Tag: Faith in the Bible

Posted on

Go To God, Any Time, Any Place

Go to God: For many years I had the privilege of working for Rev. Dr. Dan Geeding in the ProHealth Pastoral Care Department.

I came to Dan’s department after a few years working at Rogers Behavioral Health Hospital, as a visiting pastor to offer communion, facilitate group Bible study and do one-on-one ministry.

Dan started me out in Adolescent and Adult Behavioral Health. Later I would be moved to the Lawrence Center to facilitate lectures on the spirituality of addiction recovery. That would lead to my becoming lead chaplain at Oconomowoc Memorial Hospital and later Angels Grace Hospice.

We had a tight professional relationship and I am blessed to have worked for a man that I love and respect. Both of us have retired, but the friendship to this day is very precious.

We meet every week at the therapeutic pool in a fitness center, which is one of the last places I would look for a time of prayer and reflection, but recently Dan shared part of a devotional, written by Ruben P. Job and Norman Shawchuck.

As we did our stretching and resistance work he began to tell me about the powerful impact it had on him. Our discussion centered on the benediction.

“Embrace the will of God.

Obey the call of God.

Receive the Power of God.

Reflect the peace of God. Amen.”

Go to God, “Embrace the WILL of God”

What does God want from us? I had four years working as an associate pastor. Although richly rewarding, they were challenging years and throughout that period I never felt like I belonged.

The people were great, but looking back, every day was just preparing me for what God had in mind. Once I understood that to embrace the will of God would open doors and make the path a lot smoother, it became clear where I was headed.

God showed me His will

I sat in my office one day and God clearly showed me that I need to move on and go into Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE). I trained in the Aurora system, doing an internship at Lakeland Medical center and a residency at St. Luke’s.

CPE was a difficult challenge, but God was telling me the whole time that I was going to be a chaplain, even though I wanted to quit every day.

Go to God, “Obey the Call of God”

We are all a work in progress. God moves us along a path and I can clearly see His hand in everything. Armed with a piece of paper saying I had completed CPE, I was led to Dan, who hired me on the spot. I was the guinea pig.

Dan had some difficult assignments, so I got them. When I found myself being considered as a lead chaplain for my local hospital, I just left that up to the Lord. OK, I trust you Lord.

Go to God, Receive the Power of God

Letting go of myself and relying completely on God’s leading allowed me to get by. Prior to walking into a hospital room I would simply pray, “God, please help me stay out of the way.”

I’ve known ministry people who have all of the academic credentials, but sadly lack common sense and the understanding that they are not the focus of any patient encounter. If, however, the academic pursuit is accompanied by a fervent and sincere desire to serve God, receiving the power of God is far more possible.

After all, it’s all God, isn’t it? We are saved by the Grace of God, not of our works.

“Embrace the will of God.

Obey the call of God.

Receive the Power of God.

Reflect the peace of God. Amen.”

Posted on

We pick and choose what we believe

Years ago, when I worked as a hospital chaplain, I met a very nice man who enjoyed talking about his Roman Catholic faith, but all too often, what he described as his Catholic beliefs were not Catholic at all. These were largely one-way conversations, as he was not really interested in talking with me, but talking at me. Nevertheless, they were interesting.

At the core of his discussions was a belief that the Old Testament, Genesis through Malachi, should be dismissed as having no bearing whatsoever on the beliefs of Christianity. From time-to-time I would try to interject some truth into the conversation by pointing out that the Bible is a continuous story and that the Lord Jesus Christ was very much involved in the Hebrew text. This was not well received.

He told me, “I hate the Old Testament.” I suppose he objected to the times when God’s wrath was chronicled, but without having actually read the accounts, or attempt to understand the context, he had little choice but to believe that God was vengeful and cruel.

When pressed for an explanation as to why he held such an extreme beliefs, he would shut down and get angry. “I don’t want to talk about this,” he would add. Time to change the subject.

