Latest Blog Posts from Wednesday in the Word, the podcast about what the Bible means and how we know.
The Pharisees consider themselves blameless before the law if they have refrained from physically committing adultery. But Jesus says righteousness requires more. It requires inward submission to the will of God and accepting the boundaries He has placed on your life, including your sexuality.
Wayne Grudem’s 10 rules for how to interpret the Bible. The first 3 rules are the most important.
If you’re building a bible study library, here are the basic tools you need to get started.
The Pharisees believed they were righteous because no court could convict them of murder. But Jesus countered that if courts were in charge of judging righteousness, then responding to others with unloving anger would get you arrested; and calling people insulting names would get you thrown into the fires of judgment.
Tools and resources you need to do a word study on the Greek verb for to sanctify or to make holy.
In the second section of this sermon Jesus warns that our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. Unlike them, we must have a genuine commitment to the Scriptures and what they teach if we want to find life in the kingdom of God. We must seek to understand the full demands of the Law and want to obey it.
The canon of Scripture is the list of all the books that belong in the Bible. The Bible, the Apocrypha and history all testify to the historical development of the Old Testament canon.
Whenever you study Scripture, it’s important to know where your particular passage fits into biblical history. As Karl Barth said: “The Bible is not a philosophical book, but a history book, the book of God’s mighty acts, in which God becomes knowable to us.” Here’s a simple overview of biblical history.
The “so what” of being justified by faith is now we have a reason to boast. Paul explains the 3 things we boast about in Romans 5:1-11. The first is hope.
Tools and resources you need to do a word study on the Greek word for hypocrite, hupokrités.
The Wednesday in the Word podcast is on break to celebrate the arrival of my newest grandchild! We’ll return to the Gospel of Matthew in mid-September. We finished the beatitudes We’ll pick up with the “Antitheses.”
Saving faith is the permanent, ongoing trust in God that one day He will free me completely from all the consequences and effects of sin because of the blood of Jesus Christ. Saving faith itself is a gift from God and it involves 4 things.
Tools and resources you need to do a word study on the Greek word for word, logos
There are 2 consequences to our sin: 1) We experience death and futility. 2) Our rebellion is wrong and we now owe a debt to justice that must be paid. Justification is the payment of that debt.
Tools and resources you need to do a word study on the Greek adjective for perfect, teleios.
Understanding the gospel means we must understand the problem that the gospel solves. While the word gospel means “good news,” understanding the gospel begins with bad news: death.
Tools and resources you need to do a word study on the Greek noun for perfect, telos.
The podcast is on break to celebrate the arrival of my newest grandchild. We’ll return to the Gospel of Matthew and the Sermon on the Mount in mid-September.
The beatitude describe people who have saving faith and will inherit a place in the kingdom of God. Upon conversion, we don’t start perfectly, courageously and consistently displaying all these qualities of poor in spirit, meek, mourning and so forth. Rather as we grow in faith, we grow in these qualities.
WitW: Do you interpret the Bible literally? I’m often asked as if no self-respecting adult would do such a thing. Of course, I do! Interpreting the Bible literally means interpreting it according to the way it was written.
People marked by the being poor in spirit, mourning over sin, hungering for righteousness, pursuing peace and mercy, etc. will draw the hostility of the world, but they will be rewarded with eternal life in the kingdom of God. We, his disciples, are not to shrink from following Jesus for fear that the world might hate us. We are to follow him, even though that invites mocking, scoffing and persecution.
Peacemakers commit the costly act of refusing to answer injury for injury and seeking a peaceful reconciliation instead will find their inheritance as children of God in the kingdom of heaven. When we realize how deeply we ourselves are indebted to God’s grace and dependent on His mercy, we also realize we’re in no position to condemn the sins of others.
Tools and resources you need to do a word study on the Greek word for immorality, porneia.
The pure in heart are not those who are morally perfect. Rather their hearts have been cleansed of rebellion and rejection of God. The pure in heart live like the gospel is true, though not perfectly. One day they will stand before God and be accepted.
Tools and resources you need to do a word study on the Greek word for stumble or fall away: skandalizō
Tools and resources you need to do a word study on the Biblical Greek verb for comfort, parakaleō G3870.
Tools and resources you need to do a word study on the Greek word for mercy, ἐλεέω
Only those will to commit the costly act of being merciful will receive mercy in the kingdom of God, because showing mercy is an implication of having saving faith.
Does God only bless? Many are willing to believe that God only blesses, but reject the idea that He also judges. A subtext of the beatitudes counters that idea.
When you’re physically hungry, the desire to eat is so overwhelming you can hardly think about anything else. Jesus is counting on that experience in this beatitude. The truly fortunate ones long for that which is missing in this life which only the kingdom of God can fulfill: holiness.
While Matthew 5:5 is probably the most famous beatitude, not many people understand what it means. Jesus does not explain what he means by “meek”, but he is quoting Psalm 37 which gives us a very big clue.
Tools and resources you need to do a word study on the Greek word for pure or clean: καθαρός
Tools and resources you need to do a word study on the Greek word for inherit, kléronomeó, κληρονομέω.
Mourning is the appropriate emotional response to being poor in spirit. When you realize that life is not what it should be and you are not the kind of person you should be, the appropriate response is to weep over it.
Even if you’re using an interlinear Bible, it’s helpful to understand the basic punctuation marks and accents.
Over the course of biblical history, the children of Israel were challenged, threatened and conquered by several other ancient empires. Understanding something about those empires can inform your biblical understanding.