Related: Bible Studies
Monday, February 2, 2026
Life is our time in the barrel. = Matt 6:34 …Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Sunday, February 1, 2026
| Gospel | % of Red Letters |
| Matthew | 56% |
| Luke | 48% |
| John | 42% |
| Mark | 35% |
These stats fit with Mark being the most action-oriented of the four Gospels. And this fits with the early tradition being that Peter was Mark’s primary source, given that Peter was an action-oriented man.
Saturday, January 31, 2026
A beautiful life. That’s what Charlie Kirk lived. A beautiful life. Not many people get to live a life like that: short, but extremely productive for people and for God. Jesus lived a life like that. Stephen, too. I don’t put Charlie on the same level as Stephen, and, of course, I don’t put Stephen on the same level as Jesus. But I for sure put all three of them many levels above me. I didn’t know Charlie personally – only from afar. Before he died, I probably only thought of him once or twice a month, if that much. But since he died, I’ve thought of him practically every day. He got so much done…and He could have done so much more. What happened to him wasn’t fair to him, wasn’t fair to his family, and wasn’t fair to America. But it seems like most of America doesn’t really care that much that such a beautiful life was cruelly shut down only 31 years into it.
Friday, January 30, 2026
Jesus is the central figure in both testaments, but this was not revealed until the second testament (John 1:1-18; 17:1-5; 1 Corinthians 8:5-6; Col 1:15-20; Heb 1:1-2:4; 13:8).
Thursday, January 29, 2026
If journalists across time were to be honest (which would be difficult indeed for our current crop), they would have to admit that the most appropriate headline for all of world history since the beginning of the human race would be “MAN RISES FROM THE DEAD AND ASCENDS INTO HEAVEN ACCORDING TO HUNDREDS OF WITNESSES AND CENTURIES OF DOCUMENTED PROPHECY; SOURCES FAMILIAR WITH THE PROPHECIES SAY ALL HUMAN BEINGS ARE TO EVENTUALLY FOLLOW.” Could journalists tell me of any headline about any person or persons of greater import?
Wednesday, January 28, 2026
Finding Jesus in the Bible…So We Can Follow Him in Life
Tuesday, January 27, 2026
Today I changed the title of this website from “The Duty of a Man” to “A Bible Reader’s Website.” I hope this will make it easier for newcomers to distinguish the book (10,312 words) from the website (>1,200,000 words).
Monday, January 26, 2026
Sometimes we learn from what doesn’t happen. As Noah learned when the dove didn’t return again (Gen 8:12). As Samson’s father Manoah learned when the angel of the Lord didn’t appear again (Judges 13:21). Or as the world learned when Jesus didn’t physically appear again (Luke 17:20-21)…or has the world yet learned it?
Sunday, January 25, 2026
Institutional Christianity is overwhelmingly Nicene Christianity. The Nicene Creed, formulated in the 4th century, says that the Second Coming of Christ will occur in the future (that is, sometime after it was written – not before). by contrast, Jesus said His Second Coming would occur within the generation of which He and His apostles were a part (Matthew 10:23; 16:28; 24:34). Therefore, you have your choice: you can either believe Jesus or the institutional church that claims to speak for Him.
Saturday, January 24, 2026
He who was YHWH in the Old Testament, was Jesus in the New.
Friday, January 23, 2026
Who was the most successful man who ever lived? The one who beat death. What other success in a man’s life could compare to that one?
Thursday, January 22, 2026
Paul’s letters are also an effective beginning to understanding the New Testament, the Old Testament as well, and, ultimately of course, Jesus Himself.
Wednesday, January 21, 2026
Paul’s letters are the beginning of understanding how the New Testament came together.
- Generally speaking, Paul discloses more about himself, any co-authors, and the recipients of his letters than any of the other New Testament authors.
- Likewise, Paul describes more of the reasons why he writes his letters than any of the other authors.
- Paul wrote 14 of the New Testament’s 22 letters. That’s more than three times as many as the next closest author (John, with four).
- These three factors combine to give us enough information about what caused Paul’s letters to come together in a collection to understand why the others letters, the Gospels, and Acts came ultimately to be part of the same collection.
Tuesday, January 20, 2026
Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
Is this verse speaking of “faith in the Son of God” or the “faith of the Son of God? Either way makes sense and is worth learning…because both are true!
Monday, January 19, 2026
Psalm 19:1 The heavens are telling of the glory of God; / And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.
The truth of this verse is physically apparent to us every morning, but this verse has spiritual meaning that is even greater! If everyone is going to heaven, then it is truly an expansive heaven!
Sunday, January 18, 2026
It’s impossible not to notice that Jesus had a fixed point of reference other than Himself. What a great example for us to follow, especially since He offers Himself to be our fixed point of reference other than our selves.
Saturday, January 17, 2026
Rabbinic Judaism and Nicene Christianity were both theologies formed in the same general time period by professional clergy desperate to hold on to their jobs.
Friday, January 16, 2026
Who changed the world from polytheism to monotheism? Could it be the same one who who is responsible for the world’s change from BC to AD?
Thursday, January 15, 2026
The God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. Think of all God accomplished through those three men and their descendants. What good might come from three successive generations in our time locking in on the one true God?
Wednesday, January 14, 2026
- OT: Isaiah 60:19 “No longer will you have the sun for light by day,
Nor for brightness will the moon give you light;
But you will have the LORD for an everlasting light,
And your God for your glory. - NT: Revelation 22:5 And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever.
I love it when the New Testament echoes the Old.
Tuesday, January 13, 2026
We are fish and He is the water we swim in;
we are birds and He is the air we fly in.
Overflow for 2025
Thursday, December 4, 2025
‘Packed and Overflowing’: Fraternity, Sorority Members Transformed in Bible Study Spike at Clemson
(“InterVarsity” is a campus ministry that’s been around since 1941. “Greek Intervarsity,” inaugurated in 1993, is the part of InterVarsity that focuses specifically on fraternities and sororities.)
Wednesday, December 3, 2025
The origin of evil in the world is free will. This is a practical, not a philosophical, answer to the question “Where did evil come from?” From a human standpoint, evil began with Adam and Eve. It began in heaven with Satan no later than the temptation in Eden (Gen 3). We don’t know how much before Gen 3 that Satan may have used his free will for evil, but we know it couldn’t have started in Eden because we have the documentation.
Tuesday, December 2, 2025
Earlier this year, demographer George Barna said that only 11% of American adults, and only 16% of self-proclaimed Christians, believe in the Trinity. Why then do I get such strong pushback when I try to explain how Jesus can be God without God having to be three-headed?
Monday, December 1, 2025
In the beginning of my walk with Christ, I joined Christians, too. I joined both Christ and Christians because the Christians who told me to join Christ told me I had to join Christians, too – that joining one meant joining the other. I eventually learned what Christ taught: that no one can serve two masters. I could either stay joined to Christ or stay joined to Christians, but I couldn’t stay joined to both…because they were going different directions. I made my choice…and Christians have despised me for it ever since.
I don’t hold it against them. Being joined to Christ is worth it.
Oh, and I should not fail to mention the Bible. That’s how I came to learn that institutional Christianity and Jesus are not walking hand in hand.
Sunday, November 30, 2025
His name is to know, and His word is to heed (XL).
Saturday, November 29, 2025
The apostles had to accept Psalm 110:1 (the resurrected and ascended Jesus was sat down at the right hand of God) and Daniel 7:13-15 (the Son of Man came in the clouds) by faith just as we do; only their role as witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection and ascension do they differ from us.
Friday, November 28, 2025
If Matt 10:23; 16:28; 23:36; 24:34 were not fulfilled in the 1st century, we have a 1 Cor 15:12-19 problem.
(Translation: If the Second Coming did not occur when Jesus said it would – which was before his generation passed away – then our faith is to be pitied rather than imitated.)
Thursday, November 27, 2025
We have these texts called the New Testament because there were people who believed the apostles’ preaching and testimony. Those people became the reason the apostles wrote those 27 texts, as well as the means by which those texts were preserved. Every other generation since then has merely received the collection from the previous generation and passed them down to the next.
Wednesday, November 26, 2025
- The gospel is, among other things, a call to repentance. You have a divine calling. What is it? To stop sinning! Why? It’s bad for you.
Tuesday, November 25, 2025
As God separated light from darkness, so we should separate knowledge from speculation.
(Faith focuses on what it knows – not on what it does not know.)
Gen 1:4 God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.
Monday, November 24, 2025
Jesus personalizes God. To think of God as someone other than, or in addition to, Jesus dulls the point.
Sunday, November 23, 2025
The purpose of having a relationship with the Bible is to support your relationship with Jesus Christ.
Saturday, November 22, 2025
The apostolic church was founded in the expectation of the Second Coming. The post-apostolic church was maintained in the indefinite deferral of the Second Coming.
Friday, November 21, 2025
Doing what Jesus says is better than knowing who He is. (And that’s saying something!
)Thursday, November 20, 2025
If Sola Scriptura is not biblical, then the claim Jesus made so often – “It is written…” – is impotent, and He was wrong to not follow the guidance of the Sanhedrin instead of His own understanding of the Scriptures.
Wednesday, November 19, 2025
Your mind will either be your servant or your master. Its default setting is to be your master; if you want it to serve you, you have to consciously flip the switch.
When the mind is your master: Eph 4:17-19 …in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.
When the mind is your servant: Rom 12:2 …be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Tuesday, November 18, 2025
We live in the light of heaven…or we die in the darkness of unbelief.
Monday, November 17, 2025
We were made to mate. As with each other, so with God. God first.
(Matt 19:4-6)
Sunday, November 16, 2025
The New Testament is a wall of truth – historical truth, first and foremost.
Saturday, November 15, 2025
Satan demoralizes.
Friday, November 14, 2025
Evolutionists use God’s faithfulness against Him.
(Lam 3:21 This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.
Lam 3:22 The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
Lam 3:23 They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.)
Thursday, November 13, 2025
George Barna’s latest research was released today. The letter announcing it was headlined, “Churchgoers Are Losing Their Biblical Bearings.” Its findings included:
- Biblical worldview in decline: About one-third (30%) of churchgoers believe they have a biblical worldview—but only 11% actually do. Fewer than half think it’s “very important” for Christians to have one, down sharply from 59% two years ago.
- Moral clarity eroding: Fewer than half of regular churchgoers believe the Bible speaks clearly on homosexuality (47%) or transgenderism (39%)—and barely half (51%) say it is clear on abortion. Each represents a double-digit decline in biblical certainty since 2023.
- Scriptural belief fading: Only 54% of churchgoers say the Bible is the true or inspired, error-free Word of God.
- Shift away from conservatism: Fewer churchgoers now identify as conservative on social and fiscal issues. Just 34% call themselves conservative, while nearly as many say they are moderate (29%) or liberal/progressive (19%). Even fewer say they base their votes primarily on biblical teaching—down from 51% in 2023 to just 46% today.
- Support for socialism rising: One in three (32%) churchgoers now prefer socialism over capitalism.
Mind you, George Barna believes in churchgoing and these are statistics about churchgoers! Modern churches are pulling people away from the Bible – not toward it. (Of course, every churchgoer will say, “My church is different.”) The problem is not the people, it’s the institution. There’s only ever been one true church and it stopped accepting new members when the Second Coming occurred late in the 1st century…just when Jesus said it would.
Wednesday, November 12, 2025
The first duty of a man is to believe in the man Jesus Christ. You’ll find God before you know it.
Tuesday, November 11, 2025
“Christ” means “Anointed.” He is the healing balm for a fallen world, the christening of a new creation.
Monday, November 10, 2025
Contrary to much of modern biblical scholarship, the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith are the exact same person – just at different stages of life.
Up until the enlightenment, biblical scholarship was a voice of faith; since then it’s been a voice of unbelief.
Sunday, November 9, 2025
The Roman writer Pliny the Younger mentioned Christians gathering to sing hymns of praise to Christ as to a god. This reference appears in a letter Pliny wrote around 112 AD to the Emperor Trajan (commonly referred to as Pliny’s Letter to Trajan). In it, Pliny describes the practices of early Christians in Bithynia (in modern-day Turkey), saying:
“They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ as to a god…”
— Pliny the Younger, Letters 10.96
This is one of the earliest non-Christian references to Christian worship and highlights that even by the early 2nd century, Christians were already venerating Christ in a divine manner.
Saturday, November 8, 2025
God has designed a sequence that we should know Him as Teacher and Lord before knowing Him as God. Why should we attempt to circumvent that sequence? Therefore, let’s start our quest for God at “Do you think Jesus of Nazareth has anything to teach you about life?”
Friday, November 7, 2025
Do we have the words of Jesus? It depends. Do we have the words of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, and Peter? (James and Jude are the only two authors of the eight NT authors who don’t explicitly quote Him.) If we have the words of those six men, there’s no good reason to think we don’t have the words of Jesus.
Do we have the words of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, and Peter…and, for that matter, James and Jude as well? Of course, we do! We can be more sure of their authorship of the New Testament texts than we can be sure of the authorship of any other ancient texts because New Testament authorship is attested to by so many more people. For more on this, see the essay What Does the New Testament’s Table of Contents Tell Us? (10 min).
Thursday, November 6, 2025
It should not seem a strange thing to substitute Bible reading for churchgoing since it was illiteracy and inaccessibility of the Bible that primarily led to synagogue/church formation in the first place.
Wednesday, November 5, 2025
Let us always read the Bible with a view to do.
Tuesday, November 4, 2025
God deserves to be known as “The Crucified One.” He was not “above it all.” Rather, He was right in the thick of things. Indeed, the crucifixion did not leave Him untouched. Quite the contrary.
Monday, November 3, 2025
The Old Testament functions best as an appendix to the New Testament. This is another way of saying that the Bible is better read as a library (that is, selectively) than as a book (that is, sequentially from left to right).
Sunday, November 2, 2025
The NT reveals in the one true church a progression from fleshly to spiritual over one generation. It’s a great example for every family to follow, with the parents taking the role of the apostles and the children taking the role of believers.
Saturday, November 1, 2025
Q: What are you going to do next?
A: I dunno. Depends on what’s in it for Him.
