In Chess, the most important piece on the board is not the most powerful piece.

In Christianity, the most important part is not necessarily exactly what we might expect.

There is a King, and Kings require obedience!

https://apostlesmailbox.com

When your life is cruising along nicely according to worldly standards, the hardest thing to ask God to do is give you a different one. But that's exactly what we need...

https://apostlesmailbox.com

If we build, bake, or break in the wrong order, we know that bad things are going to happen. When it comes to our relationship with God, sometimes we forget that order is important.

Modern society runs on advertising: from politicians to salespeople to social media, the simple truth just doesn't seem like enough.

Christians also justify the distortion of truth in pursuit of "noble ends."

The "end" we ought to be pursuing is the end of using deceptive methods for the purposes of "spreading the truth" of the Kingdom.

John 6 is packed with very flexible language that can be read in a variety of ways. Today we discuss reasons why it's vital to be gracious and patient with other Christians when trying to interpret the meaning of any Scriptural text.

Links
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Soteriology 101:
* https://soteriology101.com/home/
* https://soteriology101.com

https://apostlesmailbox.com/

What are you working for? Food that perishes, or food that lasts forever?

And who's going to give you such food? The Son of Man.

So you say you're a part of a church? Perhaps you've been forgetting about some of her members.

John 6 contains a lot of material that is used in arguing for or against advanced doctrinal topics. While it's not wrong to try to understand what Jesus was talking about in today's passage, it's more important not to miss one very key point he makes.

https://apostlesmailbox.com/

If you're trying to rule a kingdom in the 1400's, good strong walls are a great asset. If you're trying to maximize profits, keeping competition at bay is very helpful. If you're part of a religious organization, chances are someone has (or will) try to build some walls to "protect" it. Is this good, or bad?

Links:

https://apostlesmailbox.com/

Photo of walled garden by user chris_j_wood at Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. Unmodified.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Heligan_Walled_Garden.JPG

When we're taught that the Bible is God's Word and we're given a copy of it written in English, we often assume that understanding its meaning should be a pretty straightforward task. As we see in today's episode, the nature of time, geography, culture, and translation warn us that it's very easy to misunderstand communication, even when its given to us in our native language.

Today we'll learn more about why our study of Scripture needs to be undertaken with the humility of knowing that just because something seems "obvious" to us, doesn't necessarily guarantee that we've properly understood its meaning.

Links
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Apostle's mailbox: https://apostlesmailbox.com

Jamethy's sketchfab model of an ancient Jewish dwelling:
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/1st-century-israelite-house-72c347217c8a4f38872252dcab6d1784
(License: cc 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)