We once moved on to the New Testament. He had very limited knowledge of the Gospels and no understanding at all about the writings of the Apostle Paul. He did, however, insist that a person must be a Catholic to go to heaven.

Didn’t believe that Jesus is Jewish

When I told him that Jesus is Jewish, he flatly denied it. His disciples were Jews. They observed Jewish traditions and religious observances. “That’s not true!,” he would blurt at me. Of course, he had never actually read the Bible, any of it, so the only defense he had was to just say it wasn’t true. Unencumbered by any knowledge or truth, he was very confident that his opinion was the right one.

Many people want to pick and choose what they believe about God

I tell you this because so many people will pick and choose what they want to believe when they read or hear about events in the Bible. Some have intellectual arguments, while the vast majority base their opinion on how they “feel” about something. Our sense of justice and right and wrong are different from God’s, so naturally, God must be wrong.

The Bible makes it very clear that God is the center of all things, but so many people have a different idea and believe that the universe centers around them. When God gave man dominion over all the earth, it was like leaving the fox to guard the hen house. People got the idea that they were running to show.

Bible is to be believed on faith and fact

The Bible is to be taken on faith, not just fact. I think that’s why God didn’t take the time to explain a lot of things in detail. It’s like your dad telling you just to believe him and trust him. To be honest, there is more that I do not understand than there are passages in the Bible that I fully grasp.

I ask God for wisdom and understanding and maybe I’ll get it. But knowing that I am not the center of things, I have made the conscious decision to just trust the Bible to be true. There is still plenty of room for intellectual curiosity, study and reflection. I have argued with God about many things, but I have always lost.

To cherry-pick what you want to believe and what you will reject is a very difficult task. What part of the Bible do you throw away. Thomas Jefferson wrote his own version, eliminating what he didn’t want to believe. As serious an intellectual as Jefferson was, his efforts were pure folly in light of God’s perfection. It’s ok to question and it’s ok to discuss, but at the end of the day, God’s word is absolute.

Posted on

Creation or Evolution

Creation versus evolution, what should I believe? I recall my days in high school science, when the teacher talked about the scientific method. There’s not a whole lot I remember to be honest, but he talked about science being able to recreate an event. That’s how they prove things. They make something happen again.

Currently, there’s a lot of theories about where we all came from. Was it from a primordial ooze, or were we created by God? Many theories on this are accepted as science, but they can’t be proven by the scientific method and are therefore only theories.

One theory is that man evolved over millions of years. The other theory, the one presented in the Bible, states emphatically that man was the master handiwork of God. We have only one source for this—the Bible.

Creation cannot be proven because by the rules of science, the event cannot be recreated.

So what do we believe about our creation?

Okay, what are we supposed to believe? On the one hand, using the scientific method, we cannot recreate the beginning of time. Call it the “big bang” or whatever, but something remarkable happened.

The Bible says that God spoke the universe into existence. Out of nothing, God spoke and whammo, it all began. Could that be an explanation for the “big bang?”

On the other hand, we can accept the Biblical account, not because of the evidence presented by the scientific method, but simply by faith. In other words, we just say “Okay God, I’ll take your word for it.”

The problem is that the Bible is not a science book, although arguably its scientific accounts are solid. God told us what happened, but did not include how it happened.

Does God exist?

The really big problem is that we cannot prove the existence of God. It can’t be disproven either. This sounds like a standoff of some kind, a stare down. To accept the Biblical account, it takes faith. To accept the man evolved from amoeba, likewise takes faith.

So the two sides are left to agree to disagree. Call it a draw? No, they both can’t be right and wrong at the same time. The Biblical account is either true, or it’s a fairy tale.

Takes more faith to believe in evolution

Interestingly, some say it takes more faith to accept evolution than it does that accept the Biblical narrative. With evolution, there is that sticky scientific method to get past. Species of animals don’t just change from one thing to another.

The Bible says that creators were created and recreate after their own kind. Tigers don’t turn into alligators. Dogs don’t become cats. There is order.