Friday, October 31, 2025
What if Jesus had not been raised from the dead by the third day as He had prophesied to His disciples? His reputation as a prophet would have been shot, and his candidacy to be Messiah would have been dead in the water. Only thing is, His disciples either didn’t understand him or didn’t believe Him because none of them were keeping watch on the tomb. Oh, and then there was the fact that He actually did rise from the dead on the third day – confirming His identity as the Messiah. Of course, He had to explain all this to everyone because they were befuddled by the things happening in their midst.
Wednesday, October 29, 2025
We need to recover the centrality of Christ and the Messianic Project in the Bible.
If I had said instead, “We need to recover the centrality of Messiah and the Christian Project in the Bible” I wouldn’t have been saying anything literally different – but most people would think it was different just because of all the barnacles that have become attached to the words we use without really thinking about them.
Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Life is hard enough when you’re living it righteously – why would you ever want to live it unrighteously?
(1 Pet 4:18 AND IF IT IS WITH DIFFICULTY THAT THE RIGHTEOUS IS SAVED, WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE GODLESS MAN AND THE SINNER?)
Monday, October 27, 2025
Faith is not an option. It’s a matter of obedience.
(John 3:36; Acts 6:7; Rom 16:25-27; 2 Thess 1:8; 1 Pet 4:17)
Sunday, October 26, 2025
Joe Rogan recently said on his podcast, “Christianity in particular is the most fascinating to me, because there’s this one person that everybody agrees existed, that somehow or another had the best plan for how human beings should interact with each other and behave.” (Twitter)
Joe, have you read His book? Why not study for yourself “the best plan for how human beings should interact with each other and behave”? Jesus is indeed the greatest Teacher in all of history. And so much more.
Saturday, October 25, 2025
Churches profess allegiance to the Bible, but they do not follow it. For if they did, they’d be preaching Jesus instead of themselves.
(2 Cor 4:5 For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake.)
Friday, October 24, 2025
Just as 1st-century churches were fully invested in the idea that the Second Coming would occur during their century, all the churches since then have been fully invested in the idea that the Second Coming did not occur during the 1st century. Churches today don’t want to even talk about this question, much less answer it. That alone tells you something. And it’s something important.
Thursday, October 23, 2025
Some years back, I took one of my Bibles and underlined every place in the New Testament where the Second Coming of Christ was mentioned in one way or another. This included references to the kingdom of God, the coming of the Lord, the day of Christ, the day of judgment, that day, the new heavens and new earth, and so on. When I was finished, three out of every four pages had at least some underlining on it. This brought home to me how invested the 1st-century church was in the Second Coming happening in their lifetimes.
Wednesday, October 22, 2025
Christ is God’s mystery (Eph 3:4; Col 2:2; 4:3); the trinity is a man-made mystery.
Tuesday, October 21, 2025
The trinity is contrary to “the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ” (2 Cor 11:3). That makes it anti-Christ.
Monday, October 20, 2025
Are you outsourcing your faith to church? Someone else?
Sunday, October 19, 2025
Churches are monuments to unbelief in the Second Coming. Either Jesus told the truth about the Second Coming or He didn’t. We don’t need to make excuses for Him. And, for that matter, if His words about the Second Coming are not true, He’s merely a he. And not a good one, at that.
(Matt 10:23; 16:28; 24:34)
Saturday, October 18, 2025
If you want to cripple a nation, here’s one sure way: Teach the teenage girls that they should spend their 20s establishing their careers and not think about marriage until their in their 30s. The teenage boys will then struggle against double the competition for entry-level jobs in their 20s, thus becoming depressed and purposeless as they have no women and children to provide for and protect. In their 30s, the women will not be as fertile and the men will not have been toughened. Thus men and women will struggle to marry and have children. A generation or two of this will drive the birth rate so low that the nation’s economy will contract to the point of crashing.
For 20 years I have heard American parents say they don’t want their daughters to think about marriage until they’re 30. Look around and see what 20 years of thinking that way has brought us.
(The solution? Gen 1:28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”)
Friday, October 17, 2025
The trinity is like evolution in that both theories, irrespective of what other flaws they have (and both have many), are incompatible with the Bible. If either of these two theories were true, we would see the prophets and the apostles supporting these ideas in the Scriptures. Instead, what we have is people writing after the Bible who think they’re smarter than the Bible and the rest of us – namely, theologians and scientists – arguing foolishness.
(Rom 1:22 Professing to be wise, they became fools,)
Thursday, October 16, 2025
There is no substitute for faith.
(This statement may sound truistic or even trite, but it comes from a man who both consciously and subconsciously, over a period of many years, attempted to substitute a variety of righteous alternatives – good deeds, good intentions, good attitudes, etc. – for simply trusting a promise from the Lord.)
Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Ancient Jews and Christians are very different from modern Jews and Christians. Nothing going on in modern Israel has to do with biblical prophecy. All Bible prophecy was fulfilled through Jesus Christ in the 1st century AD. Do not confuse ancient Judaism with modern Judaism; neither confused 1st-century Christianity with modern Christianity.
Tuesday, October 14, 2025
George Barna’s most recent research shows that the Bible is not doing well among churchgoers. Specifically, the study “reveals a startling erosion of biblical conviction among regular U.S. churchgoers. Once-firm beliefs about family, life, and morality are giving way to cultural influence and personal opinion. Even among those who attend church regularly, moral clarity is fading fast.” The full report can be found here; some key findings include:
- Only 43% of churchgoers now identify as pro-life, down from 63% in 2023.
- Just 46% of churchgoers embrace a biblical definition of family—one man and one woman married with children.
- Among Gen Z churchgoers, that number drops to 34%, and less than half (49%) affirm marriage as only between a man and woman.
- Confidence in Scripture is slipping—only 51% now believe the Bible is unambiguous in its teaching on abortion, down from 65% two years ago.
Monday, October 13, 2025
The New Testament is the lens through which the Old Testament must be viewed.
To read the Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament is to read the Old Testament as Jesus read it.
To read the Old Testament any other way is to deny yourself its greatest benefits.
Sunday, October 12, 2025
All other things being equal, you will learn far more of the Bible by reading two or three chapters a day than you will ever learn by going to church to hear someone preach from it once or twice a week. The difference is beyond measure.
Saturday, October 11, 2025
The duty of a man does not involve church. It very much involves Christ. In fact, the duty of a man is to Christ.
Friday, October 10, 2025
Christ or Church: Choose one because you sure can’t have both!
(Church requires you to turn in your single-minded focus on Christ in exchange for a blurry three-headed God of which Christ is just a part.)
Thursday, October 9, 2025
Modern churches monetize the gospel. They have to because they couldn’t survive otherwise. God’s not supporting them like He did the New Testament church.
Wednesday, October 8, 2025
In the 21st century, you can choose the kingdom of God or church…but you can’t choose both because they are going different directions due to their different leadership.
(The last time they were on the same page was the 1st century.)
Tuesday, October 7, 2025
Do you want to be righteous in the sight of God? Faith is the first and foundational step. Everything else righteous you attempt must be built on it.
Monday, October 6, 2025
A man has to trust the Lord. A woman can trust either her husband or the Lord and will end up at the same place (which trusting them both). But a man has to trust the Lord. Period.
***
In the Old Testament, the people of God were Jews. In the New Testament, the people of God were Christians. Since then, the people of God are…people.
(Hosea 1:10; 2:23)
***
Jesus to His accusers the night of His trial (in effect): “The next time you see Me it will be as God.
***
The New Testament rejoices exceedingly with the news that God had abolished death through Jesus Christ (e.g. 2 Timothy 1:8-11), but what would there have been to rejoice about if it meant that some of the dead would end up in a fate worse than death: eternal conscious torment?
Sunday, October 5, 2025
In the 21st century, you can choose the church or the kingdom of God…but you can’t choose both because they’re going in different directions. The kingdom of God pursues the interests of God, but the church pursues the interests of church.
Saturday, October 4, 2025
Jesus “led captivity captive” (Eph 4:8; Ps 68:18) in two ways: 1) He took the dead (the captives of Satan) from Sheol (Hades) into heaven, and 2) He accepted all the nations (the captives of Satan) as His inheritance. Both happened at the Second Coming.
Friday, October 3, 2025
In the New Testament, they were waiting on the kingdom of God. Since then, the kingdom of God is waiting on us.
Thursday, October 2, 2025
The prophets and apostles prophesied the new heavens and new earth in which we live. If this is not apparent to you, you’re not sufficiently spiritual.
(1 Cor 3:1 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ.)
Wednesday, October 1, 2025
The promised land for ancient Israel was Canaan. The promised land for us is heaven!
Tuesday, September 30, 2025
The kingdom is His, not ours. (Ps 22:28; 145:11; Matt 6:13)
(He gave us the kingdom like Walt gave us Disneyland.)
Monday, September 29, 2025
The Protestant Reformation is spent – out of gas. It’s time to switch from reforming the church to reforming society by reforming the family.
Sunday, September 28, 2025
Consider the inheritance left to every member of the human race by Jesus Christ! How wealthy we all are…and, by comparison, how poorly we live.
Saturday, September 27, 2025
What if the government passed a law declaring that henceforth all business contracts were subject to no-fault cancellation – meaning that either party could cancel the contract at any time for any reason or even for no reason? The same thing that’s been happening to marriages since states passed no-fault divorce laws.
Friday, September 26, 2025
Of all the texts that ancient Jews and Christians produced and preserved, they distinguished certain ones as more important than all the others. These we call, respectively, the Old Testament and the New Testament. Collectively, they are the Bible. And by our faith we call it the Holy Bible.
Thursday, September 25, 2025
Can you imagine how good a carpenter Jesus must have been…especially in the last 5-10 years before He entered the ministry at age 30? No wonder His family wanted to bring Him back to His senses and to Nazareth where His reputation was probably drawing customers from all over Galilee!
Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Is organized Christianity obsolete? Only if by “organized” you mean organized by human beings. The kingdom of God has its own way of administering Christianity.
Tuesday, September 23, 2025
In the Gospels, the Holy Spirit was the Messiah’s to receive. In the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit became the Messiah’s to give. And so it has been ever since, and so it will always be.
Monday, September 22, 2025
In the Gospels, Jesus mentions church twice, and the kingdom of God over a hundred times. There’s something to be learned from that.
Sunday, September 21, 2025
The Gospels account for 46-47% of the New Testament. In the Gospels, the word “Christ” appears 51 times. In the rest of the New Testament (Acts, Epistles, Revelation), it appears 447 times. Thus the full-scale proclamation of Jesus as the Christ did not begin with His baptism by John, His initial teaching, and miracle-working, but rather in the wake of His crucifixion, resurrection from the dead, and ascension into heaven.
(1 Kings 20:11 …’Let not him who girds on his armor boast like him who takes it off.’)
Saturday, September 20, 2025
My vision is for every family to read the Bible every day – especially the New Testament – seeking greater knowledge of the Christ who lives and reigns in and all around them.
(Luke 21:38)
Friday, September 19, 2025
Faith means knowing something so important that you feel comfortable not knowing everything else.
Thursday, September 18, 2025
This is beautiful but hostile world. Any reasonable and honest observer will notice that. What the Bible reveals is that it is hostile even toward its Creator. That alone makes the Bible worth reading.
Wednesday, September 17, 2025
The New Testament is testimony to 1) what the apostles preached, and 2) what their churches believed. The first is easier to recognize, but the second deserves to be remembered alongside it. Skepticism was as present in the 1st century as it is in ours. The people who believed had reasons to believe and we should be sure to understand what those reasons were. Faith is not something different from reason; it is the outcome of reason. Refusal to believe when the facts warrant belief…is irrational.
Tuesday, September 16, 2025
I am always only one thought away from losing focus. Stay alert!
Monday, September 15, 2025
If he spoke, he was. If he speaks, he is.
(I’m referring to Jesus.)
Sunday, September 14, 2025
Jesus came to teach dead people how to live.
Saturday, September 13, 2025
The Messianic Project reached every corner of creation – and even affected the Creator Himself.
Yes, God even anointed Himself with Christ!
As the New Testament church cried out, “Jesus is the Messiah!” let all subsequent generations of human beings cry out, “And the Messiah is God!”
Friday, September 12, 2025
The New Testament is the complete collection of what the apostles wrote to and for the people who believed them. They were are of the same generation.
Thursday, September 11, 2025
George Barna’s most recent research* says, “One-third of adults say everyone else sins—but they personally do not.” Yes, you read that right: 33% of American adults! Stunning, stupefying, and sad beyond measure.
*“Millions of American Christians Deny Their Sinfulness” (Report #8 9-4-2025)
Wednesday, September 10, 2025
Jesus Christ is the voice of God.
Tuesday, September 9, 2025
Jesus Christ is the word of God.
Monday, September 8, 2025
Proverbs 13:12 begins, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” It’s been 25 to 50 generations (depending on whether you count a generation as 40 years or 80) since Jesus first established hope in His second coming – repeatedly and emphatically stating that it would happen in the generation of which He was a part. That’s more deferral of heart than it seems a heart could take. To put it another way, no wonder Christianity is so sick. But the rest of Proverbs 13:12 is “But desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” Imagine then the joy of Christianity when it is infused with the knowledge that it happened just when Jesus said it would! (Jesus Christ Has Already Come Again)
Sunday, September 7, 2025
We have no hope in God…other than the one He has given us in Jesus Christ our Lord…which is more hope than we deserved, and even more than we could have imagined.
Saturday, September 6, 2025
Alas, the King of the kingdom of God is getting the same sort of treatment these days as King Charles III – which is lip service. Mascot-in-Chief. No self-respecting king would want such a kingdom. Jesus sure doesn’t. If you’re unwilling to do what He says, just keep the crown you want to place on His head.
(Luke 6:46 “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”)
Friday, September 5, 2025
God took a people for a name that they might produce a man for His name: Jesus Christ.
Thursday, September 4, 2025
Israel’s finest hour was the 1st Century AD. You may know that generation of Jews better as the New Testament church. Yes, spiritual Israel was the best Israel.
(See John 1:47; Rom 2:28-29; Gal 3:7; 6:16.)
Wednesday, September 3, 2025
The New Testament describes how the things of God became the things of Christ…in one generation. #TGTC
Tuesday, September 2, 2025
Life is worth living…even if it ends poorly. The biography of Jesus attests to this.
***
If a man knows the Bible but not Jesus, what’s the point?
Monday, September 1, 2025
The Bible proclaims Christ.
(If you let the Bible speak for itself, it’ll preach Christ. But it took me an awful lot of trial and error, and an awful lot of people telling me otherwise, to realize that. I’m trying to save you time.)
