Romans

This last week we have been walking through the book of Romans. It is a simple book with a deep message behind it. The gospel is always such a simple message of redemption and love, yet it impacts and changes peoples lives.

The order of Romans goes a little like this:

Introduction-Theme-Condemnation-Justification-Sanctification-Restoration-Application-Conclusion

                                                                           Romans 1:16-17                                                                              For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.”

Something I realized while going over Romans is just how dead we were in our sin before Christ. For me its not like Jesus threw us a lifeline while we were struggling to swim in the ocean and we chose to grab the lifeline and he pulled me in the boat. Rather it's more like I was drowning in the ocean, I died and sank to the deepest part of the ocean. Jesus came down and rescued me and breathed life into me again.

When Jesus died on the cross for our sins we were then justified; we are made righteous in the sight of God. Paul outlines this in chapters three through five. It is this that moves us. Once we truly know this we will follow Jesus with our whole lives, no matter what it takes.

I think that all too often I forget how sanctification is a continual process that will not be complete until God takes us home to be with him. To stick with this same analogy why would I jump out of the boat into the stormy ocean when I know that it would only cause me trouble. With sanctification we are to continually pursue our relationship with God and live our lives in a way that is pleasing to Him. We are to leave our old life behind and not return to it.

Proverbs 26:11: Like a dog that returns to its vomit Is a fool who repeats his folly.

Jesus has restored us! He has restored us back to what we originally were meant to be. His ultimate restoration will be when He comes again to free His people. We will be in the presence of God and will worship him eternally!

Lastly Paul outlines some practical ways for us to live our lives in a way that is pleasing to God; ways to live our lives that sanctifies us until the day that Jesus returns.

Apologetics

So for the last week we were taught on apologetics, the defending of our faith and what we know to be true. My whole perspective on the “How” of defending my faith has changed.

I always thought that all you had to do is show them some proof for why their view is wrong and a few points why my faith is right… However it is clear that that is no way to show someone truth.

To show someone truth you have to first understand what they believe, specifically what worldview they hold. Theistic worldview, naturalism worldview, and pantheistic worldview. We have to start at the basics. Do they believe in a god, believe in no god, or do they believe that god is all and all is god?

Once we have this knowledge we can begin to show people truth. The next step is to then prove the existence of a God. We can do this by many means; one of the most common ways is to do it by proving it with creation. We can show that there must have been a beginning of the earth so there must be a purpose, so there must be a god.

Once we get people to the theistic worldview we can truly make a case for Christianity. We show the validity of the Bible, its contents, and Jesus.

Apologetics is something that we are all called to do and should all strive for.

1Peter 3:15

but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence

Discipleship and Church

The book 1Timothy is a book that talks about the qualifications of a church, specifically the leaders in the church.

What hit me the most about this is with regard to prayer. In chapter 2 Paul instructs Timothy and the church in what they are to be praying about, and how to pray for them. Paul says that we should pray for ALL men, specifically kings in authority. This couldn’t be more vital for today. With elections coming later this year and the tension between the United States and Muslims, this kind of prayer is needed. We are to pray for all people; so I ask you, when was the last time you prayed for the members of ISIS?

When is the last time you prayed about the fallen people of this world desiring that they would come to know Christ’s love towards them?

This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth- 1 Timothy 2:3-4 

The second thing that I enjoyed learning about is the leaders of the church. Paul goes in detail the kind of people that should be overseers and Deacons. There are 14 qualifications for overseers, and 8 qualifications for deacons. We should all strive to be leaders in our church; this doesn’t mean that we will all be pastors by any means. It was helpful to me to read through all of these qualifications and seeing where I line up and where I fall short.

Everyone should read through 1 Timothy chapter 3 and see what they can improve on and learn.

1 Timothy is a book of discipleship, leadership, and prayer. 

Superiority of the Messiah

Hebrews seems to be a book that I have in the past attempted to read multiple times, yet I have never seemed to quite get it. It is a life-giving book rooted in deep and sometimes confusing theology.