Evolutionists will claim the fossil record explains everything, but the fossil records have huge holes that cannot be reconciled, so it takes a leap of faith to bridge those gaps.

I believe the Bible

I have embraced the Biblical account about our creation, not because I can disprove evolution, but because I don’t really understand it. It assumes order was created out of chaos, this is illogical to me.

The Bible says God created all things. I believe in God. I believe in His word and I take it by faith, nothing more. My understanding is that He created all things, but I have no clue how He did it. I’m satisfied, because the “how” is not nearly as important as the “why” and the “why” of every Biblical account is what captivates me.

God had a purpose for creating us

If I can get past the “how did it happen” and focus on why it happened, I can begin to understand God’s purpose, His intentionality. Scripture is an intellectual feast and doors open when you can look to God and ask Him for guidance and insight. Unlike any other book, the Bible is a conversation, a living breathing conversation between man and God. That has my attention.

Posted on

Keeping It Simple… The Gospel isn’t complicated

The Gospel isn’t complicated. It’s easy to understand. Children can grasp it. Still, the good news that God shares with us in the Bible will be rejected by more people than those who will accept it.

People like to complicate

Left to their own devices, many people will complicate any topic. The Israelites took 10 commandments from God and created 613 rules and regulations. Every aspect of life came under the Law of Moses. The prophets came along and added to the mix. Religion was born.

Now there is nothing wrong with having religion. Certainly not. But religion and the Gospel are two different things. Religion dictates what man must do to be acceptable to God. The Gospel is what God did to make man acceptable to Him.

Those 613 laws were boiled down to one statement–

“For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son that whosoever believes in him shall not parish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

Jesus offered a clarifying statement when he said,

“I have not come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17)

He told the people that all of the law was still very much in force, but He was the one who would fulfill all of the righteous requirements of the law, so people who put their trust and faith in Him would be forever accepted into God’s family.

When I was a small child, I received a vaccination for polio. My parents didn’t know anything about the years that went into the development of the vaccine, or the science behind it, but they trusted that it would prevent the dreaded disease.

The law is impossible to follow. Every living human being has broken a commandment. The trouble is, Jesus said if you break one, you’ve broken them all. Breaking a commandment is sin, and the Apostle Paul wrote that

“the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 3:23)

So what’s the point? The point is simple– the law, the 10 Commandments, points us to Christ. Jesus did not sin. He paid the full price. That is an amazing statement. He fulfilled all of the requirements so that anyone who believes in Him will be guaranteed heaven. We can’t, He can.

It’s simple, straight forward and easy, at least on the surface. Paul said “all have sinned,” which can be a sticking point for some, who do not believe in sin and do not believe they have committed any transgression worthy of an eternal punishment. But he adds,

“the GIFT of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23).

Those who acknowledge their sinfulness, big or small, and accept the gift of life through faith in Jesus, are welcomed with open arms, no strings attached. Jesus said,

“I am the way the truth and the life. Nobody goes to the Father except by me.” ( John 14:6 )

In other words, there is no back door into heaven and no other way to satisfy God. It’s simple enough, yet so many choke on the idea that they have sinned. Call it pride, or maybe they just don’t understand, I have known some that seem incapable of understanding the simplest things of God. They scoff, they mock and completely dismiss the entire message of the Bible.

The Gospel offers salvation by grace and faith

There are many religions, but only one offers salvation by grace through faith. Christianity stands alone, completely alone. Judaism is the closest, and many Jewish people have accepted Jeshua (Jesus) as the Messiah, much to the chagrin of the Jewish leadership. It was the same during the time of Christ.

Sometimes it’s hard to believe in the simple things. If you make up a religion and make it complicated, you just may find some followers. But God and the Gospel offer you a simple, straight forward invitation. Believe in My Son. Jesus gave Himself so you could live. He paid your debt in full… Simple.

