Recently in Bible Study Category

I’ve said many times to understand your Bible you must understand Physics. Yes, you don’t necessarily have to, but many times some basic understanding of Physics clears up controversy or provides insight. Don’t worry, we won’t be delving too much into long technical discussions as we’re interested in application of the Bible, not science for science sake.

I’ve said many times (tongue-in-cheek) to understand your Bible you must understand Physics. Yet the longer I study the Bible, the less tongue-in-cheek I believe that is. To explore this a bit we’re starting a three-part series where we’ll discuss several Biblical ideas, and how modern Physics assists understanding the Bible.

I’m finishing up my latest book, called “Get Back in the Game”, which should be available in a few weeks at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and elsewhere. It's about Christians getting off the sidelines, as Christianity is a full-contact life, not a spectator one.

Unfortunately, too many Christians are woefully unprepared for a full-contact life, as I wrote in the introduction of the book:

For far too long I’ve seen Christians slaughtered like pigs from a lack of preparedness when trouble arrives, and I’m tired of watching. It’s time to do something about it. If you’re bringing (metaphorically) a knife to a gun-fight, you’ve only set yourself up as a pig going to the slaughter (put that image firmly in your mind, because we’ll come back to it. A lot).

Simply put, if you’re in a trial, if one of your kids has gone sideways, if you’re praying for healing, restoration, a job, or anything else, you will come to the point of discouragement, despair, frustration, and a point where you want to quit. Believe me, I’ve been there — more than once or twice.

One issue arising when you tell someone you take the Bible seriously is they’ll bring up all the Old Testament Mosaic law and tell you you can’t eat ham or play football (since it’s pigskin), sine rules forbidding those activities are found in the Old Testament. Such an argument provides an example of the logical error of false choice.

Last week we discussed the disgusting idea of post-birth abortion — the idea if your child has a trait you don’t like, well, feel free to kill them. One (but obviously not the only) huge problem quickly becomes: how do you know the future life of the child? In other words, what right do you have to play God?

We’ve written on the bogus Deutero-Isaiah Hypothesis before, and noted you shouldn’t waste your time with it. However, some people don’t like simple and obvious conclusions, judging by a few comments on the article:

Everyone seems to have their own lens or filter used to interpret the Bible. Post-modern, red-letter, social justice, emerging, and so on. However, many of these miss rule zero of Bible interpretation, and if you read pages of their ideas you might buy the manure they’re shoveling … until you realize it violates rule zero.

A few months ago we mentioned 5 commentators you should listen to. Of course, you should study the Bible for yourself as well. If you’re just beginning, what books should you have on your shelf? You’ll be surprised you can acquire a firm foundation and don’t have to break the bank or install massive bookshelves.

We’ve frequently written about heretical ideas, the question might arise — why do you focus so much on these fringe ideas, can’t we all just looooove each other? What happened to the big tent?

At the end of the year it’s popular to do a year-end review, so for the benefit of new subscribers who missed some postings we present popular ones from the last 12 months.

For our email subscribers, a special tip of the hat to say thanks for reading.

The social justice crowd frequently supports their position saying it’s “Biblical”. What does that mean, and was the church in Acts socialist and using redistribution, like social justice promoters want Christians to advocate today?

In many cases extreme views prove problematic. In regards to gender roles (men and women and their function in the church), two ideas frequently pop up. Unfortunately, both are quite wrong.

With so many resources, how do you quickly gain an overall understanding of the Bible, current events, cults, science, logic, and application? We give you our five choices to begin your study.

It’s truly sad when someone receives improper teaching on the Bible, and rejects God because of it. Just as bad are some groups who desire to capitalize on such situations to promote their own heresies.

We’ve talked before about the coming church division, but it’s interesting even liberal progressive “Christians” have come to the conclusion a split will soon come.

Mr. Bart Ehrman (who calls himself a “renowned Bible scholar”) returns with a new book, this time claiming most of the New Testament was forged. We won’t analyze much of his “scholarship” because similarly to the Deutero-Isaiah Hypothesis, it only takes a few minutes to discover the “scholarship” has no basis in sound logic and analysis.

Everyone has bias. The trick is not letting those ideas prevent you from seeing the truth, or modifying your position when new facts dictate. Confirmation bias creeps in when — instead of seeing the facts — you see everything as proof of your position.

That got your attention, didn’t it? Jesus wants lower taxes, less welfare, a balanced budget, reduction of the debt, loves Reagan and Bush, but Clinton and Obama not so much.

Prove it wrong using the Bible.

An MSNBC host (Lawrence O’Donnell) caused a recent stir when he proclaimed:

“The Book of Revelation” is a work of fiction describing how a truly vicious God would bring about the end of the world. No half-smart religious person actually believes “The Book of Revelation.”

We frequently hear about the “twelve tribes of Israel” and fail to realize that’s only a class title of the group, not the actual number. If you study the Bible carefully, you’ll notice thirteen tribes exist:

Infinity represents one of the characteristics of God—a being with no beginning and no end, existing completely outside of time. Not always an easy concept to understand, but James gives us a surprising scientific and technical explanation in his letter.

For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills. (1 Corinthians 12:8-11 NKJV)

We know from this passage (and others) that each Christian has at least one spiritual gift. But sadly today many people don’t use the gift God has given them. For example, prophecy is a gift, but what if the prophet doesn’t want to prophecy? What then? A case exists in the Old Testament where the prophet who didn’t want to speak God’s word attended remedial prophet school — God wants us to use what He’s given us. Jonah was a stubborn, stiff-necked prophet who provides many lessons for us.

OK, trivia question time. Why did God judge Sodom? The answer we usually think of is actually fifth on the list.

When will Jesus return?

At the turn of the new millennium many people predict the return of Jesus Christ to the earth. Even gossip rags in the grocery store proclaim in bold type “Jesus will return in 2000”. What should we make of these claims? And more important than what we think, what does the Bible say about it? Is the return of Jesus near? Can we know? Many people point out that Christians for centuries have believed Jesus would return in their lives — and all died. Does a Christian today really have the truth when they say Jesus will return in their lifetimes? Isn’t that presumptuous on our part?

Sadly, one of the biggest conflicts in the church today surrounds baptism. Is it required for salvation? If so, sprinkled or dunked? Must a priest perform it to be valid? From what church? Is the water consecrated or not? Mention baptism and these are just some of the issues to be addressed; baptism can be a highly charged topic. Unfortunately, it has led to the division of many churches and people in Christianity — this ought not to be (some of the nastiest email we get is from Christians on this very subject).

Satan wants to cause FUD (a TLA [three letter acronym] known in the computer industry — standing for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) among God’s people. For example, when the Israelites left Egypt and traveled towards the promised land, just before they were to enter in they sent in twelve spies to search out the land. Ten returned with bad news — there were giants in the land, and we are no match for them. Two of them said God is with us, it’s no problem, let’s go in and take it. But Israel succumbed to satan’s old trick, FUD. Therefore, they wandered for 40 years, and their children were the ones to enter into the land.

One of our most popular articles concerns losing salvation — some say you can once be saved, and they become unsaved, others say you can’t. Yet that article still generates much of the email we receive.

One of the arguments against once saved, always saved we hear is “if that’s true, it means I can live any way I want and still be saved”. Not so fast.

Don’t we all want to have a spirit filled life? Then we must be able to resist attacks of the enemy. Satan uses lies and deception to keep us wandering in the wilderness, unfocused and powerless to engage the enemy; the idea a Christian can lose their salvation causes much anxiety.