Hebrews was a book written to a large audience, mostly to believers. It was written to encourage believers to stand firm on Christ’s Divinity, rather than falling for other false doctrines.

The Thing that hits me the most is that sometimes we do not realize the power and the greatness that comes with what Jesus did on the cross. It should break us daily. The message of the gospel should inspire us to live our lives passionately following our savior and telling others about his unending grace.

The book of Hebrews goes through and proves the validity of Christ as a prophet, as a priest, and as a King. The covenant in the Old Testament was not removed through Christ’s coming, but rather it was fulfilled. The book ends with giving encouragement to stay faithful to what God has called us to do.

Hebrews 12:11

All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

Three is One

The Trinity is a complicated subject, but at the same time a very important one. I never quite realized the full weight that the Trinity caries until this week. No religion other than Christianity believes in the Trinity. It is what holds Christianity together. To deny the Trinity is to deny Christ and to deny Christ is to deny truth.

 One cannot simply accept Jesus as the Son of God without accepting the Trinity. You might say that a person can believe in Jesus and at the same time not in the Holy Spirit, but this simply can’t be.

John 14:16

I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; 17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.

 Here we see Jesus acknowledge, and even promise the coming of the Spirit. If Jesus is perfect and without sin we can depend on his words to be true. With this proof we can say Christ proves the existence of the Trinity.

 The Trinity is a tricky subject to explain to even the highest of scholars and theologians, especially to those who don’t recognize that there is even a God at all. How can we explain that there are three persons in the Trinity, yet at the same time there is only one God? I believe that this is something that we as humans in our limited thinking will never fully understand, but that’s not our goal. To quote a friend of mine, “We are not called to be able to fully explain and wrap our minds around the Trinity, but rather, we are called to acknowledge it.”

 But for now we can try to explain it in the simplest terms. A very common analogy that is used amongst Christians goes a little like this: There is an egg. This egg has three parts: the shell, the whites, and a yolk. Similarly the Trinity has three parts but is one, just as the egg. Now this isn’t the strongest argument, but there is truth behind it.

There is one God.

The Father is God.

The Son is God.

The Spirit is God.

The Father is not the son or the Spirit.

The Son is not the Father or the Spirit.

The Spirit is not the Father or the Son.

Beginnings and Churches

Every week we study something new, all of which is beneficial for personal growth as well as leading others to truth. This week we studied the history of the church and the progression that it went through to become the church we know today.

As we made our way through the pages of history, we kept seeing something similar surface every time the church came to a crossroad: their hearts were full of good intentions. But, now we see looking back that having good intentions is not always enough. Our actions must line up with the truth. If they don’t than it doesn’t matter what our intentions were, the next generation will pay for it.

My perspective of the church, especially the Catholic Church, has been radically changed. It is enlightening and yet heart breaking to see the transformation of how the church went from honoring God as we should be, to elevating man to a higher position than we aught be. It helps me understand the Catholics and how I might show them the truth and how a church and its members should act accordingly.

The thing that really surprised me about the church is how they position a hierarchy or government within, when it is un-Biblical to do so. Such as the Presbyterian, the Assemblies of God, and the Baptist church who all have a higher up authority, other than God, that they answer to. Even in a single church itself, there is an order of who is above who and ultimately one person higher than everyone else in the church. Although this can help churches to be more fluid, it is not necessarily Biblical. 

If nothing else, this week has shown me that there are no perfect churches. Some are better than others, don’t get me wrong, but all are far from perfect. Whether Calvinist, Lutheran, or even Arminian, I know that when choosing a church in the future, the one thing that really matters is that they profess truth. All they teach and believe should line up with the Word of God and the Word alone.

“But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshippers. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit in truth.” – John 4:23-24

Leadership and More

Over the last few weeks we have been studying a few of the Old Testament books; Daniel and Nehemiah to be exact. There is so much information and so much that these books have to offer. We could spend weeks and weeks on each of these books and only scratch the surface of the knowledge that they have to offer… Yet we spent 4 days on Daniel and a mere 1 and a half days on Nehemiah.

