Church member Tom McParlan starts us into a study of the 139th Psalm. In it, we learned about several attributes of God including his omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. Several audience members participated as well (hard to hear on the recording).

We completed our study of 1 John 3 with a brief exposition of verses 22-24, including some very important thoughts on the presence and ministry of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. Then we ventured into extemporaneous territory with questions from the audience and answers from Pastor Postiff. Questions included whether a woman should be a pastor, if there are levels of inspiration, the identity of the sons of God and giants in Genesis 6, the teaching of women in the church, single women missionaries.

This is somewhat of a unique parable, because the lesson is given plainly and up front: people have an obligation to pray, and not to give up. That obligation is set upon the certainty that our God is far better than any unjust judge and will hear and answer believing prayer.

The prior verses, in chapter 17, speak about the second coming of Jesus, the Son of Man. There will be a time of sudden judgment like in the days of Noah and Lot, in which people will be taken away in judgment. Jesus' words about prayer are colored by this context.

Although Pastor Borden was pushing through a hoarse voice, he taught our Sunday school Bible study on the resurrection of the believer and the rapture of the church. These are wonderful consequences of the first-fruits resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Love for our brothers is connected to our own personal assurance of salvation. Listen in as we study more in the second half of 1 John chapter 3.

You may feel sometimes like the disciples of Jesus, or the disciples of John the Baptist—they wanted to learn how to pray. They felt like they did not know properly how to do that. Jesus teaches us how to pray in Luke 11.

Without the resurrection of Christ, there would be no hope of eternal life for any person. Last time, we saw that the Bible is a reliable source of information on the resurrection. In this session, we continued our study of the resurrection of Christ.

We read Proverbs 12. Then we learned that Jesus draws in his audience again with a story. This time, the parable is about a man robbed and beaten, left for dead, ignored by a couple of religious people, and then compassionately treated by a Samaritan. The lesson is that we are to love as neighbors even those to whom we may not want to apply that command. But the problem is that we cannot do that perfectly, so we need Christ to wash us and help us live like He would have us to do.

Note however that the lawyer had all the right answers but was not a saved individual--he tested the Lord and wanted to justify himself.

We have a reliable historical document in the Bible. We also need to keep in mind three things. When speaking of Jesus, we are talking about a real person. Second, this person actually died by being crucified. Third, we emphasized that he actually rose up from the dead. Giving up on any one of these facts causes the whole structure of Christianity to collapse.

Some other proofs are mentioned regarding the crucifixion and resurrection, including the very words of Jesus who predicted his own crucifixion. These events were also eye-witnessed by many people. These witnesses were, by all accounts, very credible.

The Apostle John reminds us that we must love our brothers, that is, if our lives give evidence that we have been born of God. The unrighteous world hates the believer, and this sets them apart from Christians.