Sunday, August 31, 2025
I’m not trying to make you experts on the Bible. Rather, I’m trying to make you experts on Jesus Christ. The Bible is just the best means to that end. And the better you understand it…and, more importantly, Him…the less you need me.
Saturday, August 30, 2025
Faith is not thinking that God exists; rather, it’s trusting that the character and power of God will get you out of any trouble that doing the will of God gets you into.
(It’s not like a righteous God is going to leave you hanging when you’ve done what He’s asked you to do.)
***
Why do so many people think they can choose their own identity? Your father, your mother, and your sex – three key components of your identity – were all determined without your involvement and well before you were born.
***
Eight billion people live on earth, and billions more have gone on to heaven ahead of us. Does anyone think Jesus is up there shaking hands? Only if He is the invisible God can He be with all of us all the time.
Friday, August 29, 2025
In my heart I have saved a place for You
So You might have a home in me where You can be loved
And in that place no one else can ever come
For You must reign supreme to me, above all other loves.
If I should ever love another more than You
The rivers of my love would run dry
But if I’ll keep You as the apple of my eye
Then love will always grow and my world will always know that…
Thursday, August 28, 2025
In Acts 14:17, Paul says, “God did not leave Himself without witness,” referring to nature’s beneficial routines. We can add that once salvation had been achieved for humanity, God similarly did not leave Himself without witness in that He left us the New Testament – the historical record and explanation of how and why that salvation was achieved. The New Testament stands as a wall of truth that cannot be torn down; it can only be ignored, to the detriment of those ignoring it. Thus nature is always bearing witness to God as Creator, and the Bible – both testaments – is always bearing witness to God as Redeemer of His creation that had been spoiled by sin but redeemed by mercy.
***
Notice that Matt 18:15-20 applies specifically to the church age (see verse 17; see also Mt 28:18-20’s reference to the close of that age). Once the kingdom age began, the vision of Rev 21-22 was fulfilled and the Lord’s kingdom was “in the midst” of the entire earth. For this same reason, Jesus referred to the presence of the kingdom in His fleshly presence in Lk 17:20-21 – a presence that was expanded to the entirety of creation when He came spiritually in His kingdom. We no longer have to assemble two or three people to have Him be in our midst.
Wednesday, August 27, 2025
“Studies indicate that a significant portion of self-identified Christians do not view regular church attendance as essential. For instance, a 2014 Barna Group survey found that 51% of U.S. adults consider church attendance ‘not too’ or ‘not at all’ important. Similarly, a 2022 Lifeway Research study revealed that 66% of Americans believe worshiping alone or with family is a valid substitute for attending church. These findings suggest that many Christians do not perceive regular church attendance as necessary for their faith.” – Apple Siri’s answer to the question, “Isn’t churchgoing considered a requirement for most Christians?”
Tuesday, August 26, 2025
B.C., salvation was in prophecy; A.D., it is in history.
Monday, August 25, 2025
We need to restore Christ to His place of honor in our country. Otherwise, our national future looks darker and darker.
Sunday, August 24, 2025
Ps 119:18 Open my eyes, that I may behold
Wonderful things from Your law.
(A good prayer to pray before reading the Bible.)
Saturday, August 23, 2025
People who lived in Bible times were promised that their eternal salvation would be secured in their future; we who have lived since then have been assured that this salvation was secured in our past. They lived in hope; we live in faith.
(Heb 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for…)
Friday, August 22, 2025
On this earth, righteousness is a trial-and-error process. The good news is that our Commander is also our Teacher. That is, the One who commands us to do, forgives us when we don’t.
(I am not suggesting, however, that you play Him for a chump. That will not turn out well for you.)
Thursday, August 21, 2025
Christianity will get its second wind when it acknowledges the second coming.
Wednesday, August 20, 2025
How often have you heard yourself thinking this in the course of a day: “Faith will not work in this situation; I will return to faith after I’ve fixed this situation.”
Tuesday, August 19, 2025
If your faith is weak, go back to the word of God because that’s the source from which faith comes (Rom 10:17).
Monday, August 18, 2025
We read the Bible every morning, if for no other reason, to remind ourselves of the reality of Jesus Christ.
Sunday, August 17, 2025
The Protestant Reformation is a spent force – out of gas. Why? Because it did not pursue the doctrine of Sola Scriptura to its logical conclusion, which requires dissolution – not reformation – of the church. The institution we should be reforming is family – which means restoring the biblical roles of husband as leader, wife as helpmate, and children as followers. And the way to do that is to empower men to teach their families the Bible.
Saturday, August 16, 2025
“Rules for thee but not for me.” – This adage may sound like it’s from the Bible, but it’s not; it’s nonetheless helpful for understanding what hypocrisy is.
Friday, August 15, 2025
The description that Genesis 1:16 gives of the sun and the moon as “the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night” is fitting for the two testaments of the Bible – with the irony being that the longer testament is the lesser light that governed the night, and the shorter testament is the greater light ruling the day. (Remember that the New Testament was the dawning of the day of the Lord in which we live…and always will.)
(Rom 13:10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
Rom 13:11 Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed.
Rom 13:12 The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.
Rom 13:13 Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy.
Rom 13:14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.)
Thursday, August 14, 2025
Before reading your Bible each morning, ask the Lord this: What do you want to teach me this morning, Lord? What do I need to learn? (Sometimes what we think we need to know is not what we need to know; He’s never wrong about that sort of thing. Or anything else, for that matter.)
Wednesday, August 13, 2025
I’m a generic man – a no-name, but not a nobody. You are, too. Pretty cool.
Tuesday, August 12, 2025
I’m special. What makes me special? I’m a human being for whom Christ died. How does that make me different from any other human being? It doesn’t.
***
I have no calling but the calling of every man.
***
This historical Jesus and the glorified Christ are one and the same.
(Heb 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.)
Monday, August 11, 2025
The “elementary teaching about the Christ” (Heb 6:1) was that Jesus was the Christ; the mature teaching was that the Christ was God. This revelation came with the Second Coming of Christ (Lk 17:30; Rom 2:5; 8:18-19; 16:25-27; 1 Cor 1:7; Col 3:4; 2 Th 1:7; 1 Pet 1:5, 7, 13; 4:13; 5:1; Rev 1:1; 15:4).
Sunday, August 10, 2025
Getting married civilized me.
Having children humbled me.
Accepting Christ directed me.
***
Since the messianic plan has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ, we look to the Bible less for prophecy, and more for principles, plans, and patterns.
***
The trinity idea is wrong because it diminishes Christ.
The trinity idea is a philosophy of men, not a word of God.
Notice that the trinity idea is defended by churchmen – not by the prophets or the apostles.
Saturday, August 9, 2025
Psalm 1 is a vision of the man I am supporting with this website.
***
The kingdom of God is the rule of Christ…by definition.
***
The Gospels depict what happened with the first body of Christ; the Epistles depict what happened with the second.
The first body of Christ was His personal body of flesh; the second body of Christ was His corporate body, the church.
***
Modern church is like little children playing doctor. That is, there’s whole lot of pretending going on and little, if any, actual medical treatment taking place.
(Luke 5:31 …“It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick.”)
***
Without faith in Christ, you can’t have victory over sin. This is because sin is rooted in self, and without an appropriate “other,” it’s still just you.
***
Phil 2:10 depicts the three-tiered universe that Jesus conquered through His death, resurrection, and ascension. Ephesians 1:10 depicts the two-tiered universe He brought in at His Second Coming when He inherited the entirety of creation. The big difference was that people stopped going below at death and thereafter went to heaven at death. Of course, all the dead that had been below were whisked to heaven in that glorious and instantaneous transition.
Friday, August 8, 2025
Ongoing meetings imply unfinished business.
(Churches are still waiting for the Second Coming; synagogues are still waiting for the first. Meanwhile, the kingdom of God, with Messiah as its king, abides.)
Thursday, August 7, 2025
Let go of church to grasp the kingdom of God.
(Lord, show a man what he may let go of…in order that he may grasp what you are offering.)
***
Pattern Recognition
According to Google’s AI, “Pattern recognition is the ability to identify and understand patterns within data or our environment, connecting current experiences with stored knowledge. It’s a fundamental cognitive process, used by both humans and machines, involving the identification of regularities and similarities in various forms, like shapes, sounds, or events.” The Bible is full of patterns to be discovered and remembered – patterns of temptation, patterns of judgment, and much more. The Lord put them there to help us navigate a righteous life just as He placed the stars in constellations to help us navigate successful journeys.
Wednesday, August 6, 2025
Righteousness is a function of relationship. For example, if the relationship is Creator-creature, then knowing which of those two categories you fall into gives you an indication of your responsibilities. Same when it comes to father-mother-child.
***
The Scriptures let us know the totality of commitment the Lord expects from us. Some examples of this are 2 Cor 14-15; 10:5; Phil 1:21; 1 Pet 1:15.
***
Getting out of Egypt is nothing to brag about if we can’t get into Canaan.
***
Secularism sounds like a reasonable way to order society. The collapse of Western civilization is proving otherwise.
(Prov 14:12 There is a way which seems right to a man,
But its end is the way of death.)
Tuesday, August 5, 2025
If we remember who God loves while we forget what He loves, we only reinforce our narcissism.
(Who does God love? People. What does God love? Righteousness.)
***
No book will take you to Jesus Christ so directly as will the Bible, but even when reading the Bible you have to guard against getting bogged down in Old Testament passages short on FJOTs you can recognize. Even in the New Testament you have to guard against getting distracted by church and other 1st century issues. A personal and deepening relationship with Jesus Christ is the prize we seek.
Monday, August 4, 2025
According to the Bible, God is telling us to treat Christ as if he were God. (What else could “Jesus is Lord” mean?) Hmm.
***
I hope you love as much as I do this wonderful phrase the apostle Paul uses in 2 Corinthians 11:3: “the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.” Let us always keep this in mind when we’re reading the Bible…and practicing it.
Sunday, August 3, 2025
There are two Israels described in the Bible: the ancient nation described in the Old Testament and the ancient church described in the New Testament. The Old Testament nation was physical Israel, and the New Testament church was spiritual Israel. God uses the history of both to teach us how to live in the kingdom of God…which is today.
***
Reading the Bible and practicing it is a trial-and-error process. Therefore, our honest mistakes are a feature, not a bug.
Saturday, August 2, 2025
Our faith is rooted in history – documented history. To put it in trendy parlance, we have the receipts.
***
Heb 13:7 Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.
Note that in this verse, in speaking of the apostles, Paul does not tell us to “imitate their actions.” Rather, he instructs us to “imitate their faith.” In light of this, consider the great variety of actions emanating from faith that Paul cataloged in Heb 11. When people have faith, they don’t always do the same thing. They all take action, but there’s not one action that all take. Individuals motivated by faith do what the moment requires (Eph 4:29); from a broader point of view, they live lives appropriate to the generation in which they find themselves (Acts 13:36). People seem to realize without problem that the Old Testament is a source of patterns and principles for us – patterns to observe, and principles to follow – not actions to imitate. But, for some reason, they are slow to recognize that we should treat the New Testament in the same way. That is, we should no more try to be the church than we should decide to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. The kingdom of God has come – it is here and now. Everything in the Bible – both testaments – is prelude to it.
***
We hear talk these days about there being “three great Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.” But that implies a camaraderie for which there is no foundation. After all, Judaism and Islam are both anti-Christian at heart. Judaism doesn’t consider any Jew who professes that Jesus is the Messiah to be an adherent to Judaism. And Muslims consider Muhammad a prophet of higher status than Jesus. There is only one great Abrahamic religion; the other two are, by respective definition, in rebellion against it.
***
The kingdom of God is the government of human hearts by Jesus Christ. It is not something that will come about in the future. Rather, it is something that is here and now, and always will be; it came in the 1st century, just when Jesus said it would.
***
Only about half of the roughly 60 English translations cataloged at BibleGateway.com translate Psalm 16:10 with the word “Sheol.” Of the remainder, we see “grave,” “hell,” “place of death,” “the deep hole of death,” “the power of death,” “the place of the dead,” “the dead,” and “the netherworld.” The word “Sheol” appears 65 times in the NASB 1995 Old Testament. If Psalm 16:10 is typical of how those occurrences are usually translated, it should be no wonder that Christians don’t really know what the Bible actually teaches about the afterlife. Even churches using Bible translations that have “Sheol” in them seldom, if ever, teach that this was the place to which everyone used to go when they died. The knowledge of the afterlife has thus become buried over the centuries. It is lost past time for us to raise it from the dead.
***
The problem with seeking out things that increase your self-esteem…is that your self-esteem increases.
***
Jesus is invisible, but the Bible is not. You daily goal is improving your relationship with Jesus Christ. Reading the Bible is the primary means to that end. (“When you’re up to your hips in alligators, it’s hard to remember that your original intention was to drain the swamp.”)
Friday, August 1, 2025
The best actors aren’t in Hollywood.
(Matt 23:25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence.
Matt 23:26 “You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.
Matt 23:27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.
Matt 23:28 “So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.)
***
It took about 2,000 years for God to produce the Bible – roughly 1500 BC to 500 AD. Why’d it take so long? He did it through people. As we read this morning, let us do so with an appropriate appreciation for His patience.
Thursday, July 31, 2025
The words “righteousness” and “justice” appear together in 52 verses of the New American Standard Bible 1995. Their meanings are related, but not identical. Righteousness is a function of relationships, and justice is a function of decision-making.
***
Creation reveals the power and wisdom of God; Jesus reveals the character of God.
***
“To know Christ…and to make Him known.” What a fantastic motto! (Merriam-Webster defines “motto” as “a short expression of a guiding principle.”) It has been used by many people and institutions over the centuries. Its use has been traced all the way back to the apostle Paul, but there is no verse of his that matches it exactly. No matter who first said it, it’s well worth remembering and repeating. Most of all, it’s well worth living by.
***
Conventional Christianity consists in churchgoing. How well is that working if the goal is to make people more like Jesus?
***
In a PDT, the Bible comes before prayer because we should listen before we speak.
Wednesday, July 30, 2025
We can always get better at parenting as we 1) keep in mind what life was like when we were children, and 2) keep in mind that we ourselves are currently children before Christ.
