In this episode of the Ps+ we take a look at our GPS—God's Pathway Strategy in navigating grief and learning to pay close attention to our emotions and responses to the circumstances of life.

Is America a Christian nation? Where do Baptists come from and what significance do they hold in the history of our nation? What does it mean to be a Baptist today in our contemporary world?In this episode, host Brandon Briscoe sits down with Jim Alter, pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Sidney, Ohio to ask these questions and to explore how Baptists influenced our forefathers to frame our constitution with religious liberty in mind.Pastor Alter is co-founder and editor of the Ancient Baptist Press, and he's also the founder, curator and lecturer for a traveling exhibition called Purified Seven Times, which is devoted to educating people about the history of our English Bible. Jim is also coauthor of the book Why Baptist? The Significance of Baptist Principles in an Ecumenical Age.

Purchase Why Baptist - https://a.co/d/fiDkh5t

Visit http://www.ancientbaptist.com/ to learn more about Jim Alter's ministry.

Visit https://www.lfbi.org/learnmore to sign up for Baptist History and other courses at Living Faith Bible Institute.

In this episode of the Ps+ Jonathan Kindler continues a discussion about how God calls us to respond to loss based on the truth of His Word.

As far as psychology is concerned, anger is perhaps the most complex and least understood human emotion. We know the anger is necessary. It's an emotion that gives us drive, it makes us competitive, and it motivates us to overcome tough situations. We know that anger can also cause turmoil. it can be explosive and cause destruction in our families, our relationships, our workplaces, and even in our churches. So how do we know when anger is appropriate or inappropriate? How should we carry anger? How should we respond to it when we feel it boiling up? How do we know when we should express anger outwardly or deal with it internally? We’ll answer these questions and many more on today’s show. 

Purchase A Path Well Lit: A Theology & Philosophy of Biblical Counseling by Brandon Briscoe and Jonathan Kindler at https://www.lfbi.org/books

Visit http://lfbi.org/learnmore

It is difficult for the pastor to meet the needs of the church. Pastors can be exceptionally busy with the affairs of the church — staff meetings, counseling, setting the budget; making sure the building is safe, clean and ready; and of course the work of prayer, study, and preaching. But has the church created a culture that unnecessarily differentiates between the leadership of the pulpit and the leadership of day-to-day ministry? What if pastors learned to lead more effectively from within the pulpit ministry? What if church members were encouraged to take heed of the doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction they received from their pastor every Sunday? Could better expositional leadership impact the maturity and trajectory of the church and preserve ministry resources?

On today’s episode, we have invited Dr. Scott Pace, provost of the College at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He and Jim Shaddix have recently authored a book called Expositional Leadership: Shepherding God’s People from the Pulpit. We have invited Scott on the show to share some principles for preaching that will help pastors and leaders better address the needs of their church and encourage them in the work of discipleship.

Find Dr. Scott PAce’s book at: https://www.crossway.org/books/expositional-leadership-ebook/

Visit https://www.lfbi.org/learnmore

In this episode of the Ps+ we join counselor and LFBI Instructor Jonathan Kindler in a conversation about grief, its manifestations in our lives and what the Bible says about it.

Graduate of Living Faith Bible Institute, church planter, and missionary Kale Horvath, joins us again to give an update on the new church plant growth in Budapest, Hungary, including personal testimonies from the first few years on the mission field.

Kale moved his family to Budapest, Hungary as missionaries in December of 2020, in the middle of Covid quarantines (lockdowns). Kale shares what challenges they faced, including: landing during a pandemic, getting a visa during the shutdown, learning a new (foreign) language, preaching with a Hungarian Bible to people of Hungarian culture, praying for & finding a church building, learning to effectively evangelize in a new culture and finding schools and education for Kale and Brooke’s children.

Kale walks us through how the Living Faith Bible Institute and ministry service in his local church (youth pastoring) built him into a minister ready for missions work. He served on staff at First Baptist Church as the youth pastor from 2015-2019. Kale and Brooke first visited Hungary in 2014, and returned annually until moving to Budapest in 2020.

Kale & Brooke have ministered through short trips in Hungary since 2014 through summer camps for kids and sharing the gospel. By the end of 2023 into early January, the Horvath’s had officially planted Zuglói Biblia Gyülekezet (Zugló Bible Church) in the fourteenth district of Budapest, Hungary.

Finally, Kale gives a glimpse into a book he is authoring which is meant to help those who are deconstructing or have deconstructed their faith. In the book, he gives the biblical handles a believer needs to actively engage in faith and grow closer to God and his people.

Visit https://www.lfbi.org/learnmore

Visit https://www.horvaths2hungary.com/ to learn more about the Horvath’s church ministry in Budapest, Hungary.

Today, we speak with student of Living Faith Bible Institute, Rebecca Powers who ministers in Kansas City, Missouri discipling women and leading a ladies Bible study. She shares her testimony of salvation and how God used a crisis in her life to draw her closer to her God-given purpose. She expresses the joy and peace she has gained in growing in a relationship with Jesus Christ amidst a backdrop of trials. We discuss how LFBI doctrinal training has changed her life and benefited her ministry. Lastly, Rebecca tells us her favorite LFBI courses and Postscript episodes.

Visit https://www.lfbi.org/learnmore

For thousands of years of Christianity and Judaism, there has been an ongoing debate about what it means for a person to be accountable for their sin. In fact, the debate sits at the heart of the historic contention of the Roman Catholics who practice and perform pato baptism (infant baptism) and the Baptists who believe that baptism is reserved for those who have put their faith in Christ - which implies there is a free will and intellectual capacity to understand and receive the terms of the gospel, something which infants and small children cannot do.

What is the age of accountability? That's our question for today. Or another way of asking it may be - When does a person have the discretionary faculty to make a decision concerning Jesus Christ? How do we, particularly as parents, recognize that a child is aware and thus answerable to God for their sin? Is it a sudden realization? Is there a specific age or is it a gradual realization?

To help us better understand what the Bible says about the age of accountability, we have invited Pastor, Dr. Chris Best, Missiology instructor here at the Living Faith BIble Institute to discuss this subject that will benefit anyone looking for biblical answers on the topic.

Visit https://www.lfbi.org/learnmore

Since the end of the 19th Century, the church has been debating an issue that before that era, was not broadly contended – namely, whether or not God has faithfully preserved his word over time and between languages.

For millennia Psalm 12:6 and 7 was understood to mean that God could and would protect and preserve his scriptures.

…it reads “The words of the LORD [are] pure words: [as] silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. 7 Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.”

But by the late 1800’s modern academia had given rise to the critical text position, which postulated that the Bible we have, is not the Bible that God inspired.

Today, the commonly held position is that God’s word was captured in the original manuscripts but was lost over time by the unreliable hands of transcribers and the inherent shortcomings of the translation process.

The result of this critical view has led to an emphasis on scholarship; the archaeological, anthropological, and theological pursuit of the oldest and most eclectic text to produce the most thoughtful translation. This appeal to authority has led to an ever-expanding array of bible translations, in English as well as other languages — translations for which the scholars can not definitively say are the very words of God.

Today on the show we have Erion Vogli, a man on a mission to create a reliable translation of the Bible in his native Albanian language. What gives him the confidence that this is even possible? What are his methods and