One of the notable points of disagreement we have with the religious world is over baptism. We teach that baptism is necessary for salvation, yet many religious people reject this. Our text is often used to argue that baptism is NOT necessary, but that was not Paul’s point. We need to understand what this verse means and what the Scriptures teach about baptism. Hopefully, this study will help us defend the truth and lead others to understand the gospel.

When Paul got to Rome, he spoke to the Jews who lived there about Jesus. Some would not believe, even though the truth should have been obvious to them. Why did they miss the truth? Their hearts were dull, their ears could not hear, and their eyes were closed (v. 27). Sadly, the same thing happens today. People miss some obvious truths in God’s word. Why do they miss the obvious? There are different reasons, and we will consider four reasons in this lesson.

It is natural for us to prefer that others remember us favorably. But what would we want God to remember about us? Four times, Nehemiah asked God to remember him for something. What were they? We are going to see what we can learn from the four things Nehemiah wanted to be remembered for.

Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem to help rebuild the wall around the city. But he and the people faced opposition. In our text, we learn how they handled it. Today, we face opposition from the world. We are involved in a spiritual battle for the cause of Christ. How do we handle it? We can learn from what Nehemiah and the people did as they built the wall.

The New Testament describes fellowship as something to be valued, built, and maintained. The “right hand of fellowship” was a symbol of acceptance and approval. But we cannot accept and approve of everyone. There are limts to fellowship. We will discuss them in this lesson.

When Jesus came to earth, many did not understand who He was or why He was here. Many also do not understand Jesus today. Several misunderstandings about Jesus are found in John 7. Most of them were partially right, but missed the whole truth about Jesus. We are going to consider how people misunderstood Jesus in John 7 and see what we can learn from it.

The church in Laodicea was condemned for being “lukewarm.” They thought they were in “need of nothing,” but they were not spiritually healthy. They needed to “be zealous and repent.” At times, we may be like the Laodiceans – not what we should be, but not completely unfaithful either; not zealously serving God, but not willfully rejecting Him; instead, we are in a state of spiritual mediocrity. What does this look like? How can we change it?

It is easy for discussions on controversial topics to become contentious, even in religion. Contentious discussions can consume our time and mental energy if we allow them to. Questions are often used to draw us into discussions, and some of these are good (cf. 1 Peter 3:15). But some questions do not need to be answered. The Bible shows us what types of questions these are.

In previous lessons, we have discussed several matters pertaining to hermeneutics and Bible authority. In this lesson, we are going to talk about what has been bound and loosed. This is about what is REQUIRED and what is merely PERMITTED. What is the difference? And what does this mean for churches and individual Christians?