Bible 805

A primary criticism of the New Testament is that critics say that Christians intentionally left out and/or suppressed certain writings, primarily what we call the Gnostic Gospels, and that they should be part of our New Testament and aren’t.

We need to take their challenges seriously because our New Testament contains both how to be saved by faith in Jesus AND how to live our lives after we accept Him as Savior in ways that are pleasing to Him.

But there are always alternative voices, ways to be saved, and live a “spiritual” life.

The Gnostic Gospels are an ancient alternative what we are going to look at because it isn’t just scholars who are influenced by them. Here is a typical quote that could be said by many,

“It seems to me that the only true Christians were the Gnostics, who believed in self-knowledge, i.e. becoming Christ themselves, reaching the Christ within, the light is the truth. Turn on the light.”

John Lennon is the person who said it, and you don’t have to listen to those famous, past or present, to hear the idea of God within you (without Jesus. This claim is very popular today in some of the philosophical heirs of it in various cults such as Scientology, modern church “progressive” movements, and the challenges of “deconstruction.”

In this lesson, we’ll start with what the Bible warned us about false teachers and then we’ll go into detail showing how these views are false. To do that we’ll read some of the source documents.

How do we know what we’re told about Jesus is true?

Wasn’t the New Testament written hundreds of years after He lived?

How do we know it isn’t just legends about a good teacher?

And why did some books get included and others didn’t?

In addition to that, from the start, John the Baptist and Jesus both talked about the importance of the Kingdom of God—that with Jesus the Kingdom was now present.

The whole idea of the Kingdom can be challenging to understand and though we won’t attempt to explain it totally, we will discuss it, what it meant then and what it means now to us in this lesson.

The questions we started with and more we’ll answer in our podcast.

The New Testament makes some extraordinary claims including that the long-prophesied Messiah came into the world, lived, taught, died, and rose again to offer a restored relationship to God to all who believe in Him.

For claims of such importance, naturally, not everyone believed them then or now and questions like these come up:

• Wasn’t the New Testament written hundreds of years after the events recorded in them?
• In the time between the events and the recording of them, did myth and legends replace reality?
• Therefore, are the stories of the miracles, the resurrection of Jesus, just wishful thinking?

Properly dating when the New Testament documents were written is of critical importance to establish the claims of credibility of the Bible.

In this lesson, we’ll go over ways we can know for certain when the New Testament documents were written using a variety of dating criteria including source criticism (what we learn from the documents themselves, the actual tangible copies of the historical records), when others quoted them, and statements from contemporary historical figures about Jesus and what he did.

The book of Malachi begins… with God saying, “I have always loved you, but you retort, “Really? How have you loved us?” Malachi 1:2

In some ways, these brief statements sum up the entire history of the Old Testament.

God again and again both shows and declares His love for His people.

And His people again and again, don’t believe Him, go their own ways, reap the punishment from it, repent, God loves and forgives them, and they do it all over again.

In this lesson, we’ll first look at the history of God’s love for His people, His challenging conversations with them in the book of Malachi, and applications for us.

These books were written 14‐16 years after the Jews returned to the land after their captivity. The return itself was a glorious work of God.

Once in the land, there were challenges when the surrounding people tried to stop them, but God intervened there also.

The Israelites had seen God conquer and give victory in much greater problems and He took care of this situation also and they got permission from the king to continue building.

But they didn’t—even though God miraculously provided permission for them to continue building the temple, they got distracted, a lot like we do from the work God gives us to do.

But God’s work is primary and to remind them of that He sent TWO prophets to them: Haggai and Zechariah, who preached at the same time, but in very different ways.

Haggai is very practical about what to do NOW.

Zechariah, like many prophets, jumps into the mind of God and challenges the people from His viewpoint with dreams and visions from the view of eternity. We’ll look at each one of the prophets in more detail in this lesson.

Though God had to punish the Children of Israel for their many sins by sending them into exile in Babylon, the punishment had a promised limit of 70 years and at the end of the 70 years, He miraculously returned them to their land.

In this lesson we’ll go over the return and the leadership God used to make it possible.

This is a lesson where knowing the correct chronology is especially important (and of course this lesson will teach it to you) because the books of the Bible that talk about the history Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, are just before the middle of our Bibles, are out of order in what happened, as Esther takes place shortly after the beginning of Ezra, and the books that contain the messages of the prophets who encouraged them at this time, Haggai and Zechariah are at the end of our Old Testaments.

