Bible Study Radio

Colossians(Program #38) – In Christ and According to Christ

What does it mean to be “in Christ”? Many places in the New Testament, especially in the letters of Paul the Apostle, use this term. Well, the easiest answer is to say that according to the facts, whatever is true of Him is true of us. For example, we died in Him and we were made alive in Him. As I said, these are the facts. But, what about our experience?  If we’re regenerated, born again. Then without doubt, we have these divine facts as our spiritual history, but we may not have a corresponding experience: being in Him and living according to Him.

Colossians (Program #37) – Having Been Rooted In Christ And Being Built up in Him (1 & 2)

What is genuine spiritual growth?  The term is found repeatedly in Scriptures and is tossed about quit freely by Christians.  What does it really mean to grow or to grow in Christ?  The apostle Paul uses this term many times with a corresponding phrase “we have been rooted in Christ.”  as a plant or tree has been rooted into rich soil.  Such a plant’s growth, not from studying the Bible or by determination or by laboring but it comes by absorbing the rich nutrients from the soil in which it has been rooted.  Being rooted in Christ and growing with the growth of God that’s our topic on this life study of the Bible.

Colossians (Program #35) – The Receiving of Christ

There’s a seemingly simple verse in Colossians 2 that says, “As therefore you have received the Christ, Jesus the Lord, walk in Him.” Well as I said, this verse seems simple. But consider for a moment, the Bible says that Christ is the very God. It also says that His dimensions surpass even the Universe itself. So just how is it that a simple man of limited proportions and capacity can receive, even contain, this vast immeasurable and all-inclusive Christ who is the very mystery of God.

Colossians (Program #33) – The Extensive Revelation of the All-Inclusive Christ

Our Christ is not narrow or limited. He’s all inclusive, and He’s extensive. Do you realize that He’s a universal traveler? Well in incarnation, He traveled from the heavens to the earth. In death and resurrection, He traveled from the earth into hades and then back to earth again. And then in ascension, He traveled back into the heavens only to be poured out once more to the earth to be our everything as the life-giving Spirit. This is our Christ. And, as the result of all this universal traveling, He fills all in all and wants to impress us that He alone can replace everything that occupies us, even our culture.

Colossians (Program #31) – Identified with Christ by Being Grafted into Him

We all realize that the air we breathe is all around us. So, is it fair to say that we are in the air? Of course it is. But, there’s another aspect of the air that’s also obvious, and that is that as we breath it, it fills our lungs. So, it’s also true to say that the air is in us. Without us first being in the air, there’s no way that the air could be in us. Well, what does this all have to do with the Christian life you say? Well, the Bible says that we are in Christ. But equally worth our attention, it tells us that Christ is in us as well. Identified with Christ by being grafted into Him. That’s our topic today on this life study of the Bible from Colossians.

Colossians (Program #30) – Objective Revelation, Subjective Ministry and Practical Experience

The Gospel of John surely is loved by nearly every believer and presents Christ as life and even the mystery of life. Yet for its marvelous revelation of Christ as both God and man and as our life, it still cannot compare with the high peak of the Christ that’s revealed in the book of Colossians.  As we consider not just this high revelation of Christ but how seeing it can help us all to be brought into the practical experience of such Christ.

The expressions used in this book of Colossians, even though it is a short book, they are unique in the whole Bible. But Paul wasn’t trying just to be different, he was really endeavoring to present to us a Christ that is higher, deeper, and richer than we’ve ever imagined.

Colossians (Program #29) – To Live Christ

When we look at the kind of human life the Lord Jesus lived on the earth and if we take His teachings as an ethical standard for us to imitate, we will set our Christian life on a direct path that will lead us to utter frustration and failure. And worst yet, it will leave God’s heart’s desire unsatisfied because the real example of the Lord Jesus was not just that He lived the perfect life, but that He all the time practiced to live another life. This might sound strange and contrary to what you’ve known and practiced concerning the Christian life, but it, nonetheless, is the clear teaching of the Bible. We need not live a good life. We need to live Christ.

Colossians (Program #28) – The All-Inclusive Christ Versus Culture

When the Apostle Paul was addressing the Corinthians, he first had to deal with the problem of their fleshly sin and temptations. When he wrote to the churches in Galatia, he was faced with the problem of their adding practices of Judaism to their Christian faith. But, the church in Colossae offered perhaps the greatest obstacle to his labor to bring them into a deeper experience of Christ and that was their culture and philosophy.

Colossians (Program #27) – Conclusion

The book of Colossians is a book that gives us the highest vision and revelation of Christ. It’s a book unveiling Christ. The full revelation of Christ comes in Chapter 3 verses 10 and 11, which reveal the heart’s desire of God, the New Man, a corporate entity composed of Christ as the head and the members as His body. With all their cultural and ethnic differences blended away, so that joined with the head they become His full and unique expression. Well, we would consider such a book would have a lofty and profound conclusion to match its rich content, but rather it concludes with various greetings and short reports concerning different brothers in Christ familiar to the Colossians. It is tender but it seems to lack the impact and spirit to make it a fitting conclusion. Was this Paul’s random thought? Or, God’s marvelous wisdom?

Psalms (Program #42) – The Consummate Praise

Over the course of his nearly 70 years of ministry, Witness Lee conducted three in depth studies of the book of Psalms. His first study took place in 1954, he came back to the book again in 1969, and his final study, this life study, that he gave near the end of his life, in 1993. Although all three studies bear similarity for certain each got progressively deeper and higher, unveiling more of God’s central line, His eternal economy. As we come to the final program in the life study of the Psalms, I thought it is appropriate to quote a short portion from his second study of the Psalms called “Christ and the Church revealed and typified in the Psalms” –

“Now we must see an exceedingly important matter. Because the writers of the Psalms are Godly saints, because they are praising, and because they are expressing something of their sentiments and their experiences, they are very close to God. Because of their nearness and openness to God they provided a way for God to utter something within their utterance. While they are speaking God comes and speaks in and through their utterance. This point is of great importance. The Psalms are the expression of the Godly saints. Yet in their expressions the door is opened for the Lord to speak, the opportunity is given for God to utter something in their utterance. It is for this very reason that some find it very difficult to understand the Psalms. On the one hand they are the expression of the Godly saints, and yet on the other hand they are the expression of God Himself.”