Line Upon Line

Examining the disciples' question on the Mount of Olives—"Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"—Pastor Miles shows that Jesus redirects their expectation of an earthly kingdom toward the inheritance believers already possess: God Himself, guaranteed by the indwelling Holy Spirit. Until Christ returns, believers are commissioned and empowered to be witnesses from Jerusalem to the uttermost parts of the earth.

Paul's letter to the Philippians is the epistle of joy, written to a beloved church he planted on his second missionary journey. Though the church had sound doctrine, they had a practice problem rooted in disunity, and Paul calls them to humble, others-focused living by holding up four examples—Jesus, Timothy, Epaphroditus, and himself.

Opening a series on biblical prophecy, Pastor Miles uses Isaiah 40's command to "comfort my people" — spoken amid the prophecy of coming Babylonian judgment — to show that God reveals the future so His people can be comforted by the promise of the Messiah's coming. The teaching argues that predictive prophecy proves Scripture's divine inspiration and that those who truly believe Christ will return should be transformed and watchful.

A survey of Ephesians showing how the first three chapters establish the believer's position in Christ—the spiritual blessings given by Father, Son, and Spirit—and how chapters four through six call us to a corresponding practice. The teaching emphasizes that the church is Christ's body, temple, mystery, new man, bride, and soldier, whose ultimate purpose is to display God's manifold wisdom to all creation.

Teaching from John 21, Pastor Miles shows how the disciples' fruitless night of fishing—done apart from Christ's instruction—reveals that we accomplish nothing without Jesus. He traces the chapter's call to wait on the Lord, dine before doing, examine our motives, count the cost, and follow Christ without comparing ourselves to others.

A verse-by-verse overview of Galatians, the "Magna Carta of Christian liberty," in which Paul defends the gospel of justification by faith alone against the Judaizers who had seduced the Galatian churches into legalism. The teaching traces Paul's argument that the law was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, and that believers are called to walk in the Spirit rather than the flesh.

A study of John 20:30-31, framing the entire Gospel of John around its seven signs and seven "I am" statements, all written so that readers might believe Jesus is the Christ and have life in His name. The teaching surveys four people/groups in John 20 and how each responded to the risen Lord, concluding with the call to believe though we have not seen.

A walk through 2 Corinthians, which Pastor Miles titles "The Passion of Paul," showing how Paul confronts a carnal, knowledge-seeking, faction-divided church by boasting not in himself but in the cross of Christ and in his own weakness, through which God's strength is made perfect. The teaching calls believers to rely wholly on God's sufficiency, preach Christ rather than themselves, and come out separate from the world.

Standing two days before the 2008 election, Pastor Miles uses Paul's resolve in Acts 20:24 and Elijah's confrontation on Mount Carmel to call the church to courageous, unashamed witness in a culture moving toward judgment. He argues that voting and public engagement are biblical, that silence amounts to consent to unrighteousness, and that the world needs not a new definition of the gospel but a new demonstration of it.

A through-the-Bible overview of 1 Corinthians, framing the book as a letter of rebuke and correction to a carnal, people-pleasing church living in a sensual, knowledge-seeking culture much like our own. The teaching moves through the book's two halves—carnality (chapters 1–11) and spirituality (chapters 12–16)—emphasizing the preaching of Christ crucified, the centrality of love, the resurrection, and the call to walk through God's open doors.