Tag Archives: Bible study

People need the good news

Yesterday’s post spurred some interesting conversation about just what it is we teach people as they are coming to God. Let me state plainly that I believe that people need to hear the good news about Jesus. I prefer to begin a study by going through one of the gospels, just to make sure that the person knows the good news. If the person is not a Christian, there will come a “what shall I do” moment, and then I might use a presentation like that of Acts 2.

People need to be converted to a relationship with God. They need “doctrine,” but doctrine won’t save them. They need to become part of the church, but teaching about the church won’t save them. Salvation is about being in a right relationship with God. People need Jesus Christ.

In Argentina, we once examined the different tracts that we had brought with us from the States. Out of about 15-20 tracts that we had, only one was about Jesus. We realized that those pamphlets didn’t represent what it was we wanted to teach people.

People need the good news about Jesus Christ. That’s what we need to teach them.

Study based on Acts 2

Here’s something I drew up a few years ago. It actually came from some materials Randy Mayeux gave me years ago. It’s a simple explanation of how to talk to someone about becoming a Christian, based on Acts 2. Tell me what you think:

If someone were to come to you and ask how to become a Christian, what would you say? There are many ways to explain God’s plan of salvation. One of the easiest is to use the first sermon that Jesus’ followers preached after his ascension.

Let’s look at Acts, Chapter 2. The apostles were in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit came upon them, just as Jesus had promised. When the crowd began to question what had happened, Peter stood up and preached the first Christian sermon (Acts 2:14ff). From examining that sermon, we can learn what we must do to be saved.

(1) We must accept certain facts about Jesus(2:14-35):

(a) He lived on earth and did wonders by the power of God.
(b) He was crucified.
(c) He died and was buried.
(d) He rose again.
(e) He went to sit at the right hand of God.

(2) We must recognize Jesus as Lord and Christ. (2:36)

(a) Lord—the owner of a slave; we must be fully obedient to everything that Jesus tells us.
(b) Christ—the anointed one; Jesus was the one chosen by God for our salvation. Salvation is through him and him alone.
(Other passages show that there should be a public confession of this belief)

(3) We must admit our need for salvation. (2:37)

(4) We must repent. (2:38)
Repent = completely change our lives to live under the rule of Christ

(5) We must be baptized (2:38)

(a) This baptism is for the forgiveness of sins. It is at this time that God washes away our sins.
(b) This baptism is to receive the Holy Spirit. We are baptized into Christ, and He will live in us.

(6) We must live in accordance with this change of life.(2:42-47)

(a) We dedicate ourselves to studying God’s word.
(b) We dedicate ourselves to prayer.
(c) We dedicate ourselves to fellowship.
(d) We dedicate ourselves to sharing food with our brothers (especially the Lord’s supper).

When 3=2

numbersYesterday I mentioned that I’ve been reading the Better Bibles Blog, including a couple of posts by Iver Larsen on numbers in the Bible. His second post discussed “inclusive counting,” which we can especially see in the way the Bible expresses the concept of days and their corresponding nights.

Doing a quick search in Accordance for all verses that contain both the words “days” and “nights,” I found fifteen verses that had both those words in them. Conveniently enough, every one of those fifteen verses contained a parallel statement of x days and x nights. Here they are:

Genesis 7:4 Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”
Genesis 7:12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
Exodus 24:18 Then Moses entered the cloud as he went on up the mountain. And he stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
Exodus 34:28 Moses was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.
Deuteronomy 9:9 When I went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the LORD had made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water.
Deuteronomy 9:11    At the end of the forty days and forty nights, the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant.
Deuteronomy 9:18    Then once again I fell prostrate before the LORD for forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed, doing what was evil in the LORD’S sight and so provoking him to anger.
Deuteronomy 9:25    I lay prostrate before the LORD those forty days and forty nights because the LORD had said he would destroy you.
Deuteronomy 10:10    Now I had stayed on the mountain forty days and nights, as I did the first time, and the LORD listened to me at this time also. It was not his will to destroy you.
1Samuel 30:12 part of a cake of pressed figs and two cakes of raisins. He ate and was revived, for he had not eaten any food or drunk any water for three days and three nights.
1Kings 19:8 So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.
Job 2:13 Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.
Jonah 1:17    But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.
Matthew 4:2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
Matthew 12:40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Now, admittedly, it’s not impossible that in every one of those cases, the exact same number of days and nights occurred. However, it seems much more likely to recognize that this is a Hebraic expression, probably stemming from their love of parallelism. That is, they always write the same number of days as nights. It just sounds nicer to the ear than “seven days and six nights.”

That’s troublesome to the modern Western mind, because we want precision in numbering things. However, the Bible wasn’t written by a twenty-first century Westerner, nor are we the primary audience. At times we have to place ourselves in their situation and try to understand things as they would.

People have devised elaborate explanations as to how Jesus was actually in the tomb for 3 days and 3 nights. It seems better to understand that he was in the tomb for parts of 3 days as well as the nights between those days. The Hebrew way of saying this was “3 days and 3 nights.”

This explanation makes sense to me, helping me understand what Jesus said in Matthew 12:40.

Numbers in the Bible

numbersThe last few months, I’ve been reading the Better Bibles Blog. The guys that write there often offer thought-provoking material. Iver Larsen has written a couple of interesting articles recently on numbers in the Bible. The first post offered a brief introduction, which I want to make briefer here. Go back to the original article for a fuller explanation. I’ll just give you the numbers and what they frequently symbolize:

1 = unity
3 = divine or supernatural
4 = human
6 = incomplete, imperfect (taking its meaning from 7)
7 = perfection, completeness (sum of human & divine) Here’s a bit of information from the original article:

It is no coincidence that the first sentence in the Bible contains seven words, that the second sentence contains 2 x 7 words and that the first paragraph contains 3 x 7 words.

10 = rulership, authority
12 = God’s people (divine x human)
14 = two cycles of something complete
40 = testing (human x authority)
70 = complete rule. Can also refer to the Gentile nations.
I find this interesting and see many of these numbers used with these meanings in the biblical writings.

Audio from Ray Vander Laan

Back in 2008, Jay Guin posted some links to some audio by Ray Vander Laan. To be honest, I rarely find the time to watch videos or listen to audio on the Internet, so I didn’t pay much attention to them. Then a friend gave me some CDs with these lessons recorded on them. Wow! Great stuff.

So here are the links to twelve lessons by Ray Vander Laan. These are some talks that he gave at the Focus on the Family Institute.

Lesson 1
Lesson 2
Lesson 3
Lesson 4
Lesson 5
Lesson 6
Lesson 7
Lesson 8
Lesson 9
Lesson 10
Lesson 11
Lesson 12

RVL provides incredible insights into Middle Eastern culture and Jewish practices. Chances are you’ll find something that makes you say, “Oh, yeah… I’d never thought of that.” I’ve already shared lots of this information with other people, and they’ve all found it to be helpful. Maybe you will too.