Posted on

Faith In The Bible

Faith in the Bible
Faith in the Bible is a gift from God based in truth

Faith in the Bible, you cannot see it, or touch it, or taste it, or smell it, or hear it, but faith is the most powerful force driving human experience. In the Bible, faith drives the actions of so many people.

By FAITH Abram left his homeland to a place that God promised. Then By FAITH, the parents of Moses put him into a basket and floated him down the Nile to be rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter. Also By FAITH, Joshua led the Israelites into battle to claim the Promised Land.

Additionally By FAITH, David took a slingshot and five stones to defeat the giant Philistine Goliath. By FAITH Mary obeyed God and carried His child. By FAITH the disciples dropped everything they were doing and followed Jesus. And it is by FAITH that man and God are reconciled.

We cannot prove the existence of God. We can see evidence and make a determination that the evidence points to God, but we cannot prove it. It is by FAITH that we believe in God.

Many people believe in God, but in different ways, so it is by FAITH that we accept the Bible as the inspired Word of God. FAITH is founded on facts gathered through the accounts of history, both recorded and verbal. Faith is not emotion, it is the hope of something that has not yet happened.

Biblical faith is beyond mere hope, it is a confident expectation that God will do what He says He will do. Biblical faith is based upon a consistent record of promises kept the LORD.

Faith in the Bible Based On Fact

In order for faith to have any meaning, it must be based on fact, not opinion, conjecture or fantasy. Imagine holding a key in your pocket. You’re convinced it is the key to your home, so you have faith that it will work on your front door.

Then you try to place the key into the lock, but it doesn’t work. You were convinced that it was the right key. It looked like the right key, but it didn’t turn the lock. Your faith was not founded on fact, it was founded on opinion.

Biblical faith is built on people seeking truth. We can read the Bible, but sometimes we are frustrated because we don’t understand. Maybe we give up and don’t pursue the truth. God said “seek and you will find,” which is a simple way of saying you are encouraged to examine the Bible and study the Word.

We All Need To Know God

In order to know God, His nature and character, we need to get acquainted with Him. When you meet someone for the first time and there is a connection, you want to talk and get to know them. Over time, you may get to know them very well.

You know their opinions, their feelings and you have a good idea of what they will do or say in any situation.

So it is with God. Over time, when we have knowledge, we begin to trust and when we begin to trust, we begin to develop FAITH. We become friends with God as His children.

God Invites Us To Ask Questions

Faith does not mean you can’t ask questions. God invites us to question. He invites us to “reason” with Him. We ask questions, He delivers answers.

Answers are revealed in His Word, or they come by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who opens our eyes to truth and meaning. God’s Word is living and, as He tells us, is spiritually discerned, meaning that if God wants you to understand it, you will.

You can read a passage 100 times and not grasp it’s significance, but on the 101st reading you suddenly see it clearly and understand. You haven’t suddenly gotten any smarter, but God has opened a window for you. In a growing relationship with God, FAITH is a gift He gives us.

Biblical faith is not blind faith.

Biblical faith is not blind faith. Blind faith is just something you want to happen. Biblical faith is more like you want what God wants you to have.

What is God’s plan for your life? How can you serve Him? These are questions that each of us ponder in faith to He who created us and loves us.

Faith in God is based on the intimate, personal relationship you have with Him, and is based on the absolute truth that God is sovereign. Faith founded on fact.

Posted on

The Great Flood

The Flood destroyed most of what God had created.
The Great Flood destroyed most of God’s creation

What Happened

God caused the great flood and destroyed much of His creation because man was so wicked and evil.

Why It Matters

We all need to understand that God’s anger and wrath are real and we need to do all that we can to follow God, our creator, rather than to disobey Him.

Bible Verse

Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”

Genesis 7:4

Why it matters to you

We all must understand, respect and submit to God’s authority and we ignore Him at our own peril.

Description

5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.

6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.

7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.”

8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Genesis 6:5-8

Most everybody has heard the story of Noah and the flood. God had created a beautiful and perfect world. There was no evil, no killing and there was an abundance of food. Then the FALL came and everything changed. From Adam and Eve, the population grew and over time, the relationship with God, their creator, was diminishing.

