Tag Archives: Bible
eBibleteacher.com
I am adding eBibleteacher.com to the list of Useful Resources on the right-hand sidebar. There are free children’s sermons, images, maps and entire Powerpoint presentations available at this site. The thumbnail at left (click to enlarge) is a jpeg image that can easily be used as a background for Powerpoint. I found lots of interesting stuff in only a few minutes of browsing around. There is a search feature on the homepage if you ever need anything specific, and lots of links to other Christian resources.
Bible Survey, Intro. to Genesis
The Master’s Table survey of the Bible is up and running at last. Bible survey posts are located at their own unique URL, biblesurvey.wordpress.com The first (and only at this moment) post is an introduction to Genesis. The next post, Creation Week Gen. 1:1 – 2:3, will be up in a couple of days.
The God We Wouldn’t Make Up
God made man in his own image. And man, in his infinite wisdom, returned the favor. -Mark Twain
In my last post, I argued that if Christianity were a lie, we would have told a better lie. A similar line of thinking applies to God. Many gods have been invented by people. The God of the Bible, the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, the Almighty God, Maker of Heaven and Earth, isn’t one of them. Here’s why no one would make up such a god:
God requires perfection. We would make up a god that settles for good enough. Our imaginary god would be happy with 70%. That’s good enough to pass. The best you can do is the best you can do. Who would ask for more than that? The God we wouldn’t make up, that’s who. Continue reading
Biblical Survey
I will soon begin a series of posts that will effectively be a survey study of the Bible. I’ve been leading a study of Mark’s gospel since August, going verse by verse in each chapter. I have posted a couple of times from Mark, but shy away from creating a Bible study of Mark online. One reason is that the Internet Monk has been posting a study of Mark at Jesus Shaped Spirituality. My study would either be redundant of what he is posting, or everyone would realize that his was better than mine 🙂 Either way.
My next post will be on the creation week and the fall. Biblical Survey will become a new category, and perhaps down the line could become it’s own blog. I’m thinking in an ideal world (which this is not, but hypothetically) that posting 2 or 3 times a week could get one through the major points of the Bible in about a year or so. I plan to continue blogging theology on a regular basis, posting sermons and the such like, so the survey topics would be in addition to.
On the Subject of Theology
Theology – theo meaning having to do with religion, ology meaning the study of something. Theologians are those that study religion. We need not all be theologians, but a Christian should at least know what we believe, and hopefully why we believe it. In this we are lacking.
In his Collapse of Evangelicalism, Michael Spencer says ” massive majorities of evangelicals can’t articulate the Gospel with any coherence.” The next day after reading these words, our school chapel sang Hymn 604 in the Baptist Hymnal, which ends with these words: “And repeat the gospel story ’till his name the world has heard.” We have not done this. It is not surprising that the un-churched do not know how to become a Christian, but church members not knowing how one gets saved is unacceptable. Continue reading
Commandments and Traditions, Jesus in Mark 7
This lesson is from Mark 7:1-22. Jesus is being questioned about why his disciples eat without washing their hands. Jesus’ response says a lot about first century Jews’ attitudes toward the Old Testament Law, and how they lived out their convictions in real life.
Jesus’ immediate reply to their criticism is to quote from Isaiah “this people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” Jesus tells them that they ignore God’s commandment to keep the commandment of men. Continue reading
The Abbreviated Jesus
When I started this blog, one of the secret little promises I made myself was that it wouldn’t be an Internet Monk fan site. Listening to his podcast is one of the reasons I started blogging myself. If you read this blog, you know that from time to time I link other blogs with posts of interest. Michael Spencer wrote a piece on the “abbreviated Jesus” this week, here’s a snippet that made me laugh out loud:
“The abbreviated Jesus can convincingly seem like the real Jesus, until you look and listen closely. Then it appears that he’s lost his laptop, his luggage and his cell phone. So for right now, he’s reading it all off the teleprompter.”
Read Do You Trust the Abbreviated Jesus? at internetmonk for the full story.
Old Testament God is the God of the New Testament
In a lot of people’s minds, God is this angry, loud, vengeful monster in the Old Testament of the Bible. Some non-Christians tell us we have two gods, the Old Testament one with the commandments and judgements, and the New Testament one offering grace and mercy. The God of the Bible is one; he gives commandments, he judges, but also offers to extend grace and mercy instead. The dichotomy may be apparent, but isn’t a matter of fact. Continue reading
The Bible, Uses and Misuses
Imagine you wanted to open a one gallon can of paint. Most all of us have a flathead screwdriver lying around in the kitchen junk drawer or else someplace handy. You grab that and pry the lid from the can. It’s not exactly what the screwdriver was made for, but it does the job well enough. The Bible is like that also. Continue reading
The Master's Table 