Many people can read the Bible and get a surface or superficial understanding of the text. But the true knowledge of the text comes to the believer who confesses Jesus as Lord, receives the Holy Spirit, and lives as though Jesus was in charge of his life. See 1 Corinthians 2:6-16.
Continue readingBecause they really believe that their faith will give them peace.
Jesus offers peace, too–to His followers. But it isn’t the peace the world gives, like the other world religions. His peace is from a relationship with Him who died for them and rose again. It’s a peace with sins forgiven. A peace of no condemnation. A peace that comes from trusting the God who cannot lie, and who keeps His promises. Where no matter what happens, the Creator of all things is with you and has your back. You can trust in His grace. He will lift you up. This peace comes from reading the Bible and knowing who you are praying to. Over time, the relationship gets stronger and the peace deeper.
Continue readingThe leaders did not adhere to God’s law in the manner of sentencing Jesus to death: the trial was held at night; the witness’ stories did not corroborate so it should have been halted right there; the top official challenged Jesus Himself, which was illegal; and they abused Him during the trial. The charge they brought before Pilate was not the charge they brought against Him to bring Him to trial.
Continue readingAfter Joshua and Caleb passed away, Israel passed away from God. After much of the promised land was conquered through the leading of Joshua and Caleb, the Israelites failed to trust God’s promises to give it to them if they continued fighting. Instead, they settled down. Judges 21:25 gives us the reason for their wayward heart: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” They did not do what was right in God’s eyes, as taught through the example of Joshua and the words of Moses.
Continue readingGod brought the Israelites into Canaan to drive out the inhabitants of the land (Numbers 33:52). In Deuteronomy 7:1-11, we learn that the Jews were God’s chosen people, and they were not to mix with the inhabitants lest they stray from God.
There is nothing special about the people of Jericho being destroyed more than all the other Canaanites. God repeatedly told Joshua, who led the people against the Canaanite cities, to thoroughly kill all who were alive, to completely eradicate the cultures there (Joshua 10:39). Archaeological digs in Israel for the Canaanite period has reveal extremely repulsive practices by the inhabitants, and many carved idols everywhere. They were to be destroyed lest the inhabitants turn the Jews to their practices and turn them away from God.
Our own culture has been doing this to God’s people, hasn’t it?
Continue readingThis Bible study method is ideal for narrative (or story) segments, such as the history portions of the Old Testament, the gospels, and Acts. It is centered on the story, which may be a whole chapter in the Old Testament stories, or smaller segments in the gospels and Acts. You would read the story, then ask the five “W” questions: who, what, where, when, and why.
This practice helps gather details of the story passage so it becomes more memorable than a quick read could give you. You’ll discover hidden details you would normally miss with a casual reading. Let’s see how these words can help you get more meaning out of the Bible passage.
Continue readingThere are different ways to explain this.
In this Bible study method, we are going to pose a series of questions to the text to pull out certain answers that are helpful for practical applications. Use as many of these questions as fit the text. I will list the questions and give answers based on Matthew 1:18-25. If you read the passage yourself, you might find other answers than those given here.
Continue reading“I’m always afraid of dying and going to hell. It’s my greatest fear, thus I’m always feeling pressured by the things the Bible says we should do. I sometimes feel like giving up because it’s so hard. Although I feel this way the Holy Spirit always gets me to not give up. Because as soon as I run away from God I feel guilty and I just miss him to much. Is what I’m experiencing normal?”
Continue readingI learned this chapter summary approach in church. With everyone in the congregation following the same chapter, we worked on this format at home individually during the week. Then we gathered on Tuesday night and shared the details of our studies. Some first-timers in the church got saved with this format. Try it out. Some used this method to study their Bible every morning for years to come. One key benefit is that this study method works for every book in the Bible.
Continue readingNotice the similarities at the beginning of these three famous Bible passages. The Ten Commandments: “I am the Lord your God … You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:2-3). The Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father, in heaven, hallowed be Your name” (Matthew 6:9). The greatest commandment: “You shall love the Lord Your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength” (Matthew 22:37).