God was not pleased with these developments. Rather than enjoying the love and affection of a large family, those who honored and revered God were few, if any. God decided that action was necessary. He would wipe out all of mankind and all of the animals, saying “for I regret that I have made them.”

Noah was a righteous man

Noah was different. He was a righteous man and raised righteous sons, Shem, Ham and Japbeth. God shared his plan with Noah and gave him instructions to build an ark (large ship). Instructions, down to the small details, were given to Noah and his sons.

Once completed, God sent animals to the ark, to be saved. Once the animals were on board, two of every kind, male and female, the rains came, and came, and came. God Himself shut the door and Noah, his wife, his sons and their wives, were the only ones spared.

The floodwaters came in a violent manner. The floodgates of heaven opened and the spring waters of the earth burst from every direction, and for 40 days and nights the flood waters came and covered the earth. The ark floated along. No rudder, no sail. The flood lasted 150 days. The ark came to rest on a mountain once the flood waters receded. Noah freed a dove and she did not return. Then flood was over.

God regretted creating man

The flood was the first account of God taking punitive action against man. As the Creator, God knows man’s nature and character and understands fully man’s frailty. Rather than destroying all of mankind, he chose a family, a remnant to begin anew. He saw a righteous man in Noah, had compassion and chose to redeem His relationship with mankind through Noah. We also see that animals reproduce according to kind, as species were collected and saved.

As the accounts in Genesis roll out, we will see God making a covenant with man, as the beginning of an eternal plan begins to take shape.

What you may not know

What we do or don’t believe about God does not stop any of us to being judged and punished for our sinful and wrong actions. Many people who died in the flood did not believe in God.

Posted on

Cain kills Abel

Cain kills Abel

What Happened

After the fall Cain, son of Adam and Eve, grew jealous of his brother, Abel, and killed him because of his uncontrolled rage.

Why It Matters

It is the first demonstration of the ramifications of the fall. Man is no longer in the garden and this is the first example of how sin will affect our relationships with each other.

Bible Verse

Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

Genesis 4:8

Why It Matters To You

We must be aware that sin exists in all of us and we need to ask God to help us to control our rage, and to help us to forgive rather than to try to seek revenge on our own terms.

Description

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Genesis 4:9

It was the first murder ever recorded. The story is found beginning in Genesis 4:1. Cain was the first child of Adam and Eve. Abel came later. Cain could be described as a farmer, one who grows crops, while Abel tended to animals. God had demanded a sacrifice. Abel took fattened portions of firstborn from his flock and offered it to God. Cain gathered some crops. God looked at Abel’s offering with favor, but did not give that favor to Cain.

Cain was despondent, but more importantly, he was angry. But God was compassionate and told Cain that if he did what was right, all would be well. God then told Cain that if he chose not to do the right thing, that sin was “crouching at this door” and it would overpower him. However, God also told Cain that he must resist the sin. Cain made a deadly choice.

Cain Kills Abel

Rather than making the correction, Cain killed his brother Abel. For what? Because Abel’s sacrifice was accepted by God and Cain’s was not. Abel did what God asked him to do, but Cain decided to do it his own way. God rejected the sacrifice, but gave him an opportunity to make it right. Rather than making the adjustment, a despondent Cain took it out on his brother, allowing his own pride to turn into rage.

God knew what had happened, but asked Cain where Able was. Cain answered in what has become one of the most famous statements in history, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” God drove him out of the land and warned that the ground would no longer yield crops for him. He would be a wanderer. Cain knew he had done wrong and feared that others would now kill him. God put a mark on him to make sure that would not happen. Even in pronouncing sentence, God also offered compassion.

We all make wrong decisions because of our free will

Again we see man making the wrong decision, exercising his free will to do evil. Rather than take responsibility, Cain blamed his brother. It is human nature. It is an example, like that of Adam and Eve eating the fruit from the forbidden tree, of man doubting God’s provision. This is important to all of us because our thoughts and our actions are so often completely self-serving. Rather than take responsibility, we pass it on. We all have a responsibility to God and to each other.