 The book Daniel speaks to few topics: God’s miracles and strength, God’s sovereignty, and even God’s prophetic plans for his people’s future. The last of which we studied more in depth. It is inspiring to see how God’s plans have unfolded, yet chilling and empowering to see his plans for the future.

 Nehemiah continually points to God’s sovereign plan as it goes through Israel’s progress of rebuilding itself after being exiled for 70 years. It is encouraging to see the dedication and all the work that went into the rebuilding; it was much more than just building a wall. They encountered many trials along the way.

 With both of these books the thing that stands out to me the most is the leaders themselves. There is so much we can learn from the leadership of both Daniel and Nehemiah. Daniel was faithful to God despite facing death, Nehemiah not only lead the entire build of the wall, but also governed the people during the process and dealt with problems as they arose.

 Both Daniel and Nehemiah were men of prayer. That’s where everything should always start; on your knees before your father. Good leaders know this and live by this. Daniel was thrown into a lion’s den because of this, yet at the same time was spared because he was faithful to follow God in prayer.

As you read these books we can see that a huge quality of a leader is that they take responsibility of the people that they are leading. Nehemiah weeps for days as asks God for forgiveness for the sins that “we” have made, not just they. Daniel prays to God asking for God to remove the punishment that he knows is rightly there and that again “we” have committed. Humility is a necessary character of a leader.

 There is much more to these books and to talk about them would take lots and lots of time. I encourage everyone to read these two books of the bible (I would recommend starting with Nehemiah because Daniel gets a bit confusing with all the prophecies.) If you want to know how to be a leader study from these two men who were some of the best leaders who we can learn from today

Belief and Truth

So, for today’s post my heart is full of passion but also my heart breaks. This week we have been talking a bit about other religions. We covered a wide variety of religions including: Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Mormonism.

As usual, class was fairly casual. As we were discussing these religions it was easy for us, as Christians who know the one TRUTH, to pass judgment. So, we all laughed and I found myself giving a little chuckle too. Then, it hit me. It hit so hard and for the rest of the class time, and the following 2 days, I no longer was laughing and my perspective had been completely changed.

This is what hit me: people actually believe these things. To them it’s not just some crazy story or made up myth, but to them it is TRUTH. They live their lives believing in these things. They dedicate themselves to it, sometimes even more than the Christians who know the real TRUTH do. No longer did I laugh at how crazy this was... now my heart was broken on how far from the truth and the love of Christ these people are.

We shouldn't be laughing at this. It should make us weep and take action. We should desire even more to share the gospel and to share the TRUTH to everyone. As those who know the TRUTH, we should share with those who open their arms to us and to those who bring hostility. This week we have learned about these religions and their origins. But what I have really learned: is to understand these people and to show them the Truth, in love and with the desire to one day see them praising God for all eternity.

 We find it crazy and even humorous that people can believe what they believe. Whether it is the belief in a god that supports murder or a belief in an elephant god, the fact is that everyone needs to hear the ultimate TRUTH. As Christians we need to look at everyone with the perspective that they are made in the image of God and are His children, whom He loves and desires a relationship with.

A First Word...

Since starting the Kanakuk Institute I have received more information, truth, and wisdom than I could ever hope to retain, and this is just the beginning of the knowledge to come. So I am writing this in hope of being able to retain and share this information ,

For today I’m going to talk a bit about what I have learned while at the Institute; specifically the importance of an inductive Bible study.

I have learned that to truly understand the Bible, it is best to have an inductive study style. All too often Christians read the Bible and decide what it means to them. That takes the Bible out of context and more importantly in takes truth away from the scriptures. Today’s culture, including todays Christian culture, does not have absolute truth. It’s all about how you feel and what you believe is good but what I believe is good too. This thinking is not correct because there is no truth in it. We need to consider the three principles to an inductive Bible study: Observation, Interpretation, and Application.

What an Inductive Bible study does is takes you out of, “What does this passage mean to me?” and leads you to, “What is the truth spoken in these words, and how can I apply them to my life?”