Category All Articles

Easy Rules for Reading and Understanding the Bible

1. Read what it says.

Language is a system with inherent order and meaning. The purpose of language is communication. Communication happens only when meaning is clear between participants.
 
In order to achieve meaning in the message, the meaning of its individual elements, and the prescribed order, must be observed. (In other words, we can’t redefine the terms!)
 
Individual words, as well as ideas, have inherent meaning. When words or ideas are unrecognizable because of a failure to apply proper meaning, communication does not happen; language fails in its purpose.
 
This principle applies to all languages. The Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek, in adherence to the inherent structure and meaning of each language.

Remember: effective output requires adherence to structure and m...

Read More

Bible Study Principles or How to Effectively Study the Bible

General

The Bible is God’s word to man. It has specific meaning for all men at all times. If the meaning of Scripture is fluid (changeable), or subjective (someone’s interpretation or opinion), God has said nothing to us, and we have nothing to say to the world. Our hope is based upon His word being Truth, as Jesus declared it to be.

The Bible was written by ordinary men under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It is not restricted to those with special training or higher learning, but is open to any who read or hear. Its message is not complex or difficult, except to the extent that men may choose to rebel against its author, and therefore its content.

Study of Scripture is a two-fold exercise:

Intellectual – engaging the mind in discovering what is said.

Spiritual – as the Holy Spir...

Read More

Bible Studies: Introduction

In keeping with the purpose of Grace and Truth website to help Christians grow in their knowledge of God through the careful consideration of God’s Word, the Holy Bible, I will begin to post the notes to different Bible Studies. In these Bible Studies I will address individual Books of the Bible to expand the reader’s knowledge and understanding of the Person and Nature of God, the nature and purpose of the material world, the nature and role of humans in God’s creation, and Man’s Relationship with God.

The Bible declares itself throughout to be the Word of God.  Whenever you read the phrase, “Thus saith the LORD…”, you have the words God spoke to the man who recorded the words...

Read More

The Church is Under Attack

Satan wants to suppress and extinguish the light of the Gospel of Christ.

His legions in the world war against the Truth and against those who bear it, through lies and twisting of facts and the meanings of words, through assault and oppression, and through censure; through distractions, diversions, temptations, enticements, relationships, comforts, and “goals”. The enemy roars both inside and out of the recognized church. We must take hold of our Captain. We must relinquish our hold on temporal distractions. We must refuse to become servants of worldly things – any worldly thing no matter now noble or how necessary, becomes a stumbling block and an impediment to the work of the Gospel as soon as it has equal time, equal effort, equal priority to Christ and His grace in our life.

The...

Read More

Signs and Wonders and the End Times

Signs and wonders, or miracles, are often accepted by professing Christians as evidence or even proof that a person, spiritual leader or teacher, or a phenomenon is from God. Sometimes even unbelievers and skeptics are persuaded through miraculous signs and wonders of the spirituality of some teacher or circumstance. But are all signs and wonders or apparent miracles necessarily from God or are they necessarily good? I don’t believe there is one true Christian who does not know that the Bible clearly teaches otherwise.

The preoccupation with miraculous phenomena has exploded since the charismatic movement began, and more particularly the Vineyard movement...

Read More

Questions For Followers of the Emergent Movement

QUESTIONS TO ASK AN EMERGENT FOLLOWER OR OTHER LIBERAL PROFESSING CHRISTIAN:

 

On what authority do you know anything? Your natural senses? What some person tells you?

On what authority do you know anything about God?

Do you believe you are a Christian?

What is a Christian?

Do you believe it is possible to be a Christian without being saved?

Do you believe a person can ‘follow Jesus’ without being saved?

On what authority do you believe you are saved?

What is the gospel?

On what authority do you know what the gospel is?

If your natural senses are your authority, you have no basis for knowledge of anything beyond the natural: love, fear, outer-space, inner earth, super-natural, God, spirit, Heaven.

If it is the word of men, you are a fool. Men lie, steal, rape, kill, and cheat...

Read More

Reconciling Pagan Practices with Christianity

Or Can we “Sanctify” Acts or Ideas belonging to False Religious Systems to Make Them Suitable for Worship of the Lord God or a Part of Christian Life Practice? 

Throughout Scripture, God commands His people to be ‘holy’, separate from the world and sin. False teachings and false practices have plagued the church since the beginning, evidenced in the letters from Paul, Peter, John, and Jude, so it is not unique to today. The Holy Spirit ensured we would have no reason to question what response might be appropriate to the inclusion of pagan practices or philosophies in Christian life and worship. God admonished the Israelites frequently that they were to absolutely reject everything originating from pagan practice, incorporating none of it in their lives or the worship of Almighty God...

Read More

What Do You Have to Know to Be A Christian?

Do you have to get everything right to be a Christian? No, but there are some things you cannot get wrong and still be a Christian. For instance, you must believe in God in order to be a Christian. But you can’t believe in just any god. You must believe in the God Who has revealed Himself through His Word to men, through His prophets, through the Law, and through Jesus Christ. If you believe in a false god, you are not a Christian, no matter how sincere you are or how well you behave. [1]

Then there is the matter of Truth. You must believe that truth exists, and that it is knowable, because Jesus declared that the Father requires men to worship Him in spirit and in truth. If there is no truth, or it cannot be known, we are unable to obey God’s clear requirement for worship. [2]

A Chr...

Read More

The Tree Of Life

The fruit of the Tree of Life is life.

The fruit of the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” is the knowledge of good and evil. Until consuming this ‘fruit’, man knew only good, as he communed with God, the Source of all goodness, and continued in fellowship with Him by submission.[i]

Disobedience brought the knowledge of evil. Eve was deceived and persuaded by a smooth argument that what God had forbidden was ‘good’ for her. Instead of trusting the God Who created her and would know what was good, Eve doubted, and trusted the lie. Adam was disobedient, unfaithful to the God Who spoke to him from the beginning, in Whom Adam ‘lived, and moved, and had his being”. When the commandment was rejected, sin was birthed and Adam died.[ii]

In the beginning, man had access to t...

Read More

The Social Gospel is Death.

Like the religious leaders of Christ’s day, religious leaders today have misled millions of people into thinking that they will be alright with God on judgement day because of their good deeds or some social action they have taken. But the Scripture is very clear that we are not justified before God by ‘works of righteousness’ nor by ‘works of the law’ but by faith that the blood of Jesus Christ shed to cover our sins has made atonement with God on our behalf. In order for God to apply that atonement, we must turn from sin to God in faith, believing that Christ died for us, and rose again to give everlasting life to men. 

Paul called those who preach another gospel ‘anathema’ – eternally condemned...

Read More