Welcome back to the podcast. Week 5 we will be continuing on in the book titled, The Excellent Wife. Join me as we address a Wife’s Understanding of Marriage. The key word this week being oneness. As we pursue oneness in our marriages, we must be intentional and diligent to move forward. Sin must be addressed. Open communication must take place. A willingness to have reproof yourself and to give reproof is a must in your marriage as you seek oneness and for mutual sanctification to happen for yourself as well as your husband. Even if your husband is an unbeliever, you can still pursue oneness in your marriage by allowing the Holy Spirit and God’s Word to bring to light on areas where growth can take place. Remember our progressive sanctification is the process of being transformed into the imagine of Jesus Christ. Starting from the moment of your salvation in Christ and continuing until you are home with the Lord. As we put off the old and embrace the new, let us allow the work that takes place to transform us rather than to produce bitterness, strife, or anger in our hearts. God can soften the hardest of hearts if we are willing to repent and seek to change by His Grace! My hope is you leave here encouraged and growing in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus.

Welcome back to week 4 as we dive deeper into The Excellent Wife series! This week we will look at the relationship within the Trinity between God the Father, God the Son, & God the Holy Spirit. We will compare characteristics within their relationship to characteristics that tend to comprise relationships with fallen man. We have hope as believers in Christ that we too can have God honoring relationships! This is not by our own will or power, but according to the power at work within us by the grace that has been granted to us. We will direct our focus on our relationships with our husbands, but as we look at the Triune God as our example, we will see that their model to us will overflow into all relationships that we have. Whether that be with our parents, children, siblings, or other believers in Christ. Relationships were created by God just as marriage was created by God. He truly knows what’s best and we must not look to the world for how we can obtain these God honoring relationships, but rather to His living and active Word! May you leave here encouraged and seeking to grow in your own walk with the Lord Jesus!

This week as we continue on in the book titled The Excellent Wife we will address a wife’s understanding of sin. There are four characteristics of sin to look at. In addition, several examples are given of ungodly thoughts we should be putting off verses godly thoughts we should be putting on. This week I want to address the fact that if you are a woman in a sexually or physically abusive relationship, I encourage you to seek the local enforcement and biblical counseling, consulting an overseer at your church. While God has put important principles in place for us to follow, in no way does God expect you to sin allowing your body to be abused. The Gospel truly changes everything! May we find ourselves walking more by the Spirit of Christ and less by the flesh, taking every thought captive, seeking to do good to those around us, especially our husbands, and allowing God’s Word to transform us from within. Let us find our joy in Christ alone and be hope filled people encouraged to embrace our new identities as Gods chosen children. We are redeemed! We have been washed new! As always I hope you leave here seeking to become a more fully devoted follower of Christ.

Join me as we jump into Chapter 2 of The Excellent Wife by Martha Peace. Let us root ourselves in the truth that we are the created and God alone is the Creator. Therefore our view of life should be God-centered and not self-centered. In this episode we will discuss what wives need to know about God, what wives need to know about their works and themselves, God’s protective authority, and why a wife needs protection. My hope and prayer is that you will listen with an open heart, allowing the Lord to speak to you through His living and active Word. As always, I encourage you to search the scriptures for yourselves to see what His Word says on these different topics. May you be encouraged to go out and serve our Lord Jesus all the more and to lead others to Him as you go.

On a former podcast I mentioned that I would eventually address Biblical Submission. Well here it is! Join me as we start a new series. This study will take us about 21 weeks to complete. This will take us well into the New Year so let’s devote ourselves to being faithful to being in God’s Word daily. We come back together each Friday to work through each chapter. If you have the resources, I encourage you to purchase this book along with the study guide available as well. This book by Martha Peace has been so helpful to me in my walk as a Christian and I do hope it will be for each of you as well. Join me each week as we go through each chapter, diving into Gods Word in regards to The Excellent Wife from a biblical perspective.