What links them together is their immediate focus of priority. God is in first place. This sets the stage for soul-searching. We are to be distinguished above all the people of the earth in that we have the heart-changing knowledge of the Creator of the world, the thrice-holy God who saves all those who call upon Him.
Continue readingWhy not start the new year by jazzing up your Bible study/devotional time? We can all use a tune-up where we integrate new ideas or techniques, and reevaluate methods we use that no longer make sense because we’ve matured a bit.
A search of the internet reveals a variety of Bible study methods we can use to further our understanding of God’s Word. I’m starting a series where I test a limited number of these methods, one by one. Today we will cover the ACTS Bible study method. It’s not enough to read the Bible—we want to get the most out of it so we allow it to change us. That will take place as we study the Bible and apply it to our lives.
Continue readingThe Doubt Busters site has drifted from its original mission as a question-and-answer format designed to help Christians address questions relative to their faith. But articles on the Christians’ faith journey have taken over the site.
As a result, I have created an offshoot of this website to house the latter type of articles. The site is called “Alive to God,” making reference to Romans 6:11, “Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” What does it mean to be alive to God and no longer a slave to the old life?
Doubt Busters will retain all of its current content to keep the links intact. The new site is a direct copy of Doubt Busters, but with all the early Q&A content removed. If you prefer the later content you’ve been reading in Doubt Busters, please head on over to Alive to God and bookmark the new site.
When we consider the Our Father prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) from the standpoint of God’s promise to Abraham, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3), it adds a new dimension to this prayer. This prayer furthers a vision that the Lord has today, to bless all nations.
Continue readingIn his brief letter, positioned just before the last book of the Bible, Jude writes a lot about apostates (those who fall away from the Lord Jesus) in the past (vv. 4-11) and in the present (vv. 12-16). Jude writes of “ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness…” (v. 4). These ungodly people mischaracterized God’s grace as approval for doing immoral things. There are many ways we can be drawn away from the Lord. In this epistle, Jude focuses on straying because of listening to misleading ministers.
Jude gives us a four-dosage prescription (vv. 20-21) to keep our spiritual lives healthy and strong, so that we may not be led astray and meet the same doom as the errant instructors.
“Christ died for my sins on the cross.” These words roll off our lips with ease. Did you ever think about what salvation means, and how extensive it really is? I want to introduce four long Bible words that are packed with meaning, and that help us appreciate more powerfully what Christ accomplished when He died on the cross. Most of this material comes from the book, The Cross of Christ, by John R. Stott.
Continue readingIn the Old Testament through Isaiah the prophet, the Lord had given a sign to king Ahaz, “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (Matthew 1:23, referencing Isaiah 7:14). Immanuel means “God with us.”
Hundreds of years later, an angel visited Joseph and told him that Mary, his betrothed, “will bear a son, and you shall call his name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Jesus means “God Saves.”
Continue readingTo us who are still loaded down with the cares of life, with its many distractions, with the endless to-do’s driving us with no end in sight, Jesus’ offer still stands: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28, NKJV).
Perhaps we cannot come to Him because our goal in life is quite different from “rest.” We want to achieve. We want the best. We need money. We need a friendly face. We have some place we want to be and rest won’t get us there.
Actually, it will.
Continue readingOur new strand begins with Romans 5:10, “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” The life of Christ will offer more than a resumption of the fellowship with God that we lost through sin. It will be the cause for keeping us living the righteous life in faith. More on this later.
Continue readingMany of us at one time or another have scratched our heads over the two verses in Rom. 7:24–25, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! ” From “who will deliver me?” to “I thank God—through Jesus” presents a maddening gap in logic that has frustrated believers who knew the battle Paul faced: “For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do” (Rom. 7:15). What exactly was the solution that set Paul free?
Continue readingWhen we consider the men and women of faith in Hebrews 11–Abel and his excellent sacrifice, Enoch who walked with God, Noah who built the ark, Abraham who left for the unknown, elderly Sarah who received strength to bear a child, Moses who passed through the Red Sea–we find it hard to see ourselves walking in their shoes, having a faith like theirs.