What You May Not Know

God tells us: “sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” We must turn toward God and seek to do what is right otherwise sin will dominate our lives.

Posted on

The Fall of Man

The Fall

What Happened

Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They fell from God’s grace.

Why it matters

The fall caused God to cast the human race out from the garden because of our sin and disobedience.

Bible Verse

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

“Cursed is the ground because of you;

    through painful toil you will eat food from it

    all the days of your life.

18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,

    and you will eat the plants of the field.

19 By the sweat of your brow

    you will eat your food until you return to the ground,

since from it you were taken;

for dust you are

    and to dust you will return.”

Genesis 3:17-19

Why it matters to you

God gave Adam and Eve the choice to love God or to disobey Him, they choose to disobey Him. Their terrible choice caused God to send them away and to allow them to feel the consequences of their disastrous decision. We are all still living with the negative consequences of that terrible choice.

Description

The Fall of Man

God created man in his own image, to love and cherish in a close, personal relationship. The first man was Adam. God determined that he should not be alone, so he caused him to fall asleep and created a woman, Eve, by taking one of Adam’s ribs. He created a utopia, a place for the first couple to live and raise a family. Every possible thing they would ever need was there for them. The beasts roamed free, but they were no threat and would not cause harm. Imagine being able to pet a tiger without fear of being eaten. It was the perfect place.

God gave Adam and Eve free will to choose they actions.

However, God also gave His first couple free will, to determine their own ideas and actions. This is essential, because God wants a free relationship with us, not one that is forced upon us. One of the creatures was a serpent. Even before God created the universe, as we know it today, he created the Heavenly Host, a large throng of angels to attend to his throne.

One of those angels, Lucifer, wanted to be like God and led a rebellion against Him. He took a third of the hosts with him, but failed in his takeover plot. He and his followers were cast down to the earth, out of the glory of heaven. Lucifer (Satan, the devil, Beelzebub) entered into the serpent and went to work on God’s first couple.

God gave them everything.

Even though everything was created for man, there was one tree that God said was not to be eaten from. It was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God said they could have EVERYTHING else, but not that one because it would cause their death.

The serpent, which Satan had entered, appeared and appealed to Eve’s pride and questioned whether God really said they should not eat of that tree. “You will NOT surely die,” he said to her. She took the bait. She ate of the fruit, then gave some to Adam.

Their disobedience lead to a separation from God. The perfect relationship, the perfect utopia, was soiled. They were suddenly embarrassed by their nakedness, so God killed an animal to give them covering. It was the first death, one of an innocent creature, to pay for man’s wrongdoing. That theme would continue.

Adam and Eve willing went against God resulting in their being driven out of the perfect garden God had created for them. Sin entered the world.

They willfully disobeyed God.

Adam and Eve willingly went against God. They doubted the goodness of God. They doubted His love. The doubted His provision, even though every evidence was to the contrary. They exercised their free will and defied God. It establishes the rest of the story.

How can God reconcile man to Himself? God created all things. He made the rules. Everything was perfect, then the bond was broken. His perfection, His holiness, His word was challenged, just as Lucifer challenged it. Adam and Eve had their own, personal relationship with God and now it was shattered. They were no different from us.

Human nature has not changed from the dawn of time.

Think of this– the only thing that has not changed since the dawn of time is human nature. Technology changes. Culture changes. Climate changes. People are people, no matter where or when they live.

We are all responsible for our own actions and we all have the free will to either accept or reject God. God said that he would put enmity (hatred, hostility, ill will) between man and the serpent. (Satan) That is a clue of the great plan that would follow, to make man perfect again and restore our close, perfect, personal relationship with the creator of the universe.

What you may not know

The Fall of Man continues to affect each of us daily. Adam and Eve’s disobedience are the origins of all evil in our world today.