***PLUS A VERY HELPFUL NEW Infographic on the order of events that make up the timeline of the return is included at the link at the end of this description.

This lesson will not only put them in order, but will help you see how God is faithful to keep His promises. In addition, our applications will focus on how we need to be faithful to God in keeping our promises.

The setting for this episode is that time has run out.

After hundreds of years of warnings and challenges, it’s over for Judah.

Daniel and Ezekiel are in Babylon taken there in an early deportation before the end came in Jerusalem.

What seemed horrible to them at the time was a great blessing in disguise— they were kept from the horrors of the siege, the total destruction of Jerusalem, and final deportation.

Daniel and his 3 friends were taken to the palace; Ezekiel was relocated with the captive people, near the river.

This lesson is on both of them and we’ll see how in the midst of unimaginable challenges,

Daniel and Ezekiel didn’t whine.

They faithfully worked.

Their lives became a witness.

And then the wonder of God was revealed to and through them.

When we read through the Prophets in the Old Testament, particularly when we get to Ezekiel and Daniel we are introduced to fantastic images, whirling wheels, fantastic beasts, and world-shaking prophecies.

This type of writing is what is known as “apocalyptic” and it’s useful to take some time to understand this type of writing, this genre in the Bible to understand the books that contain it.

There is a lot of confusion around the word “apocalyptic.” In the secular world, this term has taken on the idea of the end of the world, or a massive collapse of society, etc. The Biblical meaning, though it can be that, is a little different—

The Greek term apokalypsis, from which we get our English word apocalypse, literally means “unveiling.” It also means a revelation.

In the apocalyptic writings, God is unveiling, giving special revelation, special insight to His prophets, enabling them to see things from HIS viewpoint.

And sometimes that view can get a bit wild and difficult to understand as he does that.

In this lesson, we’ll look at a key characteristic that distinguishes apocalyptic writing from other prophetic writings and that is its use of images, why we need to understand the meaning behind the images if we are going to understand the writing, and why today we often have trouble with that.

In addition, one of the most useful parts of this lesson will be an overview of commentaries you can go to for help in understanding these books. None of us and no one teacher has all the answers, but we have incredible resources today that can help.

Below are links to the blog and downloadable notes and questions, the podcast, and video:

How are we supposed to act when things go wrong? Especially if we had nothing to do to cause the problems that plague us? How can we help others who are going through a hard time?

I have answers to these questions and more in this lesson.

First, the lesson goes into a little bit of history to set the stage. For centuries God has been patient, but now things are falling apart.

After repeatedly sending prophets to His people to remind them of the covenant He made with them where they accepted His salvation and promised to obey His commands—they didn’t respond.

The time for judgment had come for the Northern Kingdom when Assyria took them into captivity and now the time is almost up for the Southern Kingdom.

Is it really OK to ask God “why?”

We all have questions like these:

Why does God allow evil?

Why do evil people get away with things?

Why do good people get caught up in the mess others make?

In this lesson we’ll look at the prophet Habakkuk and what happened when he not only asked God “Why?” but when he kept asking God when he didn’t like how God answered him the first time.

In addition to the basic and yet challenging content of the book, we also look at the book's form, which is a CONVERSATION with God. This is different than the majority of the prophets because for most their writings are a record of God speaking through them. In Habakkuk, it is all about him speaking to God and listening for specific answers to his questions.

The lesson goes on to talk about how we can develop a conversational nature with our God who talked with His creation in the Garden of Eden and who will one day, again physically walk and talk with His redeemed people when all things are renewed. As glorious as that will be, we can grow in that kind of relationship with Him now.

The best-selling book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People totally revolutionized the lives of millions of people and one of the habits he talked about is a great summary of our lesson today.

The habit I’m talking about is Habit #2—Begin With the End in Mind

The prophets who preached after the fall of Israel and before Judah was conquered by Babylon preached to challenge people to do this.

We will briefly talk about 3 prophets Micah, Isaiah, and Zephaniah, and how they encouraged people to live with the end in mind.

There are several related topics we also cover including how Christianity is a linear religion unlike many Eastern ones with a clear beginning of planet Earth and also a clear end. Related to this is the reality that our lives have a clear ending where we will meet Jesus and not vague reincarnation where people imagine a series of do-overs. We also talk about judgment and rewards.

The prophets and the point of this lesson is that we have ONE opportunity in this life to determine the outcome of our eternity and we want everyone to as C.S. Lewis says, "choose the right side."