***
To have an effective PDT, it must be conducted in quietness – not just a quietness in your ears, but in your heart as well. Be encouraged to know, however, that even if your soul is yapping, just reading the words of the Bible with reverence can calm and quiet your heart.
Ps 94:19 When my anxious thoughts multiply within me,
Your consolations delight my soul.
Tuesday, July 29, 2025
America was built on a prayer. If you don’t think so, go back and re-read the Declaration of Independence. (For help, see God in America’s Founding Documents.)
***
There’s so much bad in the best of us
and so much good in the worst of us
that it hardly behooves any of us
to look down our noses at the rest of us.
***
I found God! Where did I find Him? In Jesus Christ. Where did I find Jesus Christ? In the Bible. Where did I find the Bible? Under all the dust.
***
If it were possible to walk in the spirit with God alone – that is, without Jesus Christ – then there wouldn’t be a Jesus Christ because God could have spared Himself all the suffering.
***
Rom 5:1-2 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand…
Your having a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ was not your idea – it was His. As long as you’re approaching Him with a humble attitude, you should entertain no fear that He might ignore you.
Monday, July 28, 2025
Many, if not most, modern biblical scholars say there’s a difference between “the historical Jesus” and “the Christ of faith,” but the apostle Paul’s logic in 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 disallows that distinction. That is, Paul declares that faith in the resurrection of the historical Jesus from the dead is the only kind of faith that matters.
***
Something greater than the church is here. It is the kingdom of God. If you seek and join the former, you’re forsaking the opportunity to seek and join the latter.
The New Testament speaks of the gospel of the kingdom but never speaks of the gospel of church. The purpose of the church was to prepare for the kingdom…and that preparation was a one-generation project (Matt 10:23; 16:28; 23:36; 24:34). Thus the New Testament church was the new human race in embryonic form (James 1:18) – the new human race that would inhabit the new heavens and new earth that came with the second coming of Christ.
***
To seek the presence of God without seeking the rule of God is to miss both.
***
To find God, seek Christ. For through the success of God’s messianic project, the things of God have become the things of Christ.
***
Ps 119:38 Establish Your word to Your servant,
As that which produces reverence for You.
Reading the Bible induces a reverence for Christ.
Sunday, July 27, 2025
I look forward to getting to the next level (heaven), because however low my position will be there, it will be higher than my highest position here (earth).
***
“The phrase ‘Know your role and shut your mouth’ was famously popularized by Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson during his professional wrestling career in WWE. It was a taunt used to belittle opponents and establish his dominance as a character. In this context, it meant that the opponent should accept their lower status and not challenge The Rock’s superiority.” – Google AI Overview answer to the question “Who said ‘know your role’ and what does it mean?”
Leaving Dwayne aside, when the thought “Know your role” occurs to me, it helps me remember that as a man I have a role to play in the lives of my wife and children. I think of it as “the duty” of a man. I cannot play anyone else’s role; I can only play my own. I need to play it well. I still lots of room for improvement on my part.
***
The gospel is the truth; let’s make sure we’re baptized in it.
***
Either Christ is everywhere…or He’s nowhere. (This is built from the logic inherent in Paul’s declaration in 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 that either Christ was actually raised from the dead or He wasn’t, and, if He wasn’t, our faith in Him is vain and we are to be pitied.)
***
When the Lord sends us something “greater” (Matt 12:6) or “better” (Heb 8:6) than what He’s given us in the past we should recognize and appreciate it.
(Lord, show a man what he may let go of…in order that he may grasp what you are offering.)
The rich young ruler (Matthew 19:16-26, Mark 10:17-27, and Luke 18:18-27) couldn’t follow Jesus because his life was full of things God had previously given him.
Similarly, when the Pharisees and Sadducees could not let go of the temple and its services, it prevented them from accepting God’s long-promised Messiah when He was standing right in front of them.
***
Only Jesus Christ is capable of guiding us through this life; and only the Bible grounds us in His thinking.
Saturday, July 26, 2025
Any honest review of human history would have to conclude that Jesus of Nazareth is the world’s leading authority on righteousness. Why then don’t more people consult him on the subject – especially given that He has made Himself so accessible?
***
We are all sinners and all sons of God. What a combination! We’re born narcissists and gradually brought out of it by sustained discipline. At least this is the hope.
***
The Bible comes from ancient Jews (OT) and ancient Christians (NT), but, since the kingdom of God came, it is for every human being. Modern Jews and modern Christians function respectively as the Sadducees and Pharisees of the modern world. Every human being can and should navigate this world as Jesus did – learning from the Sadducees and Pharisees but not becoming like them. And remembering always that He loves them no less than He loves us. God has decreed: human beings will live forever while everything else on this earth perishes like Sodom.
***
Aside from Christ, my parents and my wife have shaped who I am more than any other human influences. I could never repay all the good they have done me…but I should try.
***
In the 21st century, you can follow Christ or you can follow Christians. You can’t follow both because they’re not going the same direction. You find which direction Jesus is going in the Bible, which is the unchanging witness of His righteousness.
Friday, July 25, 2025
Jesus Christ came to govern the human heart. Every…individual…human…heart.
***
Understood properly, the whole Bible is the gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ.
***
If we don’t bring our whole hearts to the reading process, Bible reading can only have a limited impact on our lives.
Thursday, July 24, 2025
Gen 1:2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.
Rev 22:17 The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.
The Holy Spirit is present in the Bible…from one end to the other.
***
The Holy Spirit was present with the prophets (OT) and the apostles (NT) when they wrote the Bible’s various parts…and is also present with us when we read its various parts. Thus both authors and readers are receiving help in their respective roles.
Wednesday, July 23, 2025
Don’t squander the family jewels which your parents passed down to you by inheritance. (Yes, I’m talking about the family Bible on the coffee table in your living room.)
***
Matt 12:6 “…something greater than the temple is here.”
Matt 12:41 “…something greater than Jonah is here.”
Matt 12:42 “…something greater than Solomon is here.”
Something greater than the church is here. It’s the kingdom of God.
***
Is the essence of Christianity a personal relationship with Christ or a personal relationship with Christians? Most Christians would answer “Both.” But that was only true in New Testament times. Since then, the kingdom of God came – just as Jesus promised – and there has been a tension between the two answers ever since. The church has to say that Jesus has not come again because, otherwise, it would have to yield its authority to Him. That sort of clinging to power is what God Jesus killed in the first place.
Synagogues proclaim a messiah who has not come. Churches proclaim a messiah who has not come again.
***
The Bible never gets old…unless you let it.
Tuesday, July 22, 2025
The one true church is the greatest generation of all is the church Jesus said He would build (“I will build My church” – Matt 16:18) is the one we read about in the New Testament. No other church can compare. As there is one true God, there is one true church.
(Hebrews 11:29 By faith they passed through the Red Sea as though they were passing through dry land; and the Egyptians, when they attempted it, were drowned.)
***
Reading and rereading the Bible every day according to a Bible reading plan inoculates you against false teaching. How so? Most people who fall prey to false teachers are hearing a verse here and a verse there – that is, selected sentences taken out of context. By familiarizing yourself with the context, you will be better able to recognize when a someone is misrepresenting what the Bible actually says.
Monday, July 21, 2025
What would you think of a woman who kept having to eject strangers who had moved into her house to live alongside her children but who never rebuked her husband who was the one who kept leaving the door open so that strangers could move in?
***
I think often about those who handed down the Bible to us, beginning with the prophets who wrote the Old Testament and the apostles who wrote the New Testament. These men risked life and limb to give us the word of God, as did many other men and women treasuring it in their own lives and teaching it to the next generation, from antiquity to the present. A whole lot of blood has been spilled – most of all the Lord’s own – to get us the Bible that we open this morning.
Sunday, July 20, 2025
For the last half of the 20th century, the media marketing slogan for Dial bath soap was “Aren’t you glad you use Dial? Don’t you wish everybody did?”
So I ask you, “Aren’t you glad you honor Jesus Christ? Don’t you wish everybody did?”
***
We live in the kingdom of God – something people in Bible times (OT and NT) looked forward to, but never got to experience. Therefore, we imitate their faith, not their experience. That is, we adopted the spirit that animated them though we don’t actually sacrifice animals or partake of sacraments.
(Heb 13:7 Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.)
Therefore, the Bible is to us a book of patterns and principles to learn from – not of practices to replicate.
***
Proverbs 19:27 Cease listening, my son, to discipline,
And you will stray from the words of knowledge.
(Bible readers listen with their eyes.)
Saturday, July 19, 2025
The four Gospels of the New Testament – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – are eyewitness accounts of what can be called The Great Visitation: that is, testimony to God’s historic visit to the earth. That visitation was, without a doubt, the pivotal event in human history. It is therefore altogether appropriate that we divide all time into BC and AD.
(Colossians 1:15 says that Jesus “is the image of the invisible God.”)
What happened to Jerusalem in 70 AD (prophesied by Jesus in the early 30s AD, and recorded in Luke 19:41-44), is an indication of how things go for societies who do not recognize “The Great Visitation.” America was great when it recognized and honored this divine visitation – but look where we are now!
***
Let us not infantilize Christ. To give a specific example, let us not portray Him as a son who never becomes a father.
Isaiah 9:6 For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;
And the government will rest on His shoulders;
And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
***
The New Testament emphasizes the distinction between flesh and spirit – as in “walking in the flesh” versus “walking in the spirit.” A substitute word that often opens up understanding for modern people like us is to use “secular” in the place of “flesh,” and “spiritual” in the place of “spirit.”
***
The kingdom of God > the church. The kingdom is eternal; the church was temporal. People who read the New Testament are familiar with the phrase “the gospel of the kingdom,” but the New Testament never speaks of the gospel of the church.
***
It is possible to read the Bible and come away from the experience unchanged. Don’t let that happen to you!
Friday, July 18, 2025
For whom were the Old Testament Scriptures written? The believers who lived in New Testament times. (Rom 15:4; 1 Cor 10:11; 1 Pet 1:10-12)
Scriptures don’t have to be written for us to be useful to us. In fact, it is only when we fully appreciate their original audience that we can begin to determine how they apply to us, their posterity.
***
From His ascension into heaven until His Second Coming, Jesus was king of the nation – that nation being spiritual Israel. Since then, He has been king of the nations – that is, all of them.
***
When Jesus came to earth, it was God visiting His people (Luke 7:16)
***
What are you going to do when Christ tells you to do one thing and Christians tell you to do another?
What are you going to do when Christ says, “Follow me,” and Christians say, “Follow us”?
As we need to accept the Jewish Messiah no matter how many Jews tell us not to, we need to follow Christ no matter how many Christians tell us to follow them instead.
Christians speak with a cacophonous voice. Christ speaks far more clearly.
***
This is the year of our Lord 2025. The whole world can replace the letters “AD” (anno Domini) with “CE” (Common Era) if they want to…but it won’t change a thing.
***
If the New Testament teaches anything, it teaches that Jesus is Lord. Therefore, we go to the Bible every day to keep ourselves mindful of what He wants from us.
Thursday, July 17, 2025
Adolescence marks on the onset of peer pressure in a person’s life. That is, peer pressure does not go away in adulthood; rather, it becomes stronger.
***
If you’re going to live for Jesus, you have to have your forgiver turned up on high.
***
God’s mysteries all come with a promise of eventual revelation. Man’s mysteries (e.g. the trinity) are hit or miss.
(Mark 4:22 “For nothing is hidden, except to be revealed; nor has anything been secret, but that it would come to light.”)
***
Lord, please view our Bible reading as a prayer – a prayer for You to speak to us afresh today.
There is precedent for this way of thinking (that is, the substituting of one act of devotion for another – especially when the newer act is more effective): Ps 141:2 May my prayer be counted as incense before You; / The lifting up of my hands as the evening offering.
Wednesday, July 16, 2025
The believers in the Lord who led me to Him in the late 1970s urged me to join a church, emphasizing that it was essential to my faith for me to do so. They further emphasized the point by saying that any church was better than not going to church. Specifically, they quipped, “Don’t look for the perfect church, because you’ll never find it; and, even if you do find it, don’t join it, ’cause you’ll ruin it.” It was a wise and funny line and I took it to heart. True to the saying, none of the three churches I successively joined over the course of the following 15 years was perfect; and, even though none was perfect, I still managed to make each one of them worse by joining it. By the end of my time with the third, I realized that there has been on this earth only one true church: the one that was led by the apostles in the 1st century, the one that received and passed on the writings of the apostles who led them. We should imitate their faith – not their form. In other words, if we don’t feel the need to sacrifice animals like the ancient Jews, why should we feel the need to partake of sacraments like the ancient Christians? Instead, we should read the Bible, find Jesus…and follow Him. That’s what godly Jews and Christians from ancient times would want most for us to do today. Let us not disappointment them.
***
When we read every day in the Gospels about how Jesus lived (His deeds and His teachings), and how He gave up His life for us (on a cross of torture and humiliation), we are eating His flesh and drinking His blood.
(John 6:53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.”)
Tuesday, July 15, 2025
Christianity is a movement begun by a Jew. It was subsequently led by Jews whom that Jew had appointed for the task. This Jewish leadership continued for most of the 1st century. Since the 2nd century, however, this movement has been led by Gentiles. The 27 texts we call the New Testament were all written in the 1st century when Jews were still leading the movement. If we lose sight of these historical facts, we’re likely to lose sight of the founder’s intent – or, at the very least, misunderstand it to some degree.
(John 4:22 “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.”)
***
Manna was daily bread. That’s what we’re looking for in our PDT every morning.
Monday, July 14, 2025
Christianity in the 21st century is a ship that has been sailing for 2,000 years. Over that time, it hull has accumulated a lot of barnacles – so many that’s it’s become hard to distinguish the barnacles from the ship. The only way to distinguish the barnacles of Christianity from its hull is to go back to the words spoken by Jesus Himself as reported to us by the apostles He Himself chose. That’s why reading the New Testament is so important!
***
When we read the New Testament, we’re reading the primary historical sources for the life and teaching of Jesus. If we want to know and understand Him, there are no better sources than those 27 texts.
Sunday, July 13, 2025
Let us never forget the primacy of Christ and the necessity of His Holy Spirit.
(John 15:5 “…apart from Me you can do nothing.”)
***
It’s better to have the Holy Spirit than a good memory.
(John 14:26 “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”)
***
Okay, Jesus – here I am, ready to read your Bible again. Do Your Thing!
