Topic > Christian Beliefs
He Gave Us Scripture: Foundations of Interpretation
Evangelical Christians affirm the Scriptures as God’s inerrant word, but we still disagree sometimes over the meaning of particular verses or passages, and these differences can influence our Christian doctrine and practice. One reason for these disagreements is that there are many different approaches to interpreting the Bible. But how do we know which approach to interpretation is the most responsible? This course will help answer that question. It is based on the lecture series, He Gave Us Scripture: Foundations of Interpretation, produced by Third Millennium Ministries and hosted by Dr. Richard L. Pratt, Jr. with contributions from a variety…
At Home With Jesus
“There’s no place like home.” The phrase from popular culture reflects a deeply rooted yearning within us to have a place to rest, be, and belong. Jesus addressed this desire for rootedness when, after He and His friends had their last supper together, He spoke about His impending death and resurrection. He promised that although He would go away, He would come back for them. And He would prepare a room for them—a dwelling-place. A home.
He made this place for them—and us—through fulfilling the requirements of God’s law when He died on the cross as the sinless man. He assured…
Can You Come Down From the Mountain?
We all have moments when we feel better than ever before, and we say, “I feel fit for anything; if only I could always be like this!” We are not meant to be. Those moments are moments of insight which we have to live up to even when we do not feel like it. Many of us are no good for the everyday world when we are not on the mountaintop. Yet we must bring our everyday life up to the standard revealed to us on the mountaintop when we were there.
Never allow a feeling that was awakened in you on the mountaintop to evaporate. Don’t place yourself on the shelf by thinking, “How great to be in such a wonderful state of mind!”
He Understands and Cares
When asked if he thought that ignorance and apathy were problems in modern society, a man joked, “I don’t know and I don’t care.”
I suppose many discouraged people feel that way about the world today and the people in it. But when it comes to the perplexities and concerns of our lives, Jesus fully understands, and He deeply cares. Isaiah 53, an Old Testament prophecy of the crucifixion of Jesus, gives us a glimpse of what He went through for us. “He was oppressed and afflicted . . . led like a lamb to the slaughter” (v. 7). “For the…
The Failure To Pay Close Attention
Asa was not completely obedient in the outward, visible areas of his life. He was obedient in what he considered the most important areas, but he was not entirely right. Beware of ever thinking, “Oh, that thing in my life doesn’t matter much.” The fact that it doesn’t matter much to you may mean that it matters a great deal to God. Nothing should be considered a trivial matter by a child of God. How much longer are we going to prevent God from teaching us even one thing? But He keeps trying to teach us and He never loses patience. You say, “I know I am right with God”— yet the “high places” still remain in your life. There is still an area of disobedience. Do you protest that your heart is right with God, and yet there is something in your life He causes you to doubt? Whenever God causes a doubt about something, stop it immediately, no matter what it may be. Nothing in our lives is a mere insignificant detail to God.
The Price of Love
Our daughter burst into tears as we waved goodbye to my parents. After visiting us in England, they were starting their long journey back to their home in the US. “I don’t want them to go,” she said. As I comforted her, my husband remarked, “I’m afraid that’s the price of love.”
We might feel the pain of being separated from loved ones, but Jesus felt the ultimate separation when He paid the price of love on the cross. He, who was both human and God, fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy seven hundred years after Isaiah gave it when He “bore the sin of…
The cross of Christ was always the plan
Why do Christians focus on the cross? It might seem morbid to some, but as we’ll see today on Discover the Word, “The Wondrous Cross” is where God’s carefully laid plans came to fruition. We’ll discover as we look beyond the cross to what it accomplished, that the cross of Christ was always “Plan A.” Listen […]
Inner Invincibility
Whom the Lord loves He chastens . . .” (Hebrews 12:6). How petty our complaining is! Our Lord begins to bring us to the point where we can have fellowship with Him, only to hear us moan and groan, saying, “Oh Lord, just let me be like other people!” Jesus is asking us to get beside Him and take one end of the yoke, so that we can pull together. That’s why Jesus says to us, “My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). Are you closely identified with the Lord Jesus like that? If so, you will thank God when you feel the pressure of His hand upon you.
“. . . to those who have no might He increases strength” (Isai
Remember the Cross
In the church I attend, a large cross stands at the front of the sanctuary. It represents the original cross where Jesus died—the place where our sin intersected with His holiness. There God allowed His perfect Son to die for the sake of every wrong thing we have ever done, said, or thought. On the cross, Jesus finished the work that was required to save us from the death we deserve (Rom. 6:23).
The sight of a cross causes me to consider what Jesus endured for us. Before being crucified, He was flogged and spit on. The soldiers hit Him in…
When Good Friday doesn’t seem so good
For most of my life, Good Friday primarily served as a heads-up for a nice candy-gorge. I glossed over what it really represented, anticipating instead the large egg-hunts with my cousins around my grandparents’ farm on Easter Sunday.
A wondrous plan hundreds of years in the making
Today on Discover the Word, we continue our study called “The Wondrous Cross,” a place of seeming contradictions. How could a cross—a Roman execution rack—be “wondrous”? It begins to make sense when you realize it was all part of the plan, spelled out hundreds of years earlier. We’re seeing how Christ fulfills the ancient prophecy […]
What if I Can’t Accept My Suffering?
For years, I had struggled with health issues. Plagued by auto-immune problems, anxiety, and OCD, I had to accept physical limitations and challenges with schoolwork, but I could not make peace with the mental disruption and chaos in my life.
Forsaken for Our Sake
Does having a friend nearby make pain more bearable? Researchers at the University of Virginia conducted a fascinating study to answer that question. They wanted to see how the brain reacted to the prospect of pain, and whether it behaved differently if a person faced the threat of pain alone, holding a stranger’s hand, or holding the hand of a close friend.
Researchers ran the test on dozens of pairs, and found consistent results. When a person was alone or holding a stranger’s hand while anticipating a shock, the regions of the brain that process danger lit up. But when holding…
Complete and Effective Dominion
Co-Eternal Life. Eternal life is the life which Jesus Christ exhibited on the human level. And it is this same life, not simply a copy of it, which is made evident in our mortal flesh when we are born again. Eternal life is not a gift from God; eternal life is the gift of God. The energy and the power which was so very evident in Jesus will be exhibited in us by an act of the absolute sovereign grace of God, once we have made that complete and effective decision about sin.
“You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you . . .”
The “Wondrous Cross”
What would you say causes you the most pain in life? And do you ever wonder where Jesus is in your pain? Today on Discover the Word, the team gathers to discuss one of the hardest questions we face as Christians. We find the answer at the “Wondrous Cross.” Listen to Discover the Word!