Below are links to the podcast and video of the lesson, plus a PDF of the notes.

Just before Hosea appears, God sent the prophet Amos to condemn the sins of Israel. Amos preached forceful, harsh messages for about 3 years.

With Hosea God gives his people a similar message that they have violated his covenant and judgment is coming, but in a very different way. In Hosea, his overall message is of God’s incredible love for His people, no matter how badly they treated him. The book is an excellent rebuttal to those who say that the Old Testament God is one of vengeance and hurtful actions.

In addition to that, the book is a challenge to us because to show people His love, God used Hosea to live out his message of love with a wife who was unfaithful to him.

God uses people to show His messages to the world and it isn’t always easy for the people being used in this way. The book is also an encouragement if you feel God has you in a situation you’d rather not be in. He may be using you to teach a lesson that will be a blessing to many, even though at this present time it gives you great pain.

We learn a lot from this book, not only about the history of Israel, but how God works and how we must keep an eternal viewpoint in mind, realizing much in this life won’t make sense, though we need to trust God regardless. One day our pain will end, God’s purposes will be clear, and we can rejoice with Hosea that we trusted our God.

Below are links to the blog & notes, podcast, video, and Bible805 Resources on the lesson:

The prophet Amos and his message has captivated preachers, reformers, and Christian leaders from the earliest days it was preached until today, particularly with its emphasis on justice.

Martin Luther King used it in his I Have a Dream speech where he quoted the verse “Let justice roll down…” from Amos 5:24.

And in June 2023 Pope Francis chose “Let justice and peace flow” (citing the book of Amos) as the theme for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, which will be on Sept. 1.

In this lesson we’ll first look at the meaning of the word justice in the Old Testament and how it is far more than a legal term but about “giving people what they are due, whether punishment or protection or care.”

We will confirm Amos as a historical figure through what archeology tells us and then look at his challenges to the people of his time and how they apply to us as followers of God today.

In his time sadly there was a “famine for the Words of the Lord,” in both the land and in their religious observances. There was much religious observance and little true obedience to God—similarities we find in our world. Amos tells us how to live in the midst of these challenges.

We all know about the fish swallowing Jonah, but there is more in the book including the answers to these questions:

What about people who haven’t heard the gospel if Jesus is the only way to God

What do we do about bad people, or when people treat us badly? What does God expect from us as His followers?

How should we respond to continuing trials?

Answers to these questions and other elated applications are what we will cover in our lesson on Jonah.

In addition, we’ll look at the importance of follow-up after someone becomes a Christian. This is inspired by Jonah because world history at that time could have been very different if Jonah hadn’t stomped off with a bad attitude and had stayed to teach the people of Nineveh after their great national repentance.

But we’ll never know because Jonah didn’t stay and do what he should have done. That is the last we hear of Jonah, but not the last of Nineveh. They return to their evil, aggressive ways and less than 40 years later conquer Israel, and the nation is destroyed.

New believers need follow-up—they need to learn about the God they have trusted for salvation. They need to know HisWord and His ways.

The lesson then talks about the importance of follow-up and shares a chart of 5 Assurances of the Disciple of Jesus, a modification of a chart on follow-up that I learned from the Navigator ministry.

With this additional lesson, I’m also introducing a series on Discipleship for Bible805, a series of blogs, videos, podcasts, and other materials in addition to going through the Bible in chronological order.

When people think of the Old Testament prophets, most often two areas come to mind:

First, most people think of the prophecies of Jesus’ coming, and though that is important and a significant validation of the truth of the Christian faith, only 2% of prophecies are about the coming of Jesus.

Second, many think of the Old Testament prophets as a group of angry old guys railing against evil and the coming final judgment. Though they were frequently angry and did rail against evil, only about 1% of what the prophets talked about was end-time judgment.

As you’ll see in this lesson they are about so much more, not only in their messages to the audience of their day, but in the challenges that apply to us in our current lives and as representatives of Jesus.

After studying the life of David, we couldn’t have a greater contrast between his life as a man “after God’s own heart,” than what we find in his son Solomon.

This lesson will show you the solid foundation of Biblical instruction he had, how he started well, but progressively deteriorated into self-indulgent sins that destroyed not only his life but split his nation and condemned it to continual war and trouble throughout Old Testament history.

We’ll overview the books he wrote, Song of Solomon, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes along with the probable progress of his life as he wrote each one.