(Ps 119:18 Open my eyes, that I may behold / Wonderful things from Your law.)
Saturday, July 12, 2025
Jesus Christ lived on earth in order that he might become to everyone else what God had been to him.
***
A godly man is never alone…even when he’s by himself.
(He has a friend who sticks closer than a brother.)
(Proverbs 18:24 A man of too many friends comes to ruin, / But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.)
***
I am so grateful for those in previous generations who reverently handed down the Bible to us, for where would we be without the guiding light it casts on Jesus Christ our Lord?
Friday, July 11, 2025
More people believe that Jesus was crucified than believe he was raised from the dead. But that’s strange, because it’s a lot easier to believe that a Supreme Being would do a miracle than it is to believe He would put Himself through the suffering of a Roman crucifixion.
***
The two great pillars of darkness in our age are, on the one hand, secularism, and, on the other, false religion.
(Some forms of false religion, doctrine, teaching are more problematic than others. Worldwide, Islam is the most dominant form of false religion – particularly, militant Islam.)
***
We don’t look to the Bible for ideas; we look to it for Jesus. And when we find Him, the ideas just start flowing.
Thursday, July 10, 2025
Science can teach us that we have a Creator, but only history can teach us that we have a Redeemer.
Science teaches us what God did for us from afar; history teaches what He did for us up close.
(Science has never taught evolution; only secularized science has. The secularization of science – which came with the second scientific revolution in the 19th century – removed God and miracles from all scientific consideration. The cockamamie idea of evolution – that nothing became everything by itself over an exceedingly long period of time – was invented to fill the gap created by secularization. The moral to be learned is that rejecting God’s involvement in a subject causes us to think stupidly about it.)
***
Christ is the end to which the Bible is the means.
Wednesday, July 9, 2025
To obey Jesus Christ is to do the will of God. To do the will of God is to obey Jesus Christ. They are one and the same.
Tuesday, July 8, 2025
Lies and delusions are both false, but a liar knows he’s spreading falsehood while a deluded person spreads a falsehood thinking it’s the truth. Of course, this means that the liar is more guilty of wrongdoing than the deluded person, but it also means that you might be able reason with deluded person whereas you are wasting your time trying to reason with a liar. The liar is not conversing with you in good faith.
Monday, July 7, 2025
In his first letter to the believers in Corinth (specifically, in 1 Cor 15:1 Paul reminded them that there were at least 515 witnesses to the resurrected Christ:
- Peter
- the twelve apostles
- a crowd of more than 500
- James
- all the apostles
- Paul
Sunday, July 6, 2025
The duty of a man cannot be outsourced to his wife, to a church, or to anyone or anything else.
(The duty of a man is to keep himself and his family in Jesus Christ and the Bible.)
Saturday, July 5, 2025
I cannot fix the world. I cannot even fix my little corner of the world. But I can – with His help – fix myself. And that will make my little corner of the world better.
Oh, and it’s better if I try to do this one day at a time instead of all at once.
Friday, July 4, 2025
“Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” – John Adams (1735-1826)
John Adams was, of course, a leading American founder and our second president. He died exactly 200 years ago this very day. What could prove the truth and wisdom of his words more than what we’re living through in 21st-century America?
Thursday, July 3, 2025
How much more important is a human being than an animal? Animals don’t have a conscience and they don’t live forever. Oh, and God never became an animal.
A human being – even on his worst day – is still a human being. And that’s something special.
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
Since ancient times, men have looked to the heavens realizing that though the stars appear scattered, they are arranged in discernible patterns. Knowledge of these patterns enabled explorers to eventually discover the shape and extent of the earth. So much for the physical dimension of life. As for the spiritual dimension, the Bible has within its covers the patterns of history…which keep repeating themselves. By the knowledge of these patterns, we can discover the shape and extent of a successful life on earth. In both physical and spiritual dimensions, it is the knowledge of heaven – whether it is the physical heavens or the spiritual ones – that enable men to successfully navigate the physical or spiritual earth, as the case may be. And it is blindness to the heavens, that keeps men banging into walls as long as the blindness goes uncured. God the Creator gives us physical eyes to see the physical creation, while God the Redeemer gives us spiritual eyes to see the spiritual creation.
Tuesday, July 1, 2025
If a person is unwilling to admit that he has a sin problem and a death problem, he can fend off any argument for Jesus Christ you present to him. So don’t wear yourself out trying to convince someone unwilling to be convinced.
Monday, June 30, 2025
Secularism won’t work. Western civilization is proving that by its trajectory. It rose before the rest of the world because it accepted Christianity more fully than the world – which was the result of the apostle Paul laboring more than the other apostles (1 Cor 15:10) and, specifically, his missionary journeys westward into Europe. In our time, Western civilization is falling before the world – crumbling right before everyone’s eyes. Secularism is all about liking apples but not the tree that produced them. Picking the apples and then killing the tree leaves you with apples…but only for a while.
***
The Holy Spirit is for holy living…which is for Christ, not self. God forbid we should be full of ourselves.
***
Jesus Christ is neither a mute God (1 Cor 12:1-3), nor a moot one (Jude 1:3-4).
***
Family is not a human institution; it is a divine one. When someone says, “A family is a family is a family,” they’re encouraging us to play God.
***
The Bible is chock-full of history, prophecy, and wisdom. We need all three in order to understand and appreciate Christ.
***
Since prophecy is history written in advance, why are there people who think the prophets and the apostles got prophecy right but didn’t get history right? Isn’t writing prophecy harder than writing history?
***
We read the Bible to establish faith…and we reread the Bible to reinforce faith. How often does our faith need to be reinforced? At a bare minimum, daily. If the modern world weren’t so secular, that might not be the case. But we must live in the world we find, not the one we wish for.
Sunday, June 29, 2025
The kingdom of God is not a human institution…though humans should stop fighting it and submit to it.
***
Jesus is Lord of the Bible. The Bible is not lord of Him.
***
Did Muhammad live a life greater than Jesus did? How then could he be a prophet greater than Jesus? Muhammad did not even live a life as good as Jesus did – not by a long shot. Neither has anyone else. Buddha? L. Ron Hubbard? There is none like Him!
***
Jesus is alive and well. We’ve got the receipts! (The New Testament.)
***
If anyone will read the New Testament believing it is only the word of men about a man, they will find out that Jesus is much more than just a man.
Saturday, June 28, 2025
2 Corinthians 5:15 and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.
(You only have to think about the implications of this verse for a few seconds to understand why so many people prefer going to church once or twice a week to living for Christ all day long. Let us live for Him instead of for ourselves. As the old folks used to say, “May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering.”)
***
Q: In the Old Testament, who were the people of God?
A: Jews.
Q: In the New Testament, who were the people of God?
A: Christians.
Q: Today (that is, in the kingdom of God), who are the people of God?
A: People.
Friday, June 27, 2025
If the New Testament texts are not reliable historical sources, then our faith has no reliable foundation. Any honest study of history will confirm that these texts are reliable – but too few scholars are willing to admit that because there’s too few honest people these days…and scholars are as human as the rest of us.
***
You are never alone when you are reading the Bible. The Lord is watching over you and His Spirit is abiding in you…in order to help you understand the words on the page before you.
Thursday, June 26, 2025
Walking in the spirit is walking in the truth.
(3 John 1:4 I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth.)
(John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am…the truth…”)
Wednesday, June 25, 2025
“Lord” = chief authority figure
Tuesday, June 24, 2025
Reading the Bible with a view to do requires that we employ our consciences – that is, our sense of right and wrong – as we read. We look for what is timeless in time-bound writings. Ancient cultural values are not identical to modern cultural values, but some things never change.
We must be discerning readers – not dullards. Jesus read the same Old Testament that the Pharisees read and yet got things out of it that the Pharisees never dreamed of. That’s because Jesus read it with a view to do while they read it with a view to know it all and lord it over others. Let us read the Bible as Jesus did.
***
Skipping PDTs and FDTs is not an option.
(Prov 19:27 Cease listening, my son, to discipline,
And you will stray from the words of knowledge.)
***
The Bible is not the only way that Jesus speaks. He speaks also through the Holy Spirit. But remember that the Bible consists of writings by the prophets (Old Testament) and the apostles (New Testament) – both groups of men having been inspired by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, learning the Bible is the best way to attune yourself to the voice of the Holy Spirit.
Monday, June 23, 2025
The New Testament is full of truth claims about Jesus of Nazareth. They are so profound if true and so preposterous if false that human indifference toward these claims is irresponsible and inexcusable. That’s why most people just quietly hope that these truth claims never come up in conversation.
***
I read this the other day: “Someone has said that one measure of a man’s concern is what he is willing to fit into an already overburdened schedule.” When I read it, the first thing that came to my mind was PDTs.
Sunday, June 22, 2025
Take a page out of Jesus’ book: Just because someone else is unwilling or unable to find peace doesn’t mean you can’t find it. Therefore, if you don’t have peace right now, it’s because you’re not partaking of your inheritance. Partake!
(John 16:33 “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”)
Saturday, June 21, 2025
The apostles were the witnesses chosen by Jesus to bear witness to the years of His earthly ministry – what He said and did. Without the apostles, we’d have no red letters.
The apostles were a one-generation phenomenon. Though they’re with us no longer, their writings abide: the New Testament. Let us cling to these writings like nothing else, for they are our lens to see Jesus in the Old Testament. And if we see Him in both testaments, we will eventually come to see Him in everything else as well.
Friday, June 20, 2025
The Bible is an ancient collection of even more ancient writings.
***
“The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.”
― Edward R. Murrow (American broadcast journalist and war correspondent, 1908-1965)
(The Bible supports this truth, showing how the most important and obvious truths are often hidden in plain view.)
Thursday, June 19, 2025
The old hymn rightly declares, “What a friend we have in Jesus!” – but what kind of friend am I to Him?
(John 15:14 “You are My friends if you do what I command you.”)
Wednesday, June 18, 2025
If you want to prove a point, which would be the most useful point to prove: God exists? No. God speaks? No. God speaks through Jesus Christ? Yes, absolutely yes! For to prove that God speaks through Jesus Christ is to prove something immediately actionable.
***
As it turns out, the one true God…is the one true man.
***
The person of Christ can be reached through the name of Christ.
***
Jesus is Lord. He’s not only “Lord of the Sabbath” (Matt 12:8; Luke 6:5), He’s Lord of the Bible. He is the one who holds all its 66 books together.
***
The centrality of Christ cannot be overstated. (Col 1:17)
***
Without the words of Jesus, calling Him “Lord” would be a meaningless utterance. The reason it would be meaningless is, of course, that you can’t obey someone if you don’t know what he says.
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
If you were only willing to read one chapter of the Bible with me, I would make it 1 Corinthians 15. And I wouldn’t even ask you to read the whole chapter, because the first 22 verses would be enough.
Monday, June 16, 2025
Secularism leads inevitably to nihilism. This is because secularism was and is a rejection of Christ…and that makes it antichrist. Is it any wonder that something antichrist is nihilistic?
Secularism arose out of the Protestant Reformation as a way to keep church – even a reformed church – in check; but it turned into a way to reject Christ. That is, secularism began as a way to throw out the bathwater, but the baby ended up being included with what was thrown out.
Secularism’s march toward nihilism was slow at first, but rapid in the end. We are seeing that firsthand.
Sunday, June 15, 2025
The Second Coming of Jesus Christ was the rebirth of God. It was when He was born again. It was the day of revelation that Christ was God.
(Like all great leaders, the Lord never asks His followers to do anything He’s not willing to do Himself.)
Saturday, June 14, 2025
Society needs Christ the way a human being needs oxygen. Secularization is a gradual form of oxygen deprivation. Western civilization has reached a stage of its secularization in which it is gasping for breath. People need Jesus! And if they don’t find Him soon they’re going to die in the nothingness and futility of full secularism.
Friday, June 13, 2025
Secularism is radical autonomy. Only modern men are pompous enough to practice it. Even ancient pagans knew that there was an unseen dimension of creation that should not be ignored. Secularism – that is, walking in the flesh – is weird…and it’s time we admitted it.
Thursday, June 12, 2025
Adam’s Brain
Keeping this website organized in a way that people can navigate it without getting lost and overwhelmed is very difficult. I myself become overwhelmed by it. But what is my little ole website when compared to the animal kingdom? That’s why, as this website has grown larger and larger, I find myself increasingly thinking about Adam and how he was able to name all the animals.
Gen 2:19 Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.
Scientists currently organize the study of animals by a hierarchical classification system: domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. I don’t know what system Adam used, but I assume he classified the animals in some logical way and didn’t name them randomly. If I had been given his assignment, I would probably have forgotten what I named the first animal by the time I got to the tenth. Just because Adam didn’t have clothes when God first made him doesn’t mean he was a doofus.
Adam and the patriarchs who followed him were men of great intellect – “men of renown.” Exiled from the bliss of Eden, they had to build civilizations out of nothing in a world turned hostile toward them by Adam’s sin. Evolution has things exactly backward. We’re not getting smarter with time – we’re getting dumber. Jesus Christ redeems us from the decline of civilization that sin inevitably brings. Only those who look to Him reverse the trend.
Wednesday, June 11, 2025
The Enlightenment led to the secularization of science, history, and philosophy. Ever since the secularization of history, religious scholars have been second-class citizens in the field of New Testament studies. Remember this whenever you are reading any modern scholar on the subject.
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
Go to the Bible Instead of Church
In ancient times, synagogues and churches were the practical way that written material was presented and consumed. Folks back then didn’t have printing presses, and most of them couldn’t read. But they could gather together and listen to documents being read to them. We modern folks not only have printing presses, we have computers, smart phones, and the internet. Plus, most of us can read. Why then should we drive somewhere to hear someone read to us a book we have in our own homes?
Monday, June 9, 2025
The secularized world can only be shaken from its sleepwalking by calamity or truth claims. Obviously, a positive reaction to truth claims would be far less painful. What applies in general applies also to the individual. That is, the individual secular mind can only be awakened by calamity or truth claims. I was confronted with the truth claims of Jesus while in my mid-20’s…and my eventual acceptance of those truth claims has spared me many calamities.
(The New Testament is a unified set of truth claims, all centered around Jesus Christ – “The Man Upstairs,” as Ronald Reagan and many others have called Him.)
Sunday, June 8, 2025
I proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord, and the Bible as His word. (This is the tagline on my YouTube channel.)
