Why does it matter how historians determine what is true? (QUICK NOTE: this is a lesson that is especially good to look at the PowerPoint video of it, here is the link: https://youtu.be/gvTRyfFtujU The Bible805 site https://www.Bible805.com, has links to all the videos of the podcasts) In the previous lesson, we talked about the importance of truth and how truth is that which corresponds to reality. We then talked about how history is a useful way to determine what corresponds to reality and how this is foundational to determining if a religion is true. But how do historians go about figuring out what corresponds to reality? Obviously, we don’t have time machines; we can’t go back to the events themselves. What historians do have as they evaluate the truth of scripture is tangible evidence. Like a CSI, (a crime scene investigator) a good historian carefully examines the evidence before making conclusions. He or she should not have a pre-determined bias before examining evidence. For example, when evaluating prophecy, you shouldn’t date events after the prophecy was given simply because you believe predictive prophecy isn’t possible. If you do that you aren’t objective; you have an anti-supernatural bias. You should look at the evidence and THEN draw conclusions. The categories for historical evidence that testify to the truth that is in the Bible are geography, archeology, artifacts, and documents. In this lesson, we’ll look briefly at each one. The evidence isn’t difficult to understand, but the results are fascinating as they confirm the tangible reality of our faith. Following is a PDF of the NOTES, Questions, and Infographic and links to the PODCAST and VIDEOS on the lesson.
Before we begin, this lesson is part of a 4-part foundational series: How Truth & History confirm that we can trust the Christian Bible Though each lesson is useful on its own, all four lessons in this series go together for a complete understanding of the topic The 4 lessons in this series are: • #1 What is Truth?. . . and how historical truth relates to religious truth • #2 How do historians determine Truth?. . . why geography, archeology, artifacts, and documents matter • #3 How is the historical truth of the Christian Bible unique? part one. . . a comparison with the Hindu and Buddhist scriptures • #4 How is the historical truth of the Christian Bible unique? part two. . . a comparison with Muslim and Mormon scriptures This series was created to give you a solid foundation for trusting the Bible. It doesn’t do much good to study the Bible if you look at it as merely a humanly created book. If, as this series will demonstrate, it is the creation of our God, who exists outside of time, yet entered into time into our world to redeem His creation, it changes everything. The Bible and the many historical facts that are clearly available to anyone who looks at them, and that this series will share, will give you confidence in the Bible and the God who gave it to us. You will develop a firm foundation for your spiritual life and factual knowledge to share with others. Link to notes, questions, handouts: https://wp.me/pazrJD-11e Go to Bible805.com for more resources to help you know, trust, apply, and teach the Bible.
As you have read through the Bible from first to last, it’s all been about Jesus. He created a perfect world for humanity to enjoy and to walk with Him. When they disobeyed, He promised a Redeemer. The entire Old Testament talks about this future Redeemer, the importance of salvation by faith, and how the sacrificial system was a picture of what was coming. The prophets continually reminded the people that the Redeemer, the Messiah was coming. And the New Testament records the life, death, and resurrection of the Messiah, Jesus and the creation of the church He left to represent Him. Jesus, reminding ourselves that the book of Revelation is not a puzzle to be solved but as the first words in the book remind us, it is a REVELATION of Jesus Christ. In this lesson, after introductory comments on Revelation, we’ll look more closely at a revelation of Jesus, we’ll take an in-depth look at the “I Ams” of Jesus in the book of John. We’ll end with a reminder that though this is the end of our reading in the Bible, it is only the beginning of “the great story, which has no end and in which every chapter is better than the one before (C.S. Lewis).” Link to blog, notes, and videos: https://wp.me/pazrJD-10M
Our study of the New Testament is about so much more than an overview of books, or a historical tour. It is the culmination of God’s rescue plan for the people He created. The development of God’s changed, redeemed people is what we’ve been learning about. All else will fade (churches, buildings, denominations); God’s people will not. And it is those people (you) who will reach the world with God’s message of salvation. How we become that, the spiritual formation of God’s people is what these “Pastoral Epistles” are about. Earlier New Testament writings clarified the theology of salvation--that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone—in other words, Jesus’s death on the cross accomplished all the WORK of salvation. By faith, we accept it—without any work or merit of our own. That is the foundation of our faith. But once we are saved—God expects us to live as HIS saved, redeemed people. Though previous books taught this; how we are supposed to live is the emphasis (instead of theological issues) in these books. We will look at various passages in the books that explain and clarify this, and we only have time for a few—please study more to understand and apply fully! Here is the link to the blog, notes, and transcript of the lesson: https://wp.me/pazrJD-114
