BeachCast.TV: Bible Exploration, Apologetics and Church History with Dr. Chase A. Thompson:

The New Testament book of James exhorts Christians to pray like Elijah, who prayed to God after 3.5 years of no rain, and God answered and sent rain. What was Elijah's secret? It turns out that there is no hidden mystery to how Elijah prayed...he just prayed with profound persistence, and so can you and I!

Epaphras, an unsung Bible hero, was constantly 'wrestling' in prayer for the Colossian church. The results of this wrestling, according to the apostle Paul, was maturity in Christ and great assurance of faith. What does it mean to wrestle in prayer, how can we do it, and what sort of impact might it make in our local church and city?

In Colossians 3, Paul lists out a number of behaviors that Christians must put to death in themselves, and the list contains such seemingly major sins like sexual immorality, and other seemingly banal/common sins like anger and slander. What can we learn from this, and what behaviors and attitudes are Christians called to embrace, or put on?

Today we discuss spiritual friendships and the C.S. Lewis insight that adding friends to a group doesn't dilute the friendship, but enhances it. We also discuss Paul's insight in Colossians that Christians will know Jesus and God's ways better in a loving community than as individuals.

In my youth, I used to frequently pray for the 'starving children in Africa.' Do such general prayers offered for people we've never seen or met actually have any impact, or are they just religious acts of emptiness? Today we discover that Paul devoted significant time praying for a group of Christians that he had never personally seen - what can learn about prayer from this practice of Paul?