(If we don’t know what He said, referring to Him as Lord makes no sense. How can you serve a God who can’t tell you what to do?)
Saturday, June 7, 2025
This Is an Age of Distractions
At no time in the last 75 years that I can detect has it been easier for an American to be distracted. Let me paraphrase that: At no time in the last 75 years that I can detect has it been harder for an American to not be distracted. Some distractions are illegal, some are legal. Some are immoral, some have nothing to do with morals. What all of them have in common is their ability to keep us from staying focused on the things that are really important in life. Distractions are everywhere, and they have accumulated to the point that they are, practically speaking, assaulting us. We must resist all distractions, and that requires recognizing them for what they are. Let us keep reminding ourselves of what’s truly important so that we can recognize distraction the instant it presents itself.
(Heb 12:1 fixing our eyes on Jesus…)
Friday, June 6, 2025
“Has God spoken, and, if so, through whom?” Throughout human history, many have claimed to speak for God – Jesus of Nazareth being the most famous among them. And the claim for Jesus is that he is still speaking. Has the world ever known a more contentious subject than this? The disagreement is a cacophony! Some people just throw up their hands – but “the Jacobs” wrestle with God until daylight comes.
(Genesis 3:1; 32:22-32)
***
Jesus is calling America back to Himself – not to church. How then do we return to Him? By returning to the Bible and to family – you could even say to the family Bible.
(Malachi 4:6)
Thursday, June 5, 2025
The best way to hear new things from the Lord is to bring the old things He’s said to mind. This sets the proper context for hearing new things.
(Matt 13:12 “For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him.”)
Wednesday, June 4, 2025
The New Testament is a bulwark of truth in modern times, but modern scholars strip it of its potency by questioning its authorship – authorship that was settled long ago by people who were in a far better position to settle it than modern scholars are willing to admit.
Tuesday, June 3, 2025
Where did the New Testament come from? The first churches.
Where did the first churches come from? The apostles.
Where did the apostles come from? Jesus.
In terms of historical documentation, there’s nothing closer to Jesus than the New Testament.
***
Jesus Christ and the Bible – One is the gas station, and the other is the gas.
(You can substitute “charging station” for “gas station,” and “electricity” for “gas” if that sort difference matters to you.)
Monday, June 2, 2025
Does God exist? Is Jesus alive?
(The first question is okay, but the second one is a much more productive one to answer.)
Sunday, June 1, 2025
Ten or so years ago I read somewhere that the Internet was going to run out of unique URL addresses. I immediately began to worry. (I couldn’t think of a single thing I could do about about it – but that only made me worry more.) I never heard anything else about it, so I eventually stopped worrying about it. But why did I ever worry about it in the first place?
(Luke 12:25-26 “And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life’s span? If then you cannot do even a very little thing, why do you worry about other matters?“)
Saturday, May 31, 2025
The Bible is a body, designed and assembled by the invisible hand of our Creator. He is, by the way, a Creator of bodies.
Friday, May 30, 2025
The path to God is through the historical Jesus. That means even secular people have a path to God.
***
It’s not that there are occasionally moral dilemmas in life but that life is a moral dilemma and we are occasionally made aware of it because a crisis arises that calls for a moral decision.
Growth in our life with Christ comes from recognizing the moral dimension in more and more of our daily decisions.
Thursday, May 29, 2025
The Son of God IS my God!
Wednesday, May 28, 2025
New Testament authorship is a big deal. Critics of Christianity and of the Bible have been attacking it since the 17th century – the century after Martin Luther launched the Protestant Reformation. Once New Testament authorship was called into question, the New Testament ipso facto ceased to be the primary historical sources for the life of Jesus of Nazareth. The trajectory of New Testament scholarship has been downhill ever since.
Tuesday, May 27, 2025
The primary historical sources for the life of Jesus of Nazareth are hidden in plain view. They are collectively called the New Testament. Modern scholarship accepts them as historical but not as primary. That’s why biblical scholarship has been on “quests for the historical Jesus.” When you ignore the primary historical sources for a subject, you blind yourself to a lot of history – the most important history – about the subject in question.
Monday, May 26, 2025
Memorial Day
“The Christ Event” is a term defined by Wiktionary as “Proper noun. Christ event. (theology) A summary of the reality and effects of Jesus, particularly focused on his first advent. In that sense, it addresses the totality of his work, including his Incarnation, death on the cross, resurrection from the dead, and ascension to heaven.”
It’s a useful term, but needs to be updated to include His return to reign as king of the new heavens and new earth in the day of the Lord…which includes now and forevermore. (Jesus Christ Has Already Come Again)
The Christ Event so understood altered reality…permanently. To accept this is to walk by faith in Jesus Christ.
Sunday, May 25, 2025
True theology is Christology. Jesus Christ was the clothing God wore when He saved us from death. The work of Jesus Christ is the crown on God’s head.
***
The life Jesus lived answers the question, “What would God do if He ever became a man?”
It also answers the question, “What would the world do to God if they didn’t know it was Him?”
Saturday, May 24, 2025
Righteousness has to do with relationships. For example, you owe more to your family than you owe to anyone else. Practically all the social justice warriors I have ever known about bypassed their families to save the world.
Friday, May 23, 2025
If I believe in Jesus because of the Bible, and I believe in the Bible because of Jesus, then I am engaged in circular reasoning – which is like driving in a circle instead of going somewhere. But I believe in Jesus because of history, and I believe in the Bible because of Jesus – and that gets me somewhere, for sure!
Jesus Christ and the Bible is a package deal…but there is an order to them. First, secure faith in Jesus through history and then, through His words, secure faith in the Bible.
Thursday, May 22, 2025
All that is called Christianity is not of Christ.
***
God gave us the Bible so He could open His mouth wider – not shut it.
***
The New Testament is the authorized biography of Jesus Christ. It is also a call to faith in Him. You could even say it’s a commandment to believe in Him (Rom 16:25-27).
And since Christ is such an important event in history, you could even say history itself is calling us to faith in Christ.
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
I gave up my life to live His life. Now, if I can just keep from taking my life back at every temptation that comes my way, I’ll be getting somewhere.
***
Tuesday, May 20, 2025
There is an awful lot of lyin’ going on in the world today, but it is also the case that there is a lot of truth to be found hidden in plain view. We just have to follow the example of the blind beggar Bartimaeus who called on Jesus to open his eyes.
Monday, May 19, 2025
Life is a moral dilemma. Jesus shows us the way out of it.
***
History is the on-ramp to the highway of God. This is because history is where we find Jesus. Our faith is rooted in history – human history.
(Merriam-Webster definition of “on-ramp” = “: a ramp by which one enters a limited-access highway”)
(Merriam-Webster definition of “highway” = “: a public way, especially : a main direct road”)
Sunday, May 18, 2025
All around us we see the vestiges of a Christian nation.
Saturday, May 17, 2025
Possible titles for the four Gospels: “When God Walked the Earth” or “When God Became One of Us for a While.”
***
The New Testament = the apostles’ teaching = what Jesus taught them.
***
The “purpose-driven life” is, by definition, off course if that purpose is your will and not your Creator’s.
Friday, May 16, 2025
There is “The Visitation” and “The Revelation,” the former being the life of Jesus on earth, and the latter being His full revelation in the Second Coming. Both His Visitation and His Revelation took place in the 1st century, but His Revelation has yet to receive the attention it deserves. May our generation change that!
Thursday, May 15, 2025
Protestant Reformation Liberation. (“Reformation” indicates an attempt to reform the church; “Liberation” indicates a full embrace of the kingdom of God instead of the church.)
Wednesday, May 14, 2025
Why do you do so much re-reading of the Bible – isn’t once enough? Ps 111:2 Great are the works of the LORD; they are studied by all who delight in them.
***
What is the most important name in the Bible? (If you are not sure of the answer to this question, you need to get yourself on a Christ-centered Bible reading plan as soon as possible; even if you are sure, we all still need to be on that kind of Bible reading plan.)
Tuesday, May 13, 2025
The Old Testament reveals that angelic mediation between God and the human race was an inadequate administration, at least for eternity’s purpose. That’s why He became a man in order to secure us a desirable future beyond this life.
***
Since the Second Coming, it is no more the duty of a man to go to church than it is to sacrifice an animal for one’s sins. Water baptism, too, has gone the way of circumcision as a religious rite. Get baptized in the Bible instead.
***
“Christ in all things” is a worthwhile motto to live by.
God’s will for your life is…(wait for it)…righteousness. This should be a surprise to no one who knows Jesus.
Monday, May 12, 2025
Peace of mind is achieved not by having more thoughts, but rather by having fewer of them…and better ones. Therefore, when it comes to our thoughts, let us decrease their quantity while increasing their quality.
***
The plain meaning of the words “Jesus reigns” is the same as that of “Christ is King,” but the latter expression stirs up more dust these days.
Expressions like “Christ is King,” “Judeo-Christian,” and “Christian Nationalism” can mean wildly different things to different people, especially in the 21st century. Therefore, exercising caution when using them is the wise course.
Sunday, May 11, 2025
We are creatures. However, secularism, by excluding God from the conversation, makes human beings supreme above all beings and matter. No wonder people are acting like they have that divine authority – trying to speak a chosen gender into existence and exercising the power of life and death over children in the womb.
***
Don’t ask who is God; instead, ask who is Lord. The New Testament is much more precise, emphatic, and repetitive about Jesus being Lord than it is about His being God. Besides, Jesus’ identity as God is not nearly as actionable as His identity as Lord. This is because if He’s God, we may not know what to think, say, or do next; but if He’s Lord, we know we’re supposed to do whatever He says. For that matter, if He’s Lord, He’s God for all practical purposes anyway.
***
Since Christ (Messiah) is the way ancient Israel referred to the great king God promised, that name should automatically evoke “the kingdom of God” in our minds whenever we read or hear it. For all practical purposes, we can say that any reference to Messiah (Christ) is a reference to the kingdom of God.
***
Christianity is not so much a way of behaving as a way of thinking…that leads to better behaving.
***
Truth = reality. To say that there is no such thing as objective truth is the equivalent of saying there is no such thing as reality. Thinking in this way can rightly be described as mental illness – and an increasing percentage of our country is affected by it.
***
The historical Jesus is the Savior of the world. If the New Testament is not historically reliable then no one can be sure the world is saved.
(Someone once said, “History is too important to be left to the professionals.” If it applies to any history, it certainly applies to history that speaks to our salvation from death.)
***
Know Jesus, know God. No Jesus, no God.
***
Notice in Revelation 21:5 that the Lord doesn’t say, “I am making all new things,” but rather “I am making all things new.” Thus the new heavens and new earth of which Isaiah prophesied (Is 65:17; 66:22) are spiritual and not physical. That is, the Lord – as the potter in Jeremiah 18:1-4 – re-purposed creation in response to Adam’s sin. Sin and death drained all the meaning out of life, but Christ gives it new meaning by overcoming evil with good. Let us follow in His steps.
Saturday, May 10, 2025
Who would have a better vision for how to live life on earth than Jesus of Nazareth? Why do so many people look to others for answers?
***
If someone tells you he doesn’t believe in objective truth, ask him recall how he felt the last time someone lied to him about something important. That feeling didn’t come from nowhere.
***
Faith is the fear of the Lord in blossom.
***
The churches gave us the apostles’ words…who gave us Jesus’ words…who gave us God’s words.
(The apostles’ words are the New Testament; Jesus’ words are the red letters in the New Testament.)
***
Don’t follow the followers of the Leader – follow the Leader!
(Matt 23:8-10)
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Apostolic Christianity is Christianity as the apostles taught it. We need to return to first principles.
***
We don’t live to read the Bible – we read the Bible to live.
***
Jesus is the Teacher and the Bible is His textbook.
Monday, April 28, 2025
The church was a divine institution in the New Testament. It’s been a human institution ever since. Why? Because the kingdom of heaven came to replace the church just when Jesus and His apostles said it would: before their generation passed away. It’s high time we recognized that.
Sunday, April 27, 2025
Matt 16:6 And Jesus said to them, “Watch out and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
(Such leaven in the 21st-century is synagogue for the Sadducees and church for the Pharisees. The Bible belongs to everyone – not just Jews and Christians. Isn’t Jesus the Lord of everyone? Believing in Jesus doesn’t make Him Lord – it just acknowledges the truth that He is Lord.)
Saturday, April 26, 2025
It’s more practical and productive to ask “Who’s Lord?” than to ask “Who’s God?”
(This is because an answer to the former will also answer the question, “What should I do with my life?” while an answer to the latter will only prompt you to start asking such a follow-up question.)
Friday, April 25, 2025
Echoes of the Old Testament in the New:
- Old Testament: Num 32:23 “But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the LORD, and be sure your sin will find you out.
- New Testament: Acts 5:4 “While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control? Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.”
Thursday, April 24, 2025
We seek to be students and servants of Jesus Christ in order to learn what it means to be sons of Jesus Christ. Otherwise, an exclusive focus on sonship will lead to an attitude of entitlement rather than one of humility.
(Prov 17:2 A servant who acts wisely will rule over a son who acts shamefully,
And will share in the inheritance among brothers.)
Wednesday, April 23, 2025
There’s a man on the throne of God!
(Jesus is a man, but He’s also more than a man.)
Tuesday, April 22, 2025
At the headwaters of the river we call Christianity we find the Jesus of history and geography.
Monday, April 21, 2025
I can’t find any book in the world more important than the Bible. Can you?
I can’t find anyone or anything in the Bible more important than Jesus Christ. Can you?
Sunday, April 20, 2025
Our personal faith in Christ is rooted in human history. Deeply so.
(The foundation of Christianity is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead according to the Scriptures. See 1 Cor 15:1-11)
Saturday, April 19, 2025
The primary purpose of the Bible is to foster actualization of the Lordship of Christ in human lives.
Friday, April 18, 2025
Romans 10:9 …if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord…
To call Jesus “Lord” is to believe Him when He said, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” (Matt 28:18) That is, “Lord” = “all authority”
Thursday, April 17, 2025
Rev 22:7 “And behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is he who heeds the words of the prophecy of this book.”
In the 21st century, a person who believes that the kingdom of God came in the 1st century is “heeding the prophecy of this book” (which is specifically the book of Revelation, and more generally the Bible), while anyone who believes that this kingdom is still yet to come is heeding something other than the book of Revelation and the rest of the Bible.
