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

from Yvon Prehn to help you know, trust, and apply the Bible

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

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Rich Christians in an Age of HungerRon 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

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The Incredible Implications of God's View of TimeThough 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…]

The dangers of predicting when Jesus will return

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One thing we know for certain is that Jesus is coming back. Just as we anticipate the arrival of a dearly-loved family member who has been away and is coming home, we eagerly look forward to His return and so it is only natural that we want to know when it will take place.

That desire however can take an unfortunate turn if we try to set a date.

As has always been throughout human history since Jesus left and promised His return, when especially traumatic world-wide events take place there is renewed interest in His return. That is all well and good in that anything that causes us to focus on Jesus and living for Him is a good thing.

However, it can become unhealthy for our spiritual growth and witness if we focus on “signs” or date setting and not on our calling here and now for our Lord. This morning read one of the best summaries of the dangers of this in an article by Clarence L. Hayes, Jr., “Why It’s Dangerous to Guess Rapture Predictions.” I highly recommend you read the entire article, available HERE.

In summary, following are his four cautions and conclusion about trying to predict the rapture:

[Read more…]

Is the world about to end? a special lesson on our currently challenging times

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Is the world about to endThe war in Ukraine and the tragedy of the suffering and devastation that threatens to spill into more of the world has many of us concerned, worried and fearful.

People are wondering if it means WW3 or even the end of the world.

What should we do?

This is a special podcast, an interruption in our reading through the Bible commentary, because I feel it is needed.

I want to give you some spiritual encouragement and practical advice from God’s Word and from
C. S. Lewis’ essay, “The World’s Last Night.”

Listen or watch and be encouraged. Our God is in control; He is a good God; and He has work for us to do as long as we remain here.

Below is the podcast, video, and notes on the topic.

[Read more…]

Jesus response to betrayal and death prompts us to ask: How do we respond to challenges and disasters?

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Jesus cares for us
We love this picture of Jesus carrying a sheep because it reminds us of the reality that he will love, protect, and carry us forever.

In our podcast on How to Love Jesus, we look at his response to the final hours of his earthly life. Even though betrayal by friends, a brutal beating, and a horrible death awaited him, his focus was not on himself. He begins his final hour with his disciples by washing their feet and he will end it by praying for them. In between, he comforts them, promises them the help of the Holy Spirit, and reminds them he is preparing an eternal home for them. He commands them to love each other and reminds them that loving him is expressed in keeping his commands. He reviews, reminds, encourages this group of disciples and friends even though he knows they will soon all run from him in fear for their lives.

We are not facing what Jesus and the disciples did, but we have our own disasters

In addition to the interpersonal challenges of life, many would say that the potential for global disasters—war, climate catastrophe, pandemics, civil unrest is growing. How will we respond?

For the larger, news-worthy disasters, there is one group that not only knows how they will respond but is planning to profit massively in the process. How they do that—not how will they do it, but how they do it now because their services are already in great demand, was detailed in an article in the New York Times, “Climate Chaos is Coming and the Pinkertons are Ready”.

Read the article if you don’t get easily frightened and I won’t detail it here, but in brief, Pinkerton is the legendary group who provided what amounted to a private army for those wealthy enough to pay for it in the frontier days, through early labor strikes, to recently providing protection and escape for corporate clients from natural disasters such as the recent hurricane in Puerto Rico.

Pinkerton believes chaos in our present world will only increase and they are training and planning to profit from it. They believe and know from experience that very wealthy corporate clients do and will pay handsomely for their services.

I read the article with a mixture of horror and fascination. Here was a company intentionally writing scripts for scenes out of science fiction where the world falls apart and only the super wealthy with their private armies are saved from the chaos. As I was thinking about that, I remembered the verse:

“But what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? (Mark 8:36)” [Read more…]