Join me today as I do a quick review of what we discussed over the last several weeks pertaining to the Spiritual Gifts. Above all else, let’s seek to love the Body of Christ. Maybe we don’t know what our gift is. Let’s be the hands and feet of Christ and our gift will naturally be used as we are reading Gods Word, obeying His Word, and loving the Body as a whole when we gather together. This is a heavily debated topic, but one that we should continue to dive deeper into Gods Word to understand. As we do that though, let us continually remember we are a new creation with the Spirit of God to guide us into All Truth. He will lead us in the way we are to go if we trust Him with our lives in the way that He intended. We were created by Him and for Him. There is truly no one else in the world who knows us better than our Mighty Creator! Let us seek to grow with Him personally and the gift He has given you to edify the Body of Christ will become a natural part of who you are in Christ Jesus!

Continuing on this week, I will be laying out the qualifications found in Scripture of an Overseer and reviewing again how several words can describe that specific role. The church not only needs Godly men who fit the criteria laid out for us in 1 Timothy to be leading the church, but Deacons to serve in other areas of ministry within the walls of the church as well. Now I realize ministry options are not just limited to the church body itself, as we know, there are numerous Christian organizations that are led by Believers outside the walls of the church. This episode however, with discussing first what a Deacon is, we will talk about how men and women alike can be leaders of different ministries within the local church bodies. These could include, but are not limited to, leading children’s ministry, ladies ministry, grief share ministry, life groups, and the worship team. We have several accounts in scripture where women are serving as deacons, so the conclusion is, these positions are not gender specific as the overseer roles are. As always, I want to encourage you as a Child of God to be a student of the Word, allowing the Holy Spirit to direct your path, illuminating His Word to understand it and formulating for yourself why you believe what you do. As we grow in His Word in understanding and application, may we as His Children be found as peacemakers, seeking to love people with extending grace, but never forfeiting truth as we go about being God’s ambassadors to share His Word.

This week we will continue on talking about 1 Timothy, but now we turn our attention to focus on Qualifications of an Overseer in Chapter 3. We will also address what the definition of an Overseer is and how there are several descriptions listed in the New Testament that are used interchangeably for this title. Those who are Shepherding our local churches have been gifted with the unique ability to teach and exposit the Word. These men are held to specific standards to step into these roles God has called them to. As we look at the specific qualifications that should be met before ordaining them as the overseers, let’s not forget that we are all held to the same standard as believers. The standard should be to always be pursuing holiness, putting off the old, and embracing our new lives as redeemed Children of God. As Saints we need to be checking our lives to see if they are lining up with what Scripture says should be the marks of true followers of Christ. As always I hope you leave here encouraged growing in your personal relationship with Jesus and also seeking to make more fully devoted followers of Him as well.

Many Scriptures can be interpreted in different ways, so I encourage you this week to find a church that lines up with your view of God’s Word. Paul addresses prayer twice in chapter 2. All of our governing authorities have been set in place by God. Nothing exists apart from God’s doing. Instead of grumbling about our nations leaders, let’s seek to be in prayer for them, especially in regards for their salvations. Jesus died for all and His death was sufficient for all, but not all will come to repentance and believe. This is known as Limited Atonement. God is patient with us beyond our human understanding and wishes for none to perish, however only those whom have been given to Jesus by the Father will be saved. We will discuss the roles of men and women in the church. Another heavily debated topic. How we view this truth will heavily influence the roles we take as men and women in the church. Let’s remember to never take scripture out of context and seek to evaluate the Word given the circumstances that the church was facing during the time the letter was written. Women at one time were deemed less than to men, so when the church was being formed, women were overstepping their boundaries given to them by God, causing conflict in the church itself. Paul addresses them by telling them to learn in silence, but in no way was he discouraging women from learning or from teaching in the right arena. I hope this podcast will be encouraging to you and that you will leave here wanting to search the scriptures more in depth for yourself and follow the Lord Jesus all the more.

It has been a blessed 6 weeks discussing the Spiritual Gifts in 1 Corinthians. Today we are going to turn our attention to the book of 1 Timothy, focusing on sound doctrine that Paul instructed Timothy to stand firm in. The early church was already being plagued with false teachings that Salvation was not by Grace alone, through Faith alone, in Christ Alone, and so Timothy was given charge to remove any individual who would seek to pervert the Word or God. Let’s look at these men known as Judaizers and what the truth of God’s Word says. We would do well to look to the Protestant Reformation in the early 1500s when Martin Luther sought to reform the church back to what scripture teaches and not what man says. Join me this week as we dive in and seek to understand God’s Word, but more importantly apply it to our lives!