We will end with the challenge of what a true king should be like, the model of it in our Lord Jesus, and a challenge for how we should live to please Him.

The Bible calls David, a man “after God’s own heart.” Thisphrase is part of a sermon of Paul’s in the NT
Acts 13:22—where he is talking about the history of Israel, and Paul says, “After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’”

It’s a goal I think we’d like to describe all our lives and how to do that is what we will cover in this lesson.

The most encouraging characteristic about David’s life is that it wasn’t perfect—he sinned, sometimes in big ways that affected not only him but his family and nation. Yet, what made his life commendable to God was that when he sinned, he deeply repented, accepted God’s forgiveness, and moved forward in serving Him.

We can learn a lot from him as all our lives have ups and downs, times of sin, and goodness as we progress to become all our Lord wants us to be—this lesson will help you in that.

Have you recently had someone say to you, “You aren’t listening to me?”

Most of us have. Maybe we weren’t paying attention, or maybe we didn’t want to hear what we knew someone was going to say.

Whatever the reason, not listening can get us into a lot of trouble.

The trouble is especially serious if we aren’t listening to God. If we aren’t hearing what He has to say to us.

First, in this lesson, we’ll establish the fact that God does want us to hear Him. Dallas Willard says:

Hearing God? A daring idea, some would say—presumptuous and even dangerous. But what if we were made for it? What if the human system simply will not function properly without it? [without listening to God] There are good reasons to think it will not. (from Hearing God).

To live for what we were made for, to help us function properly, to help us listen to God, and for some practical tips on how to do it better is what you’ll learn in this lesson.

There is a popular song that boasts “I did it my way!”

Though it sounds appealing, is this really the best way to live?

We’re going to look at around 400 years of history when an entire nation decided to do it their way in this podcast.

From our earliest days, we want to do things our way; we don’t want anyone else to tell us what to do.

Though we may appear to go along with rules as we get older, in our heart of hearts we often think we know what’s best for us.

But do we?

The books of Judges and Ruth give us interesting pictures from Old Testament history on what happens to individuals and people when they either—do what they want to do regardless of what God wants or trust Him no matter how difficult it might be.

Judge and Ruth are little-studied books in their entirety, but as you’ll see they are very relevant ones for our world today and for us personally.

What is the purpose of the stories in the Bible?

If someone does something that seems a bit odd, like Gideon setting out a fleece to determine God’s will or the Children of Israel walking around the walls of Jericho to conquer it—

Does that mean I should do similar things to please God?

We’ll answer these questions and more in this lesson on How to Correctly Understand & Apply Bible Stories & Biblical Narratives.

We will do this first by defining and understanding genre in the Bible and that for the various genres of the Bible, narrative, poetry, prophetic literature, etc., we need to interpret and apply each of them according to the specific guidelines that rule that genre.

We’ll look at how we can make mistakes in interpretation and application if we don’t understand the genre we are reading and some specific guidelines to help us get the most out of reading the genre of Biblical narratives and stories.

If you are having a hard time in your Christian life, this lesson will teach you 9 lessons on how to fight and win, and the first step to winning the battles of life is to realize you are in a battle!
Many Christians today are surprised when bad things happen because they thought it was going to be easy and an unending series of blessings when they became a Christian. But the reality is very different.

Once you realize you are in a battle, this lesson will give you 9 ways to fight and win.

In the book of Deuteronomy, the last of the five books of Moses that make up the Pentateuch, Moses preaches a final series of sermons to the people about to enter the Promised Land.

There is a lot to talk about, but in this lesson, we’ll discuss three areas:

1. How we should love 2.How we should give 3.How we should define ourselves and how it influences all we do

A few thoughts from the lesson include that we should love as a reflection of God’s love for us; that love results in extravagant joyful giving (in a passage you are sure to find quite surprising from what you’ve previously heard about giving), giving that includes supporting the church and those who do God’s ministry among us, celebrating joyfully before the Lord, and sharing with those less fortunate. In the final area of how we view ourselves, we note how God sees us corporately, as a PEOPLE, as a Kingdom where Jesus joyfully rules every part of our lives.

Many of us have wandered long enough in the spiritual journeys of life and Deuteronomy can help us end going around in circles and live in the Promised Land of God’s will where He joyfully intends us to be.