How do we act when bad things happen to us? We always have a choice—we can retaliate; we can throw a pity party; we can blame others. Or we can trust God no matter what and try to respond in a way He wants us to. In what are called the “Prison Epistles” Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon we’ll look at how the Apostle Paul responded in a very difficult situation. This lesson about them is much more than a history lesson about Paul because what we do, how we respond to challenging situations is the clearest evidence possible of what we truly believe and WHO we truly believe in. We can voice all sorts of positive things, affirm things that sound good— but how do we react in the realities of life? NOTHING outside us causes/forces us to act in a certain way; we respond based on what is already there. From bad language to bad actions, difficult times give us a chance to see what is in our hearts and work on changes if necessary. In these letters Paul helps us respond in ways that please God and make life much better for us. Link to the Blog, PDF of Notes, video and teaching resources is at: https://wp.me/pazrJD-10W
Romans is one of the most significant books in the Bible because it is a complete and systematic explanation of the Christian faith. It is different than the other letters of the New Testament that were written to address specific problems in specific churches. The focus of this book was to clarify the Christian faith and our salvation—to show from start to finish that it is by grace alone through faith alone, not adherence to Jewish laws, or human effort, that salvation is possible. At the same time, it also clarifies God’s continuing expectations for those who have accepted His gift of salvation and challenges them to walk worthy. In this lesson, we’ll talk about both parts of the book. Link to the blog, notes, links to other media: https://wp.me/pazrJD-10d Link to the Podcast Video: https://youtu.be/p98S4NIbKg0 Link to the PowerPoint Video: https://youtu.be/0CFmIqkZl74?si=ILyjpkj0sVfRuYXM
A struggle for most of us who follow Jesus is that we know we should be better than we are. We know God called us to live lives that reflect our Savior, but far too often our lives reflect our world instead. As we learn in reading Paul's letters to the Corinthians, this struggle is nothing new. We can grow and become all God wants us to be, and these books and this lesson about them will help us do that. Paul begins by reminding the Corinthians of their high calling as believers and then challenges the church with specific examples where they are not living according to that calling. He doesn't leave them with negative accusations but goes on to challenge them with the reality of the abundant spiritual gifts they've been given as a church to help them live into their calling. This is a great reminder to us that the best way to grow is to focus on the positive things the Lord wants us to do. If we are wholeheartedly pursuing our calling and working hard to express the gift of love which is described in detail in 1 Corinthians 13, we will become the people God intends us to be. This lesson will give you specific ideas and challenges to do that. Here is the link to the notes, infographic, and videos of the lesson: https://wp.me/pazrJD-YM
As we learned in our previous lesson on Acts and Hebrews, when Paul first began preaching this new message of salvation in Jesus, he began by showing how Jesus was the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. As he moves further away from Jerusalem and begins to preach to people who aren’t as familiar with the Bible, he runs into both new questions and new challenges. Many of these are specific to the particular location he writes to and these letters to the Thessalonians are a good example of this as he confronts a new source of persecution that is political, not simply a religious disagreement. In the midst of this challenge, Paul encourages the young Christians with a reminder of the coming of Jesus and specific advice on how they ought to live as they wait for Him. In the lesson, we look at the familiar commands to “Pray continuously,” “Give thanks in all things,” and “Rejoice always” along with ideas on how to practice them in our lives. To help us remember these commands and the hope we have as we obey them, the lesson also has a link to a free download of the printable, “All will be well,” by Dame Julian. CLICK HERE at the Bible805 Images site, (www.Bible805Images.com) and you can download the saying in a variety of sizes and formats—they make great gifts at any time. Simply click on the "BUY NOW" button and a free download of all the images in a variety of sizes is yours. NOTE: I recently made everything on the Bible805 Images site FREE or PWYW (I greatly encourage simply clicking "Buy Now" and get them for free). There are many images of verses and sayings that can encourage people in their Christian lives--please take advantage of them and tell others about them. Paul’s reminders and challenges in these letters give us hope and encouragement as we work and wait for our Lord Jesus. Here is the link to the downloadable notes/transcript: https://wp.me/pazrJD-Yt Here is the link to the FREE printable "All will be well": https://bible805images.com/b/V2kyq
Hebrews has a reputation for being a difficult book to understand and it is if you simply pull it out of context and without at least some knowledge of the Old Testament that it is based on, try to figure out what it is talking about. This is sad because Hebrews was intended to be a book of explanation—of how Jesus fulfilled all that was pictured in the Old Testament, how His life was the reality of what was promised before. But if you don’t know what the Old Testament promised and pictured about the coming Messiah, you’ll have a hard time understanding Hebrews. This lesson will help you understand the messages in it. This lesson is a little longer and more complex than some because it covers some complex topics, but it is well worth your time to read, listen, or watch it to help you grow as a disciple of Jesus. The lesson is also a great example of WHY it is so important for you to read your Bible, your entire Bible in chronological, historical order to be able to understand it. Bible805 has lots of resources to help you do that and next year we’ll be doing it again online and in the live class, click the following link to go to the transcript and notes: https://wp.me/pazrJD-Ya
