Simpler Bible

Welcome to Simpler Bible, your daily path to biblical understanding.

What's in Store: Daily podcasts, YouTube videos, and blog posts – everything you need to make your Bible study a breeze, no matter where you are on your faith journey.

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Don't Miss Out: Hit subscribe for a daily dose of Bible wisdom. Let's explore the Scriptures together, connect the dots, and uncover the major themes of redemption.

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For more visit http://simplerbible.com/episodes

Welcome to Simpler Bible, your daily path to biblical understanding.

What's in Store: Daily podcasts, YouTube videos, and blog posts – everything you need to make your Bible study a breeze, no matter where you are on your faith journey.

Connect with Us:

Don't Miss Out: Hit subscribe for a daily dose of Bible wisdom. Let's explore the Scriptures together, connect the dots, and uncover the major themes of redemption.

Join us in making Bible study Simpler!

Here’s an excerpt from the blog post.

The other major indicator of faith mentioned here in First John is what the individual says about Jesus. Remember, if you don't acknowledge the Son, you do not know the Father. What people often do is point to 1 John 2:3-4 and say, "By this, we know that we have come to know him, that we keep his commandments." And "Anyone who says 'I know him' but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him." People usually read these verses and interpret them to mean that we should obey the Ten Commandments or the Law of Moses. The problem with that line of thinking is that Paul directly contradicts it in Galatians and Romans. Furthermore, the context of 1 John supplies us with what it means to "obey the commandments." In Chapter Three, we read, "And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him." So we see that the commandments of God are that we believe in Jesus and that we love the brethren. Why we make it more difficult than that, I won't ever understand.

For more visit http://simplerbible.com/episodes

Welcome to Simpler Bible, your daily path to biblical understanding.

What's in Store: Daily podcasts, YouTube videos, and blog posts – everything you need to make your Bible study a breeze, no matter where you are on your faith journey.

Connect with Us:

Don't Miss Out: Hit subscribe for a daily dose of Bible wisdom. Let's explore the Scriptures together, connect the dots, and uncover the major themes of redemption.

Join us in making Bible study Simpler!

Here’s an excerpt from the blog post.

Let me point out just one of the very many things from this section of Scripture that is of the utmost importance. "No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also." this verse is absolutely essential. In our world today, we have people who insist on their belief in God but then will deny their need for Jesus. That simply can't stand. If you deny the Son [Jesus], you then, by extension, deny the Father [God] who sent him. If you don't have the Son, you don't have the Father, nor could you. That means the Jews, as a whole, who denied Jesus and facilitated his murder, at that moment, also fully denied the Father they claimed to know and worship. In John 8, Jesus says that they were all liars who did not know God. If they had known God, then they would have also known and loved Jesus. The fact they denied the King of Glory means they also denied God.

I'd be content to say the same thing another fifty times just so that it could not possibly escape our hearts, but let me offer you one more thought. When we are tempted to say of our dear friend or family member, "So and so really does believe in God. He/she really is a great person. They just don't believe in Jesus," let us clap our hand over our mouth. Let us not dare say that they can believe in God and deny the Son he sent. Let us hold such a high view of our Savior that we would say of anyone who denies Jesus, "Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ?"

Anyone who denies Jesus is a liar and has the spirit of the antichrist, and there is no other conclusion we could rightly come to.

For more visit http://simplerbible.com/episodes

Welcome to Simpler Bible, your daily path to biblical understanding.

What's in Store: Daily podcasts, YouTube videos, and blog posts – everything you need to make your Bible study a breeze, no matter where you are on your faith journey.

Connect with Us:

Don't Miss Out: Hit subscribe for a daily dose of Bible wisdom. Let's explore the Scriptures together, connect the dots, and uncover the major themes of redemption.

Join us in making Bible study Simpler!

Here’s an excerpt from the blog post.

Now, with a few decades of ministry behind me and more thoughtful consideration of texts like this one and the one we will see in Jude, I find myself believing that false teachers are a bigger problem than most churches seem to acknowledge. (I often wonder if it is because many of those churches have false teachers at the helm, but we can discuss that another time)

In the days of Paul, false teachers often, if not always, fell into the category of people who were teaching the works of the law as necessary for salvation or righteousness. Preaching Christ Jesus PLUS circumcision wasn't just a poor teaching but a damnable one. I wonder if Paul would consider the teaching of today that intermingles the works of law along with faith in the doctrine of false teachers. I don't know how he could arrive at any other conclusion. What if much of what we call "weak" or "powerless" preaching is truly an abomination?

Thankfully, I don't have to hand down judgment as to whether a teaching is faithful or unfaithful. For "If God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; he knows how to keep the unrighteousness under punishment until the day of judgment." And that is a terrifying thing.

We should be considerably more cautious in who we listen to and who we set before us as shepherds.

For more visit http://simplerbible.com/episodes

Welcome to Simpler Bible, your daily path to biblical understanding.

What's in Store: Daily podcasts, YouTube videos, and blog posts – everything you need to make your Bible study a breeze, no matter where you are on your faith journey.

Connect with Us:

Don't Miss Out: Hit subscribe for a daily dose of Bible wisdom. Let's explore the Scriptures together, connect the dots, and uncover the major themes of redemption.

