” and used it as a bridge to tell them about Jesus.

I think we can use Halloween in the same way.

Yes, there is much that is terrible and evil about it and it seems to get darker and darker in how people are celebrating it yet, think about it—it is also a time when people are obsessed with the afterlife, death, the spirit world and all sorts of related things.

As Christians, we know the one person in all of human history who died and who came back from death. He didn’t do it to scare us or demonstrate evil powers, Jesus did it to secure the salvation he freely offers us.

For years I’ve used Halloween as a primary evangelism time in several ways. On my own, I like to go to the Halloween Superstores and spread gospel tracts around in various places (the pumpkins work well). They are also great to give out along with Halloween treats.

Through my ministry of Effective Church Communications, I’ve created additional challenges and resources

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Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger—I’d forgotten the impact of this book

2022-07-30 by bible805

Ron Sider, author of Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger died this week.

In reading about his death, I was reminded of the impact his book had on me when I read it in the ’70s and how I have become a coward in sharing what I believe in this area. The news of his death was a timely challenge to me because of a situation that happened recently at a church event.

What happened is that I found myself reacting strongly (silently) to a comment about someone who had significant money spending it on themselves.

“They made the money, they deserve to do whatever they want,” was the comment of the person seated next to me. Though as I said, I had a strong emotional reaction to what she said, I changed the subject and started babbling about something else.

I thought about it later and realized it was an episode of moral cowardice where I didn’t have the energy to say what I was really thinking and to say it calmly and discuss it thoughtfully. [Read more…]

The Incredible Implications of God’s View of Time

2022-06-26 by bible805

Though it sounds complex, the topic of this lesson has important and practical implications for how you live day-to-day.

Let me explain—as this lesson shows, God’s view of time, seeing and knowing all that is past, present, and future is what enables us to understand prophecy and trust that what He promised in the past He will fulfill in the future just as He made promises in the past in the Old Testament that He fulfilled in the New Testament.

Though that is comforting, it also brings up the question of if God determined the major events of Biblical history, does He predetermine my every action? If that’s so, am a responsible for them, or just a puppet?

This lesson answers those questions–so listen or watch to find out the answers!

Below is the podcast, video, notes, and a link to the chart, and a short video explaining God’s view of time talked about in this lesson. [Read more…]