What is the point of being a disciple? We certainly don't hear a lot about it in churches today with the emphasis from many pulpits is a combination of happy life promises, and moral outrage over whatever the latest conservative news channel is reporting, mixed in with pleas for money. What an extraordinary shift that is from the message of Jesus, from the first of his ministry when he called followers beyond merely attending his sermons, to joining with him in his life, to one of his final commands where he commanded them to share the life they'd lived for three years and to go and make disciples of all nations and to teach them to obey all he'd taught them. Regardless of the place of discipleship in many churches today, discipleship was important to Jesus. Disciples, making them, teaching them, living with them, were a priority of his life. This lesson looks at one passage, Luke 14:15-35 on how Jesus describes in various ways what it means to be a disciple. Regardless of how important it is to any group we are part of or people we fellowship with, because discipleship is important to Jesus, it needs to be important to us. No matter what the challenges and demands of our life, we need to grow in it. I pray this lesson is useful to help you do that. If you would like to teach the lesson, the source materials for it are available through the Bible805 Academy (https://www.Bible805Academy.com) where you can download the source PowerPoint, editable notes, questions, the video and podcast without advertisements or distractions, and other related materials. All these materials are available for $2.99 a lesson, $5.99 a month, or $36 a year. There are many lessons on the site and free ones for you to try. As a member of the Bible805 Academy, I grant you permission to make unlimited copies of the materials and to edit them as needed for your audience. They are offered at this extremely low price so that any church, regardless of size or location has access to in-depth Bible teaching resources. If even that cost is too much, simply email me at yvonprehn@gmail.com and I'll give you free access. CLICK HERE to go to the Bible805 Academy.
A primary criticism of the New Testament is that critics say that Christians intentionally left out and/or suppressed certain writings, primarily what we call the Gnostic Gospels, and that they should be part of our New Testament and aren’t. We need to take their challenges seriously because our New Testament contains both how to be saved by faith in Jesus AND how to live our lives after we accept Him as Savior in ways that are pleasing to Him. But there are always alternative voices, ways to be saved, and live a “spiritual” life. The Gnostic Gospels are an ancient alternative what we are going to look at because it isn’t just scholars who are influenced by them. Here is a typical quote that could be said by many, “It seems to me that the only true Christians were the Gnostics, who believed in self-knowledge, i.e. becoming Christ themselves, reaching the Christ within, the light is the truth. Turn on the light.” John Lennon is the person who said it, and you don’t have to listen to those famous, past or present, to hear the idea of God within you (without Jesus. This claim is very popular today in some of the philosophical heirs of it in various cults such as Scientology, modern church “progressive” movements, and the challenges of “deconstruction.” In this lesson, we’ll start with what the Bible warned us about false teachers and then we’ll go into detail showing how these views are false. To do that we’ll read some of the source documents. People are sometimes afraid to read them but they shouldn’t be—don’t simply listen to what critics say about the Bible, check it out and you’ll see for yourself the truth of Biblical teaching. Link to download notes and infographics: https://wp.me/pazrJD-W8
How do we know what we’re told about Jesus is true? Wasn’t the New Testament written hundreds of years after He lived? How do we know it isn’t just legends about a good teacher? And why did some books get included and others didn’t? In addition to that, from the start, John the Baptist and Jesus both talked about the importance of the Kingdom of God—that with Jesus the Kingdom was now present. The whole idea of the Kingdom can be challenging to understand and though we won’t attempt to explain it totally, we will discuss it, what it meant then and what it means now to us in this lesson. The questions we started with and more we’ll answer in our podcast. To download notes from the lesson: https://wp.me/pazrJD-Vi
The New Testament makes some extraordinary claims including that the long-prophesied Messiah came into the world, lived, taught, died, and rose again to offer a restored relationship to God to all who believe in Him. For claims of such importance, naturally, not everyone believed them then or now and questions like these come up: Wasn’t the New Testament written hundreds of years after the events recorded in them? In the time between the events and the recording of them, did myth and legends replace reality? Therefore, are the stories of the miracles, the resurrection of Jesus, just wishful thinking? Properly dating when the New Testament documents were written is of critical importance to establish the claims of credibility of the Bible. In this lesson, we’ll go over ways we can know for certain when the New Testament documents were written using a variety of dating criteria including source criticism (what we learn from the documents themselves, the actual tangible copies of the historical records), when others quoted them, and statements from contemporary historical figures about Jesus and what he did. Click on the following link for notes of the content, an infographic that documents the superior number of supporting manuscripts for the New Testament in contrast with other historical documents, and video sources: https://wp.me/pazrJD-V5