We’re in the book of Numbers as we read through the Bible and it is a pivotal book we can learn from, not only in what happened to the Children of Israel in this book but also what we can learn from it on how to deal with challenging situations. Ray Steadman said about Numbers: “If you read the Old Testament as nothing but a history of ancient events concerning people who have long since disappeared, it will be the dullest, most boring reading you can find. However, if you read it as a picture of what is happening in your life, vividly displayed in terms of these people of old, you will find fascinating reading indeed.

In this lesson, we’ll look at how Israel was condemned to 40 years of wandering because they didn’t trust God. So that we don’t make the same mistakes we will look at Spiritual Disciplines or Habits and how they can help us change our hearts so we trust and do what God wants when life is challenging.

Every sport, hobby, or special interest has insider terms and history and the more you know the back story of them the more you’ll understand and enjoy the activity.

The Bible is no different—the more you understand the foundational items in the first 5 books of the Bible, what we call the Pentateuch, the more the rest of the Bible will make sense. This is especially true in what you’ll see about what it will tell you about the foreshadowing of Jesus’ life and  completion of our salvation in the Old Testament.

We’ll talk about some of them in this lesson today that is longer and more complex than some, but I trust worth it in your understanding of the Bible.

When most people get into the books of Old Testament Law, especially in Leviticus and Numbers, with all the odd and obscure laws and regulations, they bail out.

And why shouldn’t they?

What do these laws and regulations have to do with us today?

We will answer all these questions and more in this lesson as we consider the importance of the messages in them and deal honestly with the reality that anything that is worth learning often involves challenging times to do that well.

We will then look at the topic of Typology and how the foreshadowing of lessons in the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New Testament. Plus, you will get a clear explanation of the confusion between “type” and “antitype” which will help you understand this vital topic.

Have you ever felt stuck, trapped, not where you want to be or expected you’d be at this time in your life?

The last few years for many have been times of lockdowns, isolation, disruptions of all sorts.

Current challenges aside, at any time of life we can become trapped, emotionally, physically, or spiritually.

The book of Exodus and the life of Moses can encourage, inspire, and give us freedom and hope as we’ll see in our lesson today, EXODUS, A new beginning for Moses, Israel, and us.

This lesson covers not only the basic events in Exodus, but it has a bonus video on The Faces of the Pharaohs, where you can see the images of the men (and a woman!) who ruled during the times related to the Exodus.

In addition to the fascination of being able to see the same face that Joseph or Moses faced, this underscores the truth that our Bible is based on historical realities, not fanciful stories.

With this week’s lesson we move from studying one person’s life, Abraham, to how God transforms his people into the nation of Israel, who God will use as His representatives on earth, the ones who will write His Word, demonstrate His worship, and eventually be the family that bears the Savior of the world, Jesus.

The Patriarchs of this family, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, along with Joseph had a huge responsibility and as we look at their lives it is a good opportunity to consider questions about what did God Sovereignly determine in their lives and what were they responsible for.

The lesson goes over both topics.

In Genesis, with the life of Abraham, we have a big shift, where God moves from working with all of humanity to a focus on ONE man, who will become the founder of the Jewish nation. Ultimately three major religions in our world today claim him as their founder: the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religions. As such, he is held in great veneration by all and in Christianity referred to as one of the first “heroes of the faith.”

And though we do want to honor him, we also need to clarify that description of him and here is why—In reality, there is only ONE true hero of the faith throughout the Bible

And it isn’t any human.

The only true hero of the faith in the Bible is our Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

It is so important that we understand this so that our admiration and praise is in the right place—directed to our God and not inappropriately to any human.

How this worked out in Abraham’s life and its application to us is what our lesson today is about.

Below is a copy of the notes, questions, and a map of the key locations in Abraham’s life plus links to the podcast and video:

One of the great answers we discovered the first video of this series is the assurance that Life after death is a great promise to those who believe in Jesus. Yet that assurance brings up another question that we will answer in this lesson which is:

“What about those who have never heard of Jesus?”

We have two more questions in this series,  “Why do innocent people suffer?”

And along with that one “How can we comfort those (including ourselves) who suffer?”

With this lesson we start the adventure of reading through the Bible in Chronological Order. It begins by reading Genesis and three days into it, we jump to the book of Job.

We will talk about why we read these two books together and you’ll see how Genesis and Job lay the foundation for much of what we will read in the rest of the Bible by starting out with answers to the Big Questions of life—

•       How did the world begin?

•       Why are there troubles in this world?

