from Yvon Prehn to help you know, trust, and apply the Bible
A struggle for most of us who follow Jesus is that we know we should be better than we are. We know God called us to live lives that reflect our Savior, but far too often our lives reflect our world instead.
As we learn in reading Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, this struggle is nothing new. We can grow and become all God wants us to be, and these books and this lesson about them will help us do that. [Read more…]
As we learned in our previous lesson on Acts and Hebrews, when Paul first began preaching this new message of salvation in Jesus, he began by showing how Jesus was the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.
As he moves further away from Jerusalem and begins to preach to people who aren’t as familiar with the Bible, he runs into both new questions and new challenges.
Many of these are specific to the particular location he writes to and these letters to the Thessalonians are a good example of this as he confronts a new source of persecution that is political, not simply a religious disagreement. [Read more…]
Typology, the teaching that the Old Testament prefigured events in the New Testament is an important concept to understand as you read your Bible. It’s important because when we see how God has worked out the same plan for salvation history over thousands of years it can give us hope and confidence in our faith and trust in the future God has prepared for us. He did that by showing a type (a preview) of an important truth in the past, that was later fulfilled in reality in the future.
For example, one of the most well-known examples of typology is that in the Old Testament, they sacrificed lambs because of people’s sins. But offering them only covered up their sin until Jesus came to be the final sacrifice and eternally took away our sins. The video that follows will help explain this in more detail.
Hebrews has a reputation for being a difficult book to understand and it is if you simply pull it out of context and without at least some knowledge of the Old Testament that it is based on, it is difficult to figure out what it is talking about.
This is sad because Hebrews was intended to be a book of explanation—of how Jesus fulfilled all that was pictured in the Old Testament, how His life was the reality of what was promised before. [Read more…]
Following are two illustrations of the Trinity that you have permission to download and share.
The first is an explanation from the church father, Tertullian, who coined the word, “Trinity” and defined it as “una substantia; tres personae” or One Substance; Three Persons.
The second is the classical illustration of the Trinity in contrast with the incorrect, heretical views of Modalism and Arianism. Click on each image to download a PDF of it. [Read more…]
It’s common to hear, even from those who seem very knowledgeable about the Christian faith and the Bible that “the Trinity is very hard to understand” or that “the Trinity is a mystery,” or a similar statement.
I STRONGLY disagree! Our God wants us to know Him and understand Him and I don’t believe the essential doctrine of the Trinity is difficult when it is explained correctly and supported from what the Bible clearly teaches. That’s what this lesson attempts to do, using clear explanations and infographics, available as free downloads. Many people have found it helpful and I trust you will also.
What does it mean to be a disciple? One of the best definitions I’ve read recently came from Wikipedia where it said,
Disciple (Christianity) a fully formed disciple, [is] a living copy of Jesus.
“A living copy of Jesus” what a wonderful goal to aspire to!
The lesson today talks about how to become a disciple from Jesus first invitation to “follow me” to his final command to “go into all the world and make more disciples.”
[Read more…]
In contrast to some of the extravagant claims by scholars and the popular press, the Gnostic Gospels do not have a fraction of the historical, textual, or really any kind of credibility that the canonical New Testament documents have. The infographic here clearly illustrates this.
Click on the image to download. You may share it however you want.
Click on the following link to go to the full lesson on the topic: What isn’t in the New Testament—the Gnostic Gospels then, false gospels and deconstruction today
A primary criticism of the New Testament is that critics say that Christians intentionally left out and/or suppressed certain writings, primarily what we call the Gnostic Gospels and that they should be part of our New Testament and aren’t.
We need to take their challenges seriously because our New Testament contains both how to be saved by faith in Jesus AND how to live our lives after we accept Him as Savior in ways that are pleasing to Him. [Read more…]
The validity of any religion or belief system is only as secure as the documents upon which it is based. Particularly with issues as important as one’s eternal destiny and how to live a fulfilling life, it only makes sense to base your belief system on a solid foundation. As this infographic shows, the New Testament gives us the historically valid history of Jesus, his life, death, and resurrection, and the history of the founding of the Christian Church and its doctrines rests on a solid textual history. [Read more…]
I recently shared a new way to financially support Bible805 (you can read more about that here), but there are additional ways to support the ministry that are also appreciated and enable us to help our world know, trust, apply, and teach the Bible!
The most important and first way is to support it with your prayers and second is for you to share the ministry with others. More on both follow. [Read more…]
In response to your kind requests for how you can financially support Bible805, after a lengthy search of various donation formats and systems, and trying some that didn’t work very well, I’ve decided on Kofi, (my site is https://ko-fi.com/bible805) which provides the most support and options for you as supporters, as well as providing a safe source for donations. You can give any amount you wish; one time or on a continuing basis, through a variety of ways including credit cards, Paypal, and others. [Read more…]