Join us in making Bible study Simpler!

Here’s an excerpt from the blog post.

For more visit http://simplerbible.com/episodes

Welcome to Simpler Bible, your daily path to biblical understanding.

What's in Store: Daily podcasts, YouTube videos, and blog posts – everything you need to make your Bible study a breeze, no matter where you are on your faith journey.

Connect with Us:

Don't Miss Out: Hit subscribe for a daily dose of Bible wisdom. Let's explore the Scriptures together, connect the dots, and uncover the major themes of redemption.

Join us in making Bible study Simpler!

Here’s an excerpt from the blog post.

"But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them [ your persecutors], nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you."

Think about that for a moment. The saints who were being beaten, thrown in prison, and escorted off to death were to suffer well for the sake of Christ so that when those persecutors queried about the undying hope of the persecuted, they would be able to speak about their faith in Jesus.

Suffer so well that even the wicked who lead you off to death will want to know how you seem so profoundly hopeful.

And to think that we Western Christians get perturbed when the day doesn't quite go our way. If we seem so hopeless to the world when even the smallest things go wrong, how will we ever stand a chance to suffer well when our lives are on the line? And if we seem hopeless in the small things, we can be certain the wicked of the world will never inquire about our hope in the truly dark days because we will have completely abandoned all hope.

But those who have RIGHTLY set their minds on Jesus, recognize that "After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you." So then we see that our hope is not in our present circumstances, but our future one.

For more visit http://simplerbible.com/episodes

Welcome to Simpler Bible, your daily path to biblical understanding.

What's in Store: Daily podcasts, YouTube videos, and blog posts – everything you need to make your Bible study a breeze, no matter where you are on your faith journey.

Connect with Us:

Don't Miss Out: Hit subscribe for a daily dose of Bible wisdom. Let's explore the Scriptures together, connect the dots, and uncover the major themes of redemption.

Join us in making Bible study Simpler!

Here’s an excerpt from the blog post.

First, the prophets of the Old Testament knew they were writing about the person of the Messiah, and they inquired of the Spirit of Christ about the days and times these things would be fulfilled. They also knew it would not take place in their days. These are wonderful truths to consider. We see that God, by his Spirit, had given insight to the prophets and that the prophets did not record the prophecies of Jesus without knowledge that they were doing so.

Second, at least a part of being holy as God is holy is that we set all of our hope on the grace that will be brought to us at the revelation of Christ. When we consider that the prophets wrote with eager expectation about the coming of Jesus, we see that it then shaped the way they lived their lives. We, too, setting our minds on the truth of Jesus, will find the fruitfulness of our lives shaped by that.

Third, the believers are being built up together as a spiritual house, as a holy priesthood, to present to God spiritual sacrifices.

Finally, we see that "by his stripes you have been healed" does not address physical healing but rather spiritual healing from sin.

For more visit http://simplerbible.com/episodes

Welcome to Simpler Bible, your daily path to biblical understanding.

What's in Store: Daily podcasts, YouTube videos, and blog posts – everything you need to make your Bible study a breeze, no matter where you are on your faith journey.

Connect with Us:

Don't Miss Out: Hit subscribe for a daily dose of Bible wisdom. Let's explore the Scriptures together, connect the dots, and uncover the major themes of redemption.

Join us in making Bible study Simpler!

Here’s an excerpt from the blog post.

One thing we can be sure of is that if we lack the power of God in our lives, it isn't because God is weaker.

For more visit http://simplerbible.com/episodes

Welcome to Simpler Bible, your daily path to biblical understanding.

What's in Store: Daily podcasts, YouTube videos, and blog posts – everything you need to make your Bible study a breeze, no matter where you are on your faith journey.

Connect with Us:

Don't Miss Out: Hit subscribe for a daily dose of Bible wisdom. Let's explore the Scriptures together, connect the dots, and uncover the major themes of redemption.

Join us in making Bible study Simpler!

For more visit http://simplerbible.com/episodes

Welcome to Simpler Bible, your daily path to biblical understanding.

What's in Store: Daily podcasts, YouTube videos, and blog posts – everything you need to make your Bible study a breeze, no matter where you are on your faith journey.

Connect with Us:

Don't Miss Out: Hit subscribe for a daily dose of Bible wisdom. Let's explore the Scriptures together, connect the dots, and uncover the major themes of redemption.

Join us in making Bible study Simpler!

Here’s an excerpt from the blog post.

"Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work, making you mature and complete, lacking nothing." (vs 2-4)

"Every Good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights." (vs 17)

"Be doers of the word; and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves." (vs 22)

I had these verses down, if not in high school, by the time I was a freshman in college. They are, after all, very popular verses. If we take each one of these short texts on their own we may end up with three different lessons completely. Consider the first one: this text was taught to me that no matter what trial I went through, God was using it to develop and mature my faith. It is a fair point and could absolutely be applied that way, but I was never taught to consider the immediate context.

Consider the second text: I was taught over and over that if I had anything good in my life it came from God. Again, that's a fair point, but I wasn't taught to see how this verse fit in with the point James was making to the dispersed Jewish believers.

For more visit http://simplerbible.com/episodes