Wednesday, April 16, 2025
In Revelation 22:16, Jesus says, “…I am the root and the descendant of David…” That’s a pretty neat trick: to be both a person’s ancestor and his descendant. Who else has ever pulled that off?
Tuesday, April 15, 2025
Did the church create the apostles or did the apostles create the church?
(The latter. Jesus appointed the apostles, and the apostles created churches by their preaching.)
Monday, April 14, 2025
The purpose of every day’s PDT is to feed the fire in our bellies by adding another log or two to the fire…or…if the fire has gone out, to re-ignite it.
(In other words, the purpose of every day’s PDT to make sure we don’t end up like most people: Matt 24:12 “Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.”)
Sunday, April 13, 2025
Two Sides of the Same Coin:
Heb 10:22 let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Matt 22:11-13 “But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw a man there who was not dressed in wedding clothes, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?’ And the man was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’.”
(There is benefit in making ourselves presentable to the Lord.)
Saturday, April 12, 2025
We have found the kingdom of God!
(He hid it in plain sight. That is, it’s explained in the Bible.)
(The kingdom of God is Jesus as king and the universe as His domain.)
Friday, April 11, 2025
There is underthinking and there is overthinking.
(Neither is good.)
(Rom 12:3 …think so as to have sound judgment…)
Thursday, April 10, 2025
It’s long past time we should stop trying to build the church and instead recognize that the kingdom of God is in our midst!
(The kingdom of God has to be in our midst – otherwise, Jesus would be a false prophet, which cannot be. See Jesus Christ Has Already Come Again.)
Wednesday, April 9, 2025
Christ means king. “Christ” was the word ancient Greek-speaking Jews used to refer to their coming Messiah – that is, their coming king. Therefore, you could say, “‘Christ is king’ because Christ means king.”
Tuesday, April 8, 2025
Do I believe in the church? If you’re talking about the one in the New Testament, absolutely! But if you’re talking about any of its pale imitations, which is all we’ve had since the 1st century church, then no. The New Testament church was the greatest generation of human beings who ever lived. We need to pay more attention to what they said – specifically, to what the apostles, who were the leaders of that church, said. We do that by reading and studying the New Testament. Does anyone in the world claim to know more about Jesus and His plan for humanity than the apostles?
Monday, April 7, 2025
YEC stands for “Young Earth Creationism.” This term stands opposite to “Old Earth Creationism,” which accepts the estimates of modern science that the earth is approximately 4.54 billion years old, while the universe is estimated to be about 13.8 billion years old. By contrast, YEC derives from the Bible that the earth – and all of creation, for that matter – are about 6,000 years old. Hence, the words “young” and “old” are relative to each other – that is, they derive their meaning from each other.
An unfortunate side effect to this use of the world “young” is that it obscures the fact that from a different standpoint, a thousand years can be a very, very long time. For example, consider that God had to work for four thousand years to accomplish the redemption of creation through Jesus Christ. Hmm. Six days to create the universe and 4,000 years to redeem it. What a contrast! What could explain why it took Him so much more time to redeem the world than to create it? The fact that He needed no human involvement to create the universe – only to redeem it.
And lest we think too much of ourselves, the only significant value-add humanity brought to the mission of redemption was the documenting of it – unless you want to give us credit for revealing through the process what sinners we are.
God is patient with us. Don’t let the fact that the earth is relatively young obscure this truth.
Sunday, April 6, 2025
We’re all Christians, we’re all children of God, every nation is a Christian nation – even though many, many people are fighting these realities, and fighting them ferociously. We all belong to Him because Christ is King! (This is the kingdom of God, about which both Old and New Testaments prophesied.)
- OT: Hosea 1:10 ..in the place
Where it is said to them,
“You are not My people,”
It will be said to them,
“You are the sons of the living God.” - NT: 1 Corinthians 15:22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.
Saturday, April 5, 2025
A Snow Globe
When you’re preparing to pray – especially when you’re preparing to pray privately – consider that your mind is like a snow globe. That is, the only way to see anything clearly enough to pray about it is to be still long enough for all the swirling thoughts to settle.
Friday, April 4, 2025
Those who are trusting in the existence of the kingdom of God have no visible means of spiritual support…and are doing just fine!
Thursday, April 3, 2025
“Know Jesus, know God; no Jesus, no God.”
I don’t know who coined this statement but I sure am glad it’s in circulation!
Another version of it I like is “Know Jesus, know peace; no Jesus, no peace.”
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
Do Protestants have a justification for how they know what books go into the Bible? (question from a Roman Catholic)
The same justification everyone else has: Jesus. He accepted the writings of the prophets as preserved and handed down by ancient Jews and He sent the apostles whose writings were preserved and handed down by ancient Christians. These two sources, respectively, give us 39 Old Testament books and 27 New Testament books.
Tuesday, April 1, 2025
Phil 3:9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,
(Notice that there is a stark contrast between self-righteousness [“a righteousness of my own…”] and godly righteousness [“the righteousness that comes from God…”]. It is thus fair to say that any righteousness rooted in self is ungodly. No wonder the Pharisees are so unattractive…and no wonder Jesus said, “No one is good except God alone” in Mark 10:18.)
Monday, March 31, 2025
Every day we go to the Bible…to recover Christ in our hearts. If we don’t find Him, our going to the Bible that day failed at its primary mission. (The Bible is the treasure map; Jesus is the treasure.)
Sunday, March 30, 2025
Connect the Dots…and…Echoes of the Old Testament in the New: The apostles were “doers and teachers” because their leader was a “doer and teacher.”
Mark 6:30 The apostles gathered together with Jesus; and they reported to Him all that they had done and taught.
Acts 1:1 The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach,
(To “do and teach” are steps 2 and 3 of Ezra’s three-step process, appropriate for all men: Ezra 7:10 For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the LORD and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel.
Saturday, March 29, 2025
The Bible explains how your relationship with Christ works.
(The Bible is the treasure map; Jesus is the treasure.)
Friday, March 28, 2025
Echoes of the Old Testament in the New:
- Old Testament:
- 1 Kin 8:46 “When they sin against You (for there is no man who does not sin)…
- Eccl 7:20 Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins.
- New Testament:
- Rom 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
- 1 John 1:10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.
Thursday, March 27, 2025
Connect the Dots:
Mark 6:1 Jesus went out from there and *came into His hometown; and His disciples *followed Him.
Mark 6:2 When the Sabbath came, He began to teach in the synagogue; and the many listeners were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get these things, and what is this wisdom given to Him, and such miracles as these performed by His hands?
Mark 6:3 “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Are not His sisters here with us?” And they took offense at Him.
Matthew 11:6 “And blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.”
(Wow! Jesus’ hometown neighbors – who should have received more blessings from Him than their fellow Jewish citizens of Israel simply because of their greater access to Him – forfeited those blessings. No wonder Jesus said what He did about prophets and honor.)
Mark 6:4 Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household.”
(Consider now that large portions of American society currently take offense at the Bible – the book that testifies about Jesus. This is the same America that began life venerating the Bible more than any other nation. Therefore, it is fair to say that much of America now takes offense at the God upon whom it called for vindication and deliverance at the time of its founding.)
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Your key personal relationship is not with the Bible – it’s with Christ. The purpose of familiarity with the Bible is to help achieve familiarity with Christ.
Tuesday, March 25, 2025
The Bible is not the end – it is the means to an end. And the end is Christ.
Monday, March 24, 2025
The following seven verses – and many more – all point to the same single reality: dying to self and living to God in Christ.
- Matt 10:39 “He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.”
- John 10:10 “…I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
- John 15:5 “I am the vine, you are the branches…”
- Rom 6:13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
- 2 Cor 5:15 and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.
- Phil 1:21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
- 1 Pet 4:2 so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.
Sunday, March 23, 2025
Romans 5:1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
(Therefore, peace is not the endpoint or goal of our relationship with Jesus – rather, it’s the starting point. That is, peace is not something we hope to attain through Him; rather, it is something we accept at the outset from Him, preserving, protecting, and cultivating that peace – and when it’s lost, restoring it and resuming the process. He IS our peace.)
Ephesians 2:13-14 But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace…
Saturday, March 22, 2025
The primary spectacle God chose to make of Himself in the sight of the world was not a dazzling physical Second Coming but rather a dismal hanging on the cross (Luke 23:48).
Similarly, He let the apostles become spectacles for the world. (1 Cor 4:9; Heb 10:33)
Creation reveals Him in physical glory. Suffering reveals Him in spiritual glory.
Friday, March 21, 2025
Ps 40:1 I waited patiently for the LORD;
And He inclined to me and heard my cry.
(I take it He wants us to wait patiently and not just wait. In other words, it seems to matter how we wait.)
Thursday, March 20, 2025
Echoes of the Old Testament in the New:
- Old Testament: Ps 39:4 “LORD, make me to know my end
And what is the extent of my days;
Let me know how transient I am. - New Testament: James 4:14 Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
Christian-ity v Churchianity
The issues are not identical. Indeed, a person can trust in the church instead of Christ and that would rightly be called churchianity. However, said person could eschew churchgoing yet still trust in his belonging with all self-identifying Christians (whether they attend church or not) instead of Christ and that would rightly be called Christian-ity. In other words, Churchianity is a subset of Christian-ity. Neither focuses on Christ, which would be Christ-ianity…which is as things should be.
Tuesday, March 18, 2025
True Christianity Is Christ-ianity, not Christian-ity.
(True Christianity focuses on Christ, not Christians. The latter focus leads to trusting in people, while the former focus leads to trusting in God.)
Monday, March 17, 2025
Too many people have an institutional faith when Jesus is calling for a personal faith – that is, a faith placed in Him, not in an institution that carries His name. I rejoice when I see a Muslim or a Buddhist or an atheist become a member of a Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox or Protestant church (simply because some light is better than none) – but not as much as I rejoice when they join Jesus Himself. Institutional faith is a detour by which many people stay lost…until they die (when everyone sees the light).
Sunday, March 16, 2025
The Bible = Owner’s Manual for a Human Being.
(We ignore it to our peril.)
Saturday, March 15, 2025
America Needs a Come-to-Jesus Moment. Literally!
Google’s AI says, “A “come-to-Jesus moment” is a sudden realization or epiphany that often leads to a significant change in a person’s thinking or behavior, often used in a religious context to describe a moment of spiritual awakening or conversion.”
The Jesus to whom America comes must not be the Jesus of our imaginations but rather the Jesus of the Bible – that is, the King of kings, Lord of lords, and God of gods.
Friday, March 14, 2025
Connect the Dots: Walking in the spirit (that is, not walking in the flesh) = Walking in faith
- Rom 8:8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
- Heb 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him…
Thursday, March 13, 2025
When confronted with the claim that Jesus rose from the dead, modern atheists loudly declare, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” – not realizing that the Bible, since it documents this resurrection both before the fact (in the Old Testament) as well as after it (in the New Testament), is extraordinary evidence.
Wednesday, March 12, 2025
Since “Christ” means “Messiah,” Christianity could just as easily have been called Messianism.
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
Have you read my book The Duty of a Man? Did you know it only takes an hour to read? Give me an hour and I’ll give you a life.
Monday, March 10, 2025
Ps 35:1 Contend, O LORD, with those who contend with me;
Fight against those who fight against me.
Ex 14:14 “The LORD will fight for you while you keep silent.”
(It’s not that we don’t fight in life. It’s that we don’t fight for ourselves; instead, we fight for Him while He fights for us.)
Sunday, March 9, 2025
Ps 34:15 The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous
And His ears are open to their cry.
(Who are “the righteous”? Those whose eyes are toward the Lord, and whose ears are open to His command.)
Saturday, March 8, 2025
Every day, somebody’s lyin’…but there’s still a lot of truth hidden in plain sight.
(Just ask the Lord for eyes to see like Bartimaeus did in Mark 10:46-52.)
Friday, March 7, 2025
Ps 34:19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
But the LORD delivers him out of them all.
(We could wish that the first line began with “Zero” or “Few” instead of “Many,” but at least the last word on the subject is “All.” That’s no small benefit!)
Thursday, March 6, 2025
The apostles understood the prophets better than we do, even better than modern scholars do.
The mind of the apostles is captured and revealed in the New Testament – and nowhere else. Therefore, we should pay more attention to the New Testament if we want to understand the Old Testament. As for modern scholars, even at their best they don’t know as much as the apostles – and at their worst, they contradict the apostles. That is, they denigrate the New Testament – sometimes subtly and sometimes explicitly.
Let the world hear the voices of Jesus’ apostles! In other words, let the world read and listen to the New Testament.
Wednesday, March 5, 2025
How many Americans supporting free speech today are supporting only freedom of secular speech?
Notice how freedom of speech is spoken of in the Bill of Rights in the context of freedom of religion.
- The First Amendment of the United States Constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”
With respect to freedom of speech, we have political allies who are more upset about the censorship of pornography than about the censorship of the Bible. Don’t get me wrong: I’m glad we have these political allies. It’s just that I’d be far happier if they were moral allies. And happier still if they were spiritual allies. In the meantime, we must acknowledge the reality of the minority we are.
Tuesday, March 4, 2025
To worship is to be enthralled with. If we are not enthralled with Jesus, we are not thinking about Him rightly. Let not familiarity breed contempt.
Monday, March 3, 2025
FJOTs are found not just in the Old Testament’s books of prophecy, but in its books of history and wisdom as well. In other words, FJOTs are sprinkled throughout the Old Testament – from one end to the other. I have identified many of them in Bible Study Notes (BSN) with the hashtag #FJOT. If you search this website for [#FJOT], the occurrences in BSN will be listed for you. Here, I’ll provide you the search in this link. (After you reach the link, refresh the page to pick up any additional FJOTs added between the day I wrote this and the day you’re reading it.
Sunday, March 2, 2025
Who does God love? You! What does He love? Righteousness!
Saturday, March 1, 2025
“Christianity Unshackled”: A way of describing Christianity when it is serving the kingdom of God instead of church, focusing on the family instead of church.
Friday, February 28, 2025
Christ is the anointing God has poured out on His creation to heal it.
(Recall that “Christ” means “Messiah” which means “the Anointed.” Thus Christ is not only the anointed, He becomes to us “the anointing.”)
- 1 John 2:20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know.
- 1 John 2:27 As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.