•       Is this all there is or is there life after death?

God hasn’t left us alone to answer these questions and many more that trouble us in our quiet moments and worst nightmares, as we will learn in this lesson. The material on life after death is especially encouraging as you’ll see in a close analysis of an early very in Job.

We need a GPS, a global positioning system to help us live a life that pleases God.

A GPS in our car or phone can give us directions because it is linked to a system of satellites orbiting the earth that can pinpoint where we are within 1 centimeter of accuracy. We might be lost or not know how to get from place to place where we are on earth.

But a GPS system, far above us, can see the big picture and correctly guide us.

The book of Proverbs gives us the view of what our behavior from God’s viewpoint should be like that we need when we get lost in the weeds of daily decisions.

In this lesson, we’ll look at the book overall and then we’ll look at some specific situations in life that our world tells us to respond in one way, but the book of Proverbs gives us a different way to respond.

We may not think of Psalms as a book of the Bible about discipleship, but in reality, it is one of the most instructive books in the Bible to help us follow Jesus in all areas of life, which is the essence of being a disciple.

Dallas Willard described discipleship in this way,

We need to be clear in our heads about what discipleship is. My definition:
A disciple is a person who has decided that the most important thing in their life is to learn how to do what Jesus said to do. A disciple is not a person who has things under control or knows a lot of things. Disciples simply are people who are constantly revising their affairs to carry through on their decision to follow Jesus. http://www.dwillard.org/articles/individual/rethinking-evangelism

The key part of his definition that applies to our lesson is: “people who are constantly revising their affairs to carry through on their decision to follow Jesus. “

Psalms will help us see what that means as they show us how God’s people interact with Him in many areas of life—all areas of life—including those we don’t think God cares about.

In this lesson, we’ll look at Psalms of Praise, Salvation History, Lament, and Imprecatory Psalms (these are the hard ones that call down judgment and curses on enemies). I’ll give examples of these specific types and THEN application suggestions and what we can learn from that Psalm for our walk with God and growth as Jesus’ disciples.

On the Bible805 Bible Reading Schedule we are going through the Bible in Chronological order.

You’ll notice that along with the longer passage each day is a Psalm or a chapter in Proverbs.

In this short lesson, I’d like to take a few minutes to explain why we’re doing this. I’ll first explain how we are organizing the books of history and the prophets, and then why these books are different than the books that make up the chronological reading of the Bible, why it’s OK to put them where they are, and more than that, how reading them in this way will help you grow in your Christian life and encourage you on your journey.

Reading the Bible in Chronological Order is one of the most life-changing things you can do. It will strengthen your faith and help you grow as a disciple of Jesus.

This lesson is an overview of the reasons why people don't read the Bible in chronological order and the benefits of reading it in chronological order.

It’s a fascinating lesson where we look at the history of the Jewish people and how God used their scattering throughout the world, the development of the Old Testament, of the Greek language, the Roman Roads and peace to prepare our world for Jesus.

From looking at how did all these things we see how we can trust Him to care for us now and forever.

Like many of you, I feel like I never have enough time to do all the study and preparation I would like for the Bible classes I teach. There is always one more resource, one more commentary, one more word study I wish I had time to look at.

Though that frustration will most likely never totally go away in this earthly life, I have found some tools that enable me to do a much greater depth of study in a shorter time than I was able to in the past.

This podcast is an overview of them and following are links to the videos that demonstrate the sites--do check them out, they will help you tremendously!

In this lesson, here are THREE Hermeneutical tools that will help us properly interpret the Bible

1. Understand genre—is it a comic book or a cookbook?

2. Beware of the hapax—passages or words mentioned only once

3. Embrace humility—we know so little and so many have gone before us, not one of us is the final authority or expert and so we apply this by using the tools given to us by others in the Body of Christ.

We’ll go into each one and discuss how it will help us in our understanding of the Bible.

Hermeneutics is the art and science of interpreting the Bible—in other words helping us understand what it means for our everyday lives.

Instead of a list of rules that are hard to tie to actual verses and even more to life application, this lesson takes the popular verse of Jeremiah 29: 11 that says, For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” and uses it as an example.

The lesson demonstrates how people often incorrectly interpret this verse and then get mad at God if He doesn’t do what they expect. It then goes on to show how ultimately this passage can give us great hope in all situations when we interpret it properly.

After the decision was made as to which books would go into our Bibles, it was still a long, complex, and difficult time before most people had what we take for granted—our own Bibles in the language we speak.

