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Intro To Genesis and Job and BIG Questions

January 5, 2019 by Yvon Prehn

How did we get here?
Is God real and what is He like?
What messed things up?
Who is Satan and what power does he have?
Why do innocent people suffer? Not just Job, all Genesis characters. Why me?
What does God want from us?

That’s what we are going to start to cover in this series, but before that in the podcast below we are going to go over the presuppositions that undergird the teaching for this podcast.

Because our presuppositions determine our conclusions—you should know mine.

We’ll also look at time and eternity, how God can see the beginning from the end, look at an interesting chart of how long the Patriarchs lived and much more.

Here is the chart of the long lives of Bible Characters and how oral history could have been transmitted

January Theme: Genesis and Job: The Big Questions and the Foundation for Everything!

January 4, 2019 by Yvon Prehn

In these two books, we not only find the answers to the questions of why we are here and why there is suffering, but these books lay the foundation for the major themes of the rest of the Bible. Genesis is quoted over 200 times in the New Testament and understanding this book, its grounding in history, and its major themes will help you understand the rest of the Bible better.

Join us on Sunday morning at 10:30 in the Orchard Community Church Library, Ventura, CA or anytime through our PODCAST for a life-changing journey!

CLICK HERE if you need to download a schedule for reading or listening to the Bible.

This series will start January 6 and continue every Sunday. Podcasts and notes will be available on this site by Sunday afternoon.

The Six Benefits of reading (or listening to) the Bible in Chronological order, and probably why you haven’t done it

January 1, 2019 by Yvon Prehn

Editor’s Update: A few weeks into this project and I realized I needed to clarify that you don’t have to start this project at the first of the year—you can begin or jump in anytime, so I decided to add this note—following is how the post originally started:

Along with losing weight, getting more done, simplifying your life and other commendable goals, is reading through the Bible one of your resolutions for the year?

If so, I’d like to share a way for you to do it that will change your life more significantly than any diet will!

Hi, I’m Yvon Prehn and Welcome to Bible 805!

Today we’re going t to talk about…..

The Six Benefits of reading (or listening to) the Bible in Chronological order, and probably why you haven’t done it

There are many ways to read through the Bible each year—but there is one that is by far the BEST way to do it (and I’ll be going into the reasons why it’s best shortly) and that is to read through the Bible in Chronological order. That means to read the books (or parts in some cases) in the order they happened, not the order you find them in the Bible.

Don’t worry about figuring that order out—I’ve got a schedule you can download to do it and I’ll be doing podcasts in the coming year to guide you through it. (starting Jan. 6 for 2019)

But for now, since reading through the Bible in Chronological order is a somewhat daunting task, it’s worth asking why do it? To answer, ask yourself, why read anything, watch any movie, learn any new information in a certain order?Continue Reading

Truth and History Series: How we got our Bible and why we can trust it

December 30, 2018 by Yvon Prehn

Truth & History, Lesson 1 what is truth — This series of podcasts is an important foundation for continuing podcasts about the Bible as it shows how we can trust it based on historical truth.

I did this series as a start to the podcast and as a foundation for the Bible 805. In it, we look at how we determine truth in a world where the term no longer has a firm foundation. But truth is essential for us to know how to live today and for our eternal future.

I believe the Christian Bible is a source of truth, but I didn’t want you to believe that just because it’s my opinion. Based on the results of many years of spiritual study and searching, I’m sharing what I learned. I’m not a professional theologian or historian (though I’ve had graduate training and studied widely in both areas), but a fellow traveler and pilgrim, a writer and teacher for Jesus who wants to share what I think are some exciting realities about why we can trust the Bible.

I also wanted to give you this background before we start the year’s study of reading through the Bible in Chronological order. It isn’t essential that you listen to these before we start, but I do recommend it (if not before, at some time) because I think when you see how the Bible is based on objective truth, verified by secular history, you’ll be motivated to read the whole book.Continue Reading

Truth and History, Lesson Eight: How we got our English Bible, plus comments on modern translations

December 30, 2018 by Yvon Prehn

Church Councils formalized the Canon of the 66 books of scripture but the CANON had been determined by God and accepted by the people of God long before Councils.

But just because the canon was decided that didn’t mean ordinary people could read it. The Primary Bible for centuries was Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, but most people couldn’t read and even if they did, fewer and fewer spoke Latin, the language of the Vulgate. In addition, because they were hand-copied, books very expensive to reproduce and the few that were copied were primarily in monasteries.

But with increased literacy, the printing press, economic growth, some incredibly brave people, and the Reformation everything changed and that’s what this podcast is about.

Additional materials, quotes of early plus a chart of the various translations are below:

Truth and History, Lesson Six: The New Testament and Historical Anchors, plus the Gnostic Gospels

December 30, 2018 by Yvon Prehn

The New Testament is a reliable historical record of Jesus and the early Christian church.

For purposes of our time and study, we will focus primarily on what these documents tell us about Jesus—we don’t have time to do more and honestly, if what they tell us about Jesus can’t be trusted, the rest really doesn’t matter.

To do that we will first establish the historical reliability of New Testament documents, then we ’ll look at New Testament non-canonical writings, particularly the Gnostic “gospels.” These documents are much more dangerous than OT Apocrypha which was not inspired scripture, but still talked about the same God—these documents present a distorted image of the Jesus of history, far from the real Jesus who is the only Savior.

Below is more material than in the other podcasts–I have a complete PowerPoint lesson and below it the PDFs of the Gnostic Gospels. My long-term goal is to create more complete teaching materials—join me in praying it will be possible.Continue Reading

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