Thursday, February 27, 2025
Luke 7:16 Fear gripped them all, and they began glorifying God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and, “God has visited His people!”
It has since come to light (Jesus Christ Has Already Come Again) that the truth of what these people were describing was even greater than they realized at the time.
Wednesday, February 26, 2025
“The West” or “Western Civilization” are secularized ways of referring to historic Christendom. It’s just one more example of how references to Jesus Christ are censored in the public square. But this is cutting off our noses to spite our faces. Secularists who want to preserve Western Civilization without Christ are like people who want apples without an apple tree.
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Jesus was a brother to us on earth who became a father to us in heaven.
Monday, February 24, 2025
When the image of Tim Tebow taking a knee is even more universally admired than the image of Joe Namath raising an index finger, we’ll know that our nation has transcended idolatry into worship of the one true God.
Sunday, February 23, 2025
We make room for the word of God in our lives.
(If we didn’t, I shudder to think what might become of us. We could become like all those families who drowned while Noah’s family was floating.)
Saturday, February 22, 2025
God is not mute. Therefore, He’s not moot either.
Friday, February 21, 2025
God is invisible…but He’s not mute.
Thursday, February 20, 2025
Everyone who refuses to walk in the spirit is like someone who has chosen to wear “virtual reality” goggles all day long and never take them off.
Wednesday, February 19, 2025
God has told us that we can find great power in His word – power that can help us greatly in this life. But secularism disallows public discussion of the word of God. This is nothing less than the censorship of God. It’s how Satan has spiritually disarmed the modern world, and why it has become so given to evil. Yet this tactic of the devil is no more modern than when Satan said to Eve, “Indeed, has God said…?” (Genesis 3:1).
Tuesday, February 18, 2025
There is no virtue in avoiding church…but there is great virtue in pursuing the kingdom of God instead of church.
Monday, February 17, 2025
It’s not that we’re nonchurchgoers – it’s that we’re Bible readers. And doers.
(Let us define ourselves not by what we aren’t, but rather by what we are.)
Sunday, February 16, 2025
Words should reveal, not conceal. Beware of people who use weasel words. (And, of course, purge them from your own vocabulary.)
Saturday, February 15, 2025
The treasures of God are hidden in plain sight. We only need to ask God to open our eyes. And we need to ask Him this daily because there are always new things to see.
(Psalm 119:18 Open my eyes, that I may behold
Wonderful things from Your law.)
(Lam 3:22 The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
Lam 3:23 They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.)
Friday, February 14, 2025
Life is…finding out what we would do in a difficult situation.
Thursday, February 13, 2025
My goal as a minister of Christ is to normalize Bible reading in America – if not in the whole nation, then at least in my tiny corner of it.
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
We worship the God we cannot see. Worshiping anyone or anything visible is idolatry. Even Jesus Himself wasn’t worshiped when He was visible until He had risen from the dead in a heavenly body – and then only for 40 days thereafter. He ascended into heaven to become invisible once again that we might fully worship Him.
(2 Corinthians 5:16 …even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer.)
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
We have been given the opportunity of a lifetime: to be students of Jesus Christ! The Master of righteousness is willing to teach us everything He knows about living this life! And He’s not just speaking to us in a lecture hall because He’s willing to provide us individual coaching as well!
Monday, February 10, 2025
Ps 2:1 Why are the nations in an uproar
And the peoples devising a vain thing?
Ps 2:2 The kings of the earth take their stand
And the rulers take counsel together
Against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying,
Ps 2:3 “Let us tear their fetters apart
And cast away their cords from us!”
This passage describes, among other things, feminism and the sexual revolution resisting the order of God and His Christ.
Sunday, February 9, 2025
Just as no-fault divorce for heterosexuals paved the way for homosexual “marriage,” so, and to speak more broadly, feminism paved the way for the sexual revolution.
(Evil comes in layers and waves. Therefore, always avoid sins and lies no matter how inconsequential they may seem because they will only lead to more and worse sins and lies. Unless it is stopped, evil always gets worse.)
Saturday, February 8, 2025
Luke 13:18-19 So He was saying, “What is the kingdom of God like, and to what shall I compare it? It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and threw into his own garden; and it grew and became a tree, and THE BIRDS OF THE AIR NESTED IN ITS BRANCHES.”
- Or, we could say, Jesus is like the acorn that grows into an oak.
- Either way, the point is that we initially encounter Jesus as a man and eventually recognize He is God.
Friday, February 7, 2025
Secularism is the common religious outlook in America today as Christianity was the common religious outlook at the nation’s founding. Even most Americans who call themselves Christians think secularly. They do not intentionally do so; it’s just hard to maintain a consciousness of Christ when so few people around you acknowledge Him in their everyday interpersonal communications.
Thursday, February 6, 2025
God is everywhere…but He’s centered (“seated”) in heaven.
- Is 66:1 Thus says the LORD,
“Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool.
Where then is a house you could build for Me?
And where is a place that I may rest?
Wednesday, February 5, 2025
Exodus 23:19 “…You are not to boil a young goat in the milk of its mother.”
Moses wrote this statute in Ex 34:26 and Deut 14:21 as well. I don’t know how the ancient Israelites understood this statute of the Law, but we can find spiritual meaning in it. Specifically, we can take it to be saying that we should not quote the Bible to others in a harsh or angry way. I think this because of the way that the New Testament uses “milk” as a metaphor for the word of God.
- 1 Cor 3:2 I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able,
- Heb 5:12-13 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.
- 1 Pet 2:1-3 Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.
Tuesday, February 4, 2025
That everyone is going to heaven means that every single one of us is “Wanted: Dead or Alive.” That means heaven is plastered with wanted posters bearing our faces – notifying both angels and demons how important we are to the Creator. We can turn ourselves in to Him and start living our new (walking in the spirit) lives with all the benefits this brings, or we can procrastinate and keep living our old lives on the run for as long as we can. If we think this is a hard choice, we’re living like Esau.
Monday, February 3, 2025
Through Jesus Christ, God personalized Himself.
Sunday, February 2, 2025
We find God in Jesus Christ. Actually, everyone finds God in Jesus Christ – just some sooner than others.
Saturday, February 1, 2025
Blood is thicker than water…and the blood of Jesus is even thicker than ours.
Friday, January 31, 2025
- God planned from the beginning that our salvation would be a father-and-son operation. The father started it, and the son finished it. As was revealed in the Second Coming, God played both parts. That was something Satan and his minions hadn’t figured on until it was too late for them to do anything about it.
- 1 Cor 2:7-8 …we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory…
Thursday, January 30, 2025
- If God has been tender-hearted towards us, what excuse do we have for being hard-hearted toward each other?
- Luke 1:78 Because of the tender mercy of our God, / With which the Sunrise from on high will visit us,
- Ephesians 4:32 Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.
- Deuteronomy 15:7-8 “If there is a poor man with you, one of your brothers, in any of your towns in your land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand from your poor brother; but you shall freely open your hand to him, and shall generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks.
Wednesday, January 29, 2025
- The Bible has themes. From its beginning to its end, God states, repeats, and develops themes. For example, that “the earth is the Lord’s” was first spoken by Moses, expanded by David, and quoted by Paul. The more we study the Bible, the more we can recognize its themes.
- Moses: Exodus 9:29 Moses said to him, “As soon as I go out of the city, I will spread out my hands to the LORD; the thunder will cease and there will be hail no longer, that you may know that the earth is the LORD’S.
- David: Psalm 24:1 The earth is the LORD’S, and all it contains, / The world, and those who dwell in it.
- Paul: 1 Corinthians 10:26 FOR THE EARTH IS THE LORD’S, AND ALL IT CONTAINS.
- The Bible is not a mass of disconnected thoughts; though its human spokesmen are many and had varied personalities, one mind is behind the entire collection.
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
No religion demonstrates the power of prophesied miracles like Christianity. But don’t look for Christianity in churches or Christians; rather, look for it in Jesus Christ and the Bible. The Bible prophesied that Jesus Christ would rise from the dead – the greatest miracle since creation!
Monday, January 27, 2025
Let us cultivate within ourselves a love that is entirely based on our faith in God’s love for us.
Sunday, January 26, 2025
- During New Testament times, the apostles exhorted believers to continue gathering together with each other as the day of the Lord approached so that they could be prepared for that day (Heb 10:25). Once the kingdom of God came, however, they would begin gathering to the Lord instead of each other (2 Thess 2:1). The way to gather to the Lord was to practice the righteousness that the apostles were teaching them (2 Pet 1:10-11). In the 21st century, we have the apostles’ teaching in our homes and even on our smartphones. We should be studying and practicing righteousness that we might gather to the Lord every morning and all day long – walking in the spirit.
- Hebrews 10:25 not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
- 2 Thessalonians 2:1 Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him,
- 2 Peter 1:10-11 Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.
Saturday, January 25, 2025
A father needs to be what he wants his children to become.
Friday, January 24, 2025
“Been there, done that.” This is what God says about our experience; and it’s something we could never say about His.
Thursday, January 23, 2025
- The Bible is a feast of righteousness. The reason more people aren’t reading it every day is that they’re not hungry for that sort of thing.
- (Matthew 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”)
- Hebrews 5:13-14 For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
I read this recently: “Two decades ago, approximately 42% of Americans attended worship services on a weekly or near-weekly basis. Today, that figure hovers closer to 30%, according to Gallup polling.” A statistic much more useful to measure than weekly church attendance would be daily Bible reading. That is, “What percentage of Americans are reading the Bible every day?”
Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Do we have any other way of knowing Jesus’ teaching than to know His apostles’ teaching? And is there any other place to find the apostles’ writings than the New Testament?
Monday, January 20, 2025
No prophet or apostle ever called God “Trinity,” so how could that be a name God made for Himself (2 Samuel 7:23 and Isaiah 63:12)? The name He made for Himself was “Lord Jesus Christ.” (300 Reasons to Worship Christ and Not a Trinity)
Sunday, January 19, 2025
The opening chapters of Genesis point out how awful the outcome of disregarding the word of the Lord can be. Let us take this warning to heart!
Saturday, January 18, 2025
We are dulled to the glory of God. Because of this, we miss many opportunities during the course of a day to learn more about Him. To break free from the dullness, we must slow down and notice simple things in a way that allows shock and awe to return to our perceptions – like how the diminutive acorn becomes a mighty oak…or how we don’t fly off of the spinning globe we’re standing on…or how a crucified man rules the universe.
Friday, January 17, 2025
- The New Testament is God’s “writ of divorce” to ancient Israel, and simultaneously the “better covenant” He was offering in place of the old covenant.
- Jeremiah 3:8 “And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a writ of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and was a harlot also.”
- Hebrews 8:6 But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.
Thursday, January 16, 2025
If women keep deciding that they don’t want to have children, the human project is doomed. There is literally no one else who can do that sort of thing.
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
- I baptize you in the Bible, but Jesus baptizes us in the Holy Spirit. Baptism in water – like animal sacrifice – is for an age gone by.
- As for the Holy Spirit…
- 2 Cor 9:15 Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!
- Rom 14:17 for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
When my eyes were first opened to Jesus, I was invited to join a movement – that is, become a Christian and identify with Christians. However, what I needed was to join Christ and identify with Him. Those who invited me told me the two responses went together, but my observation and experience have been that they often do not. And that the former response tends to crowd out the latter and make it of little effect.
Monday, January 13, 2025
The Old Testament gives us prophecy of Jesus; the New Testament gives us history of Him.
Sunday, January 12, 2025
Feminism only prevails with the complicity of men. The men who comply with it are either weak or corrupt. That is, they’re either afraid of women or else they’re trying to take advantage of them. Either way, their motivation to comply has nothing to do with true love or true respect.
Saturday, January 11, 2025
Adam tried feminism – that is, he tried following his wife instead of leading her – and it failed him. When will we ever learn?
Friday, January 10, 2025
- Genesis 20:4 Now Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, “Lord, will You slay a nation, even though blameless?
- (Even this long ago – the time of Abraham – it was generally known that nations did not fall except for sinfulness. Modern secular man, however, is smugly self-righteous and therefore is blind to such realities.)
Thursday, January 9, 2025
- Q: Can you encapsulate the contents of the New Testament in three words or less?
A: Jesus is Lord.
Q: What if I allowed you a couple more words?
A: Jesus is Lord and Teacher. - (In that case, should we be at all surprised that a narcissistic society wouldn’t want to read – or even hear about – the New Testament?)
Wednesday, January 8, 2025
Is it the duty of a man to go to church? Only if the Second Coming has not occurred. But if the Second Coming has not occurred, then Jesus was a false prophet because He said it would happen before His generation passed away. Which is more likely: that Jesus did not keep His word to come again or that we misunderstood what the Second Coming would be like?
Tuesday, January 7, 2025
Tyranny can be exercised by one or by many. Yes, Herod was a tyrannical king, but the Sanhedrin – consisting of 70 elders – was also tyrannical. At America’s founding, we had one tyrant – King George III of Great Britain – tormenting us. Currently, we have many tyrants tormenting us – so many of them that we don’t even know the total count.
Monday, January 6, 2025
Unless we are Jews, we have no reason to read the Old Testament apart from Jesus.
Sunday, January 5, 2025
The blessings of righteousness are many. For one thing, it just feels good inside to do what is right, at the right time, for the right reason, in the right way…all in the sight of God.
Saturday, January 4, 2025
That everyone is going to heaven is not a reason to disallow capital punishment – it is all the more reason to enforce it. Without the death penalty, we are depriving ourselves of a good and necessary palliative for a sick society. Let us remove the most heinous criminals from the earth, for God will pronounce a just, merciful, and final verdict in heaven on every human life once it is finished. Someone will complain, “There’s no proof that the death penalty is a deterrent to violent crime!” I don’t think that’s true, but, even if it was, there can be no denying that it deters all potential future crimes by the one who was executed.
Friday, January 3, 2025
- I wonder why it is that the people who speak loudest against slavery these days seem most enslaved to their lusts.
- (No one is making an argument for slavery these days, so why are people making an argument against it? It’s to distract from their moral shortcomings.)
Thursday, January 2, 2025
- They may try to bury the truth, and they may even succeed – but God can resurrect it.
- (May there be a resurrection of truth in our generation!)
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
You’re not moral based on what you condemn – you’re moral based on what you do. I say this because there are people today who consider themselves more moral than God or the Bible because they say that they – unlike God or the Bible – would never have countenanced slavery.
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