When we see staid, serious, old-fashioned pictures of Bible translators we have no idea of their sacrifices and heroics involved in bringing us God’s Word as we have it today.

In this lesson we will talk about the history, but also how we got the translations we have, the value of listening to the Bible, and which translation is the best one for us for our study and application to our lives.

Many have heard the term, "Canonicity" used with this topic, what does it mean?

How did they or whoever was responsible, decide?

These are incredibly important questions for us to answer because if the books that make up our Bibles, the “canon” of Scripture are merely the result of human effort and decision, it doesn’t matter if we read them or what we do with them.

However, if they are from God Himself, given to us through human authors, they are authoritative for our beliefs and how we should live.

The process of canonicity is how the church decided these important issues and that’s what our lesson talks about.

A primary criticism of the New Testament is that critics say that Christians intentionally left out and/or suppressed certain writings, primarily what we call the Gnostic Gospels and that they should be part of our New Testament and aren’t.

It isn't just scholars who are affected by these views. Consider this quote:

“It seems to me that the only true Christians were the Gnostics, who believed in self-knowledge, i.e. becoming Christ themselves, reaching the Christ within, the light is the truth. Turn on the light.”

That was the opinion of John Lennon of the Beatles and this idea, along with many other New Age and alternate ideas about spiritual truth have caused many to doubt the solid foundation of our New Testament, which is the ONLY source that truly tells us both how to be saved by faith in Jesus AND how to live our lives after we accept Him as Savior in ways that are pleasing to Him.

But there are alternative voices, and ways to be saved and live a “spiritual” life. These ideas have been the inspiration of books and movies that promote the idea that you need to discover the “god within you” (without Jesus) and the Gnostic Gospels are the origin of where much of this comes from.

This lesson is an analysis of where they came from and why in every way they are not equal to the Gospels in our New Testament.

Included in the lesson are excerpts from them that will help you see how they have little in common with the true Gospels.

To emphasize, this is not simply a lesson for scholarly trivia but a helpful tool to enable you and those you teach to spot false, deceptive spiritual teachings and not be led astray by them.

Many people assume the New Testament was written hundreds of years after the life of Christ. If that was true, how then do we know that what was talked about in the Bible, his miracles and especially his resurrection from the dead, how do we know those aren’t real, but myths and legends that developed many years after He lived?

These are important questions, and we need to answer them correctly (and spoiler alert—the New Testament was written within a very short time after Jesus’ life by eyewitness writers) not only to answer critics but to answer our internal doubts and fears.

In this lesson, we approach the topic objectively and historically to show you specifically through internal and external evidence WHY we have early dates for the writing of the scriptures. It’s a fun and fascinating lesson that will leave you with increased assurance and peace that you can know and trust the facts of your faith.

In the previous lesson on our series, How We Got Our Bibles, we looked at the Apocrypha, the series of books written between the Old and New Testaments, and the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible done at that time.

As interesting as the writing of these two collections are (and they are fascinating—so be sure to check out the lesson on them) much more was going on at this time in between the Testaments and if we aren’t aware of it, it can be a rather jarring when we finish reading the Old Testament and jump into an entirely different world in the New Testament where Judea is now controlled by Rome politically and has the new religious groups—the Sadducees and the Pharisees.

How all these changes happened and who these new religious leaders will be covered in this lesson.

In addition, this time is often referred to as “The Silent Years” and we’ll look at why that description isn’t entirely accurate along with advice for what we need to do when it seems that God is silent in our lives.

This is the third lesson in our series on How We Got Our Bibles and the next lesson is on How We Got the New Testament.

Many people are familiar with the books that are placed in some Bibles between the Old Testament and the New Testament but what are they and are they important for us to read to learn about God and to grow in our Christian lives?

The best way to answer those questions correctly is to look at the history of when and how they were written and how they relate to the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament that was the Bible Jesus and Paul used and quoted from. If we didn’t have the Septuagint, we most likely would not have the Apocrypha in Bibles today as it was primarily their inclusion with the Septuagint that Jerome used to translate the Bible into the Latin Vulgate that they were considered part of the Old Testament scriptures.

Evaluated on their own, they were never included in the Old Testament canon.

In addition to false teachings in them including prayers for the dead and alms as contributing to salvation, you’ll see from this lesson how on the basis of their manuscript history alone, they have no place in the canonical Old Testament.