From the close of the Old Testament to the start of the New Testament, it is a VERY different world—so many things had changed. There is a an infographic that goes through the changes that goes with the lesson. In this lesson, we’ll go over how the changes came to be. We’ll also look at the various groups that emerged during this time, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and others we find in the New Testament. The lesson ends with some thoughts on the description of this time as the “400 Silent Years” and some suggested applications for us when God seems silent and because we also live in an in-between time. https://wp.me/pazrJD-Uh
The book of Malachi begins… with God saying, “I have always loved you, but you retort, “Really? How have you loved us?” Malachi 1:2 In some ways, these brief statements sum up the entire history of the Old Testament. God again and again both shows and declares His love for His people. And His people again and again, don’t believe Him, go their own ways, reap the punishment from it, repent, God loves and forgives them, and they do it all over again. In this lesson, we’ll first look at the history of God’s love for His people, His challenging conversations with them in the book of Malachi, and applications for us. Link to the Blog and Notes: https://wp.me/pazrJD-TP
These books were written 14‐16 years after the Jews returned to the land after their captivity. The return itself was a glorious work of God. Once in the land, there were challenges when the surrounding people tried to stop them, but God intervened there also. The Israelites had seen God conquer and give victory in much greater problems and He took care of this situation also and they got permission from the king to continue building. But they didn’t—even though God miraculously provided permission for them to continue building the temple, they got distracted, a lot like we do from the work God gives us to do. But God’s work is primary and to remind them of that He sent TWO prophets to them: Haggai and Zechariah, who preached at the same time, but in very different ways. Haggai is very practical about what to do NOW. Zechariah, like many prophets, jumps into the mind of God and challenges the people from His viewpoint with dreams and visions from the view of eternity. We’ll look at each one of the prophets in more detail in this lesson. Link to blog and handouts: https://wp.me/pazrJD-Tr
Though God had to punish the Children of Israel for their many sins by sending them into exile in Babylon, the punishment had a promised limit of 70 years and at the end of the 70 years, He miraculously returned them to their land. In this lesson we’ll go over the return and the leadership God used to make it possible. This is a lesson where knowing the correct chronology is especially important (and of course this lesson will teach it to you) because the books of the Bible that talk about the history Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, are just before the middle of our Bibles, are out of order in what happened, as Esther takes place shortly after the beginning of Ezra, and the books that contain the messages of the prophets who encouraged them at this time, Haggai and Zechariah are at the end of our Old Testaments. ***PLUS A VERY HELPFUL NEW Infographic on the order of events that make up the timeline of the return is included at the link at the end of this description. This lesson will not only put them in order, but will help you see how God is faithful to keep His promises. In addition, our applications will focus on how we need to be faithful to God in keeping our promises. Links to the blog, notes and charts with the lesson: https://wp.me/pazrJD-Tc
The setting for this episode is that time has run out. After hundreds of years of warnings and challenges, it’s over for Judah. Daniel and Ezekiel are in Babylon taken there in an early deportation before the end came in Jerusalem. What seemed horrible to them at the time was a great blessing in disguise— they were kept from the horrors of the siege, the total destruction of Jerusalem, and final deportation. Daniel and his 3 friends were taken to the palace; Ezekiel was relocated with the captive people, near the river. This lesson is on both of them and we’ll see how in the midst of unimaginable challenges, Daniel and Ezekiel didn’t whine. They faithfully worked. Their lives became a witness. And then the wonder of God was revealed to and through them. Link to the Blog and notes: https://wp.me/pazrJD-Os
This is a special podcast inspired by the Global Leadership Summit we recently attended. You are never too old, too young, too anything to not follow God's leading in your life and the dreams He gives you!
When we read through the Prophets in the Old Testament, particularly when we get to Ezekiel and Daniel we are introduced to fantastic images, whirling wheels, fantastic beasts, and world-shaking prophecies. This type of writing is what is known as “apocalyptic” and it’s useful to take some time to understand this type of writing, this genre in the Bible to understand the books that contain it. There is a lot of confusion around the word “apocalyptic.” In the secular world, this term has taken on the idea of the end of the world, or a massive collapse of society, etc. The Biblical meaning, though it can be that, is a little different— The Greek term apokalypsis, from which we get our English word apocalypse, literally means “unveiling.” It also means a revelation. In the apocalyptic writings, God is unveiling, giving special revelation, special insight to His prophets, enabling them to see things from HIS viewpoint. And sometimes that view can get a bit wild and difficult to understand as he does that. In this lesson, we’ll look at a key characteristic that distinguishes apocalyptic writing from other prophetic writings and that is its use of images, why we need to understand the meaning behind the images if we are going to understand the writing, and why today we often have trouble with that. In addition, one of the most useful parts of this lesson will be an overview of commentaries you can go to for help in understanding these books. None of us and no one teacher has all the answers, but we have incredible resources today that can help. Below are links to the blog and downloadable notes and questions, the podcast, and video: Link to the blog and downloadable notes and questions: https://wp.me/pazrJD-M6