Psalms (Program #9) – What Kind of Man May Dwell with God for His Heart’s Desire and Good Pleasure?

Two trees were there in the Garden of Eden before Adam. Two trees that signify two sources and two lines that run throughout all of Scripture. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is one line and the Tree of Life, with God Himself as the source, is the other. The human thought perfectly matches the line of good and evil, while the divine thought always brings us back to the line of life, the line of Christ. David, the psalmist, often teetered back and forth between these two lines- one minute declaring the superiority of keeping the law and doing good, while at other times he would abandon that altogether and flee to take refuge in Jehovah or as we would say in the New Testament, coming to Christ.

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1 Peter (Program #8) -The Full Salvation of the Triune God and Its Issues (6)

All genuine Christian experience is based on truth. The truth or reality convey in Scripture forms the base or foundation of all our real spiritual experience. Peter’s first epistle in the New Testament very much illustrates this point. The first twelve verses in chapter one lay out some of the great truth of the whole Bible.  Such as our being chosen according to the foreknowledge of God and our being regenerated unto a living hope and unto an incorruptible, undefiled and unfading inheritance, an inheritance that Peter shows us should be our portion, not just in eternity but also today. The in verse thirteen Peter goes on to tell us that based upon all these rich divine truths, we should gird up the loins of our mind and soberly set our hope on the grace that is ours at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

If we take Peter’s way, if we give ourselves to the word in this way, we will find that our own love and experience of the Lord as well as our love for one another will be greatly enriched and strengthened as well.

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Deuteronomy (Program #9) – The Rehearsal of the Law (2)

Deuteronomy Chapter 7 begins in a way that might be very difficult for us to reconcile with our natural thought.  “When Jehovah your God brings you into the land which you are about to enter to possess, and clears away many nations from before you – And Jehovah your God delivers them up before you and you defeat them, you shall utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them, nor shall you show them any favor.”

God’s word to the children of Israel was as they were preparing to enter the good land was to utterly and absolutely destroy the people that were inhabiting the land. To us today this may seems far too extreme. But what view do we bring to the Scriptures?

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1 Thessalonians (Program #14) – Watchfulness and Soberness

When Paul wrote words to the Church in Thessalonica to encourage them, he stressed that the life of the believers is a life full of hope. And even at the endurance needed to live the Christian life is linked to that hope and flows out of that hope. But just as what is the hope that he is referring to? Well, is not the hope that one day we will all die and go to be with the Lord in heaven.

Our hope and the hope of all believers is that one day the Lord Jesus will come again and we all will be caught up or rapture to meet Him. The rapture of the believers and the second coming of Christ are topics of immense interest to Christians and even to many unbelievers. But do the popular and common notions about these important matters really hold up in the light of an honest and thoughtful examination of Scripture?

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Ephesians (Program #1) – Introductory Word to the Book of Ephesians (1)

Many books in the New Testament deal with practical issues associated with sinful fallen man with his struggle with problems, failures and difficulties. These books are written from the perspective or point of view of the sinner. One book in the New Testament however, uniquely takes God’s perspective, God’s view – and that book is Ephesians. Because of this very fact, many scholars consider this book to be the highest of all in Scripture. What this book reveals primarily is the church – the church not as an organization, a society or a school but as the center and focus of God’s eternal purpose. God desires us to see the church and to value the church as He does. But in order to do so, we need to climb up to that same vantage point and view the church from the heavenlies as God does.

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Galatians (Program #35) – Sow unto the Spirit to Reap Eternal Life

What is the aim or goal of your Christian life? Maybe it’s just to be saved, and to some day go to heaven. Maybe it’s to be the very best person that you can be. These are just a couple of the more common answers we might get from Christians today, and these are okay. But do they match the goal and the aim that are presented to us in the divine revelation of scripture?   Galatians is a book that has much to say about the aim and goal of the Christian life. We will look at what the Bible reveals as the goal of the Christian life on today’s life study of the Bible.

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2 Corinthians (Program #6) – The Ministry of the New Covenant (2)

Metaphors play an important role in Scripture. Webster says a metaphor is the use of one set of words to describe or illustrate a similar point.

John uses the technique when he speaks of Jesus approaching him in the gospel. “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Surely he wasn’t saying that Jesus was a literal “lamb”. But the metaphor or picture gives us a much richer and clearer understanding.

The apostle Paul was also very fond of metaphors, particularly when conveying his deepest thoughts in teachings. We see it used intensively in 2 Corinthians. For example in 2 Corinthians chapter 2:14 he says “But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in the Christ”  Here, the metaphor is the triumphant possession of captured and vanquished folks after a Roman battle. And Paul says that we, the believers had become such vanquished ones in the train of the victorious Christ.

Now, we come to another marvelous metaphor in the very next chapter, chapter 3 of 2 Corinthians begins this way:

1-3 “Are we beginning again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as some do, letters of commendation to you or from you? You are our letter, inscribed in our hearts, known and read by all men, Since you are being manifested that you are a letter of Christ ministered by us, inscribed not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tablets of stone but in tablets of hearts of flesh.”

Living letters of Christ. This is our topic today.

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