I found myself writing this during a short discussion of some verses in Timothy. It seems good to me and the Spirit to share it with you. It’s a short passage from my next bible study on the Timothys and Titus. Much of it is not doctrine, but a serious question for us to answer personally as we raise our children and grandchildren: II Timothy 2:3–7 You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus … Continue reading →
The Kingdom versus the world is a radical difference. Jesus is Lord of the Kingdom. Scripture is clear that Satan rules the kosmos, the world system. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out [John 12:30] …you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience… [Ephesians 2:2] … Continue reading →
My study of biblical church organization took on a life of its own and has now become a small book tentatively called “Should the church be organized?” Its release will be pushing back the release of “Godly leadership and power” the verse by verse study of the Timothys and Titus. We are looking at Easter for the new church book and early summer for the TT&T book at this point. “Knowing Jesus as His Bride” is still … Continue reading →
What is the anointing to teach? I mean what is the anointing to teach scripturally? It’s really an important question. You cannot teach scripture effectively without the power of the Holy Spirit. The modern phrase to cover this gifting is to call it the anointing. This is the biblical phrase to describe what we do. This anointing is talked about in I John—but what does that mean? If it is central to your efforts to teach, you need to … Continue reading →
Jesus gives us the most important aspects of church leadership The first aspect of leadership is found in the Gospels. Jesus emphatically told us: Don’t let anyone call you teacher, for you have one teacher—the Messiah [Matthew 23:10] We need to keep this at the forefront of our minds as we study church leadership. For Jesus is the leader. He is the head and we are merely the body—His Bride. At best we are stewards of gifts … Continue reading →
I’m working on 1 Timothy and ended up writing a little blurb about Godly training. I thought I’d put the list up and see if you think I missed anything, or messed it up. Reading scripture: Increasingly we find that simply reading scripture like a well-loved novel has great benefit. It is literally feeding your soul with raw materials for the Holy Spirit to use in your life. Studying scripture: This takes the raw food received in … Continue reading →
I have been spending a lot of time in prayer, seeking the face of the Lord, trying to follow His lead to write Bible studies and develop materials to make those studies real, helpful, and empowering. As I am working on these things, my heart continuously goes out to people in mainline churches with no spiritual resources—no way to hear the true powerful gospel. The movements of power in the 1960s and 1970s are distant memories. The … Continue reading →
Step 3 – Learn « The Digital Christian. This is from a blog about using social media to minister. This is an area fraught with problems and issues, but one that you should know about. This posting has some good links to get you started if you are seriously interested.
Continue reading →One of the more common heresies running around the church today is that we must always speak positively, that negative confessions are, by definition bad. The truth of the matter is quite different. II Timothy 3:16 {NKJV} “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,” God tells us the purpose in the next verse [let’s use New Living this time]: “God uses it to prepare and … Continue reading →
As we go through the hype of eBooks, how many do we really want to buy? What I want is an excellent reader that lets me rent books, sorta like on the NetFlix model. Here’s a link to an excellent article that talks about this from a conceptual view. I’d never thought about why I haven’t bothered to buy my iPad yet (other than lack of sufficient extra money laying around). It’s not the device or the … Continue reading →