Posted on

In the beginning was the Word…

The Bible

.

The Most Important Book

The Bible is an amazing book. It’s the most important book in human history. It defines existence. It is our story, regardless of race, gender or national origin. It’s God’s revelation of Himself to His creation.

No other book in human history has had the kind of scrutiny, has been debated more, or has been the cause of as much social upheaval.

The Bible represents ABSOLUTE TRUTH about how we were created, why we exist and how we should live. Although parts of it were written more than 3400 years ago, it is completely relevant for today.

The Bible represents COMPLETE LOVE, because God is willing to communicate to us through His word. He shows us how to live through His Law, and because of His mercy, He sends His only Son to us so that we can live forever with Him.

The Bible represents UNAVOIDABLE JUSTICE for all. He rights the wrongs that have been committed by the world, delivering the perfect penalty to those who deserve it.

The Bible represents an INFINITE RESOURCE that we can study our entire lives and still find new and exciting revelations in, every day.

Bible Verse

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 1

Description

The Bible is the manual for human life. It gives insight and clarity into human behavior by examining man’s psychological makeup, and like no other book ever written, explains why we are the way we are. It is the story of how we came into being, but more importantly, WHY we came into being.

The Bible is not a history book, yet its history is accurate and at times strikingly detailed. It is not a science book, yet its scientific information is solid. It is the story of the relationship between God and man, written over a 1400 year period by over 40 different authors.

“The Good Book“

By some, the Bible is considered “the good book,” while others consider it to be the inspired word of God. Some consider every word to be the literal truth, while others view it as truths contained in stories of people. Its wisdom is undeniable, and its commandments are the basis of all Western Law.

For some, the Bible may seem too difficult to understand and therefore not useful for practical, every day matters. Still others consider it vital to those mundane aspects of human life and rely on its guidance and directives to avoid calamity.

For some it’s all about religion, rules and regulations, and how to act. Some others view it as the gentle teachings of a loving parent. It was written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, but translated into nearly every written language on the globe.

To set one important fact in place before you go any further, we not trying to prove the existence of God. For the followers of the Bible, namely Jews and Christians, it is a matter of faith more than fact, despite the overwhelming evidence it presents.

The Bible Chronicles Israel and the Life of Christ

The Hebrew texts of the Old Testament chronicle the amazing development of Israel, and the land that God promised to His people. For Christians, the story in the New Testament continues with the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, written about by the Prophets.

The books of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, are one continuous story. Old Testament writings are considered by many Christians to be the very foundation of Christianity, essential to the faith and of equal importance to the New Testament writings. More specifically, Christians see the entire Bible as being the story of Jesus and God’s plan for mankind. It is God’s unfolding plan that can be seen beginning in the opening chapters of Genesis. As the history unfolds, so does insight into the nature and character of God, as he uses human events to shape the future of the world.

God Does Not Change

Human nature never changes. Science and technology certainly do, as does culture, but human nature is the constant. This is important to know because what was true of men and women 6000 years ago, is true today. The emotions are the same, the aspirations the same and the motivations are the same. It’s like the old saying, “the more things change the more they stay the same.”

The accounts of the Israelites in the desert can be easily applied to the motivations of people today, no matter what country they live in. That’s what makes the Bible amazing. It’s amazing because God was the inspiration and God does not change. He is the same—yesterday, today and tomorrow. The people he created are likewise the same and will be tomorrow.

We will try to give you reliable information and at times direct you to authoritative places to gain more knowledge and insight. We do not claim to be apologists (defenders of the faith), nor do we want you to consider our point of view as non-negotiable.

Read The Bible

We invite you to read the Bible for yourself and make up your own mind about what it means. God gave us free will and invited us to use reason to understand the relevance of His word. We just want to meet you where you are at and help your along your spiritual journey.

This site is a brief summary of an enormous topic, and will give you an introduction into the Bible. It is very likely to become the most important and enduring book of your life.

Proudly powered by WordPress