Mineral Springs Church of Christ Podcast

Dale Manor, a professor at Harding University in Searcy, uses examples of Bible lands archaeology to explain how understanding ancient times can deepen our understanding of the stories we read in the Bible.

Speaker Ken Dye encourages listeners to have hope and relates an Old Testament story to our covenant with Christ. He recalls the story of the covenant between David and Jonathan, the son of Saul, and how that covenant affected the future treatment of Jonathan's son Mephibosheth following Jonathan's death. Like Mephibosheth, we experience better treatment than we deserve because of our covenant with Christ.

In and following the model prayer that Jesus gives His disciples he emphasizes forgiveness. Gary Jackson reminds us that there are things Jesus wants us to pay attention to, and this is one of those things. If we are unwilling to forgive, God will be unwilling to forgive us. God's mercy is not based on my sorrow for my sin, my potential future behavior, or whether I have a good excuse for what I've done. God just forgives us, and so should we be willing to forgive others. 

Is God just a chapter in your story? Or, is He more than that? God's story is a story of our salvation. Our greatest obligation is to share our testimony with others, but if our Bibles are barely, rarely, or never read, how do we know what God's will is? Stan Little of Flippin, Arkansas, discusses the role of God's story in the Christian life, explaining why it is so important. 

Mike Ireland, retired from Harding University, uses Ephesians 1:3-14 to explain what God has done for us through His son Jesus. He has chosen us. He has adopted us. He has accepted us. He has made known the mystery of His plan regarding Christ. He has given us a purpose to bring praise and glory to Him. He has given us assurance, and he has purchased us; we are possessions of God. 

How are we to pray?  Besides the Beatitudes, Jesus talks more about prayer than anything else in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. Gary Jackson of Harding University discusses principles of prayer based on the perfect example of Jesus.

Gary Gregg of Harding University bases his lesson on Luke 7:36-50 concluding that Jesus is concerned with kingdom building for God while religious people can tend to be concerned with personal building of personal kingdoms.

Jerry Barber, author of the book Between Preachers, discusses what it means to be a normal Christian using the lives of the apostles Peter and Paul for examples.