Yet this is exactly what God intended with the offering of His Son. The communion they spent with God is ours with Christ. The faith stirred in hearing His voice is the same faith of the word that burns in our hearts today. The direction and calling they received is offered to us by the same Spirit in us who call Jesus Christ our Lord.
Continue readingIn our Bible college class, we were to read Revelation over the course of a week and write up our observations. Here is what I came up with, using the two main headings I was to fill in.
Continue readingI decided to examine the nativity accounts myself to see what the mystery is all about. (Spoiler alert: there’s no mystery; they work together perfectly.) I first made two columns on a sheet of paper and listed the main events of each book’s chapter two, and especially the locations of each event. My goal was to match up the events by similar location. I wanted to see if I could find a literal, historical account.
Continue readingGod created us in His image, after His likeness (Genesis 1:26-27). That image encompasses all of us, our heart, soul, mind, and strength expressing love to the Creator of all. He made us to be image-bearers reflecting His glory to the world wherever we go.
History in ancient times tells us that when the emperors, like the Pharaohs, claimed new territory for their kingdom, they placed statues of themselves there to remind the occupants who their ruler was. Those images represented the ruler’s authority extended to there.
There may come a time when we look at our lives and realize that God was no longer at work. We no longer enjoy the freedom, peace, and power we had with Him.
In the same way in Israel’s history, in the time of Saul, they had departed from God, but the reality did not hit them until the Philistines went to war with them and Israel brought out the ark of the covenant to the battle. Israel lost the battle, and the Philistines captured the ark (1 Samuel 4).
When we do something wrong and we knew better, sometimes it shocks us awake, especially when we could have resisted it before. We approached life as usual, then wham! The sin came out of nowhere and we were surprised. The Jews were surprised because they brought the ark with them, the symbol of God’s presence. But the Lord was not with them.
Continue readingThe elders of Israel asked the prophet Samuel to make a king over them like the other nations have. When Samuel prayed about this, the Lord replied, “they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them” (1 Samuel 8:7).
Continue readingOur God wants to make Himself known to the world. He had this desire from the very beginning in the garden of Eden when He created the first couple. He made them in His image (Genesis 2:26–27).
He wanted them to be “fruitful,” meaning to flourish with all the God-given abilities, talents, and gifts they were given. To “multiply,” to procreate more godly images of Him. To “fill the earth” with these God-honoring images of Himself (Gen. 2:28 NKJV).
But sin entered in when the couple chose the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil at the instigation of a Satanic serpent (Gen. 3). So their offspring was corrupted with a sinful image, one that no longer looks to God for guidance, but instinctively acts with autonomy, deciding what is good and right for themselves. So all people begin life with this sinful mindset. Meanwhile, God left a promise of a new man who was to come, saying to the serpent, “He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:15; “bruise” in these two uses can also be rendered “crush”).
Continue readingThe “Our Father” prayer in Matthew 6:9-13 humbles me. The entire prayer is pointing us to see our need for the Lord in everything. The Father is exalted in heaven. We pray for His kingdom to come and replace the sorry mess we’ve made on earth. We pray that His will be done because what we want often doesn’t rise to His level of importance.
We need His daily bread because the world’s fare doesn’t satisfy. We need to face our sins and confess that we’re the problem after all. We need to forgive others and give them another reason to do well next time. The evil one is stronger than us and keeps leading us to temptation and ruin.
God desires that we be like His Son (Rom. 8:29). In the end, this is what salvation looks like, that we live the way He does because we have the relationship with God that He has. Jesus gave us a forceful command that helps us evaluate how we are living our lives and get back on track where we’ve gone off.
He said to His disciples, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matt. 6:33).
Continue readingAs I read America’s Declaration of Independence this morning, I was struck by its many parallels to our times. The Declaration included a list of 27 grievances committed by the British king against the original “united States of America.” For these reasons, the colonies determined to be “Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown” and to live as “Free and Independent States.” (Uppercase and lowercase have been preserved from the original document.)
We have jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire, for the Declaration’s grievances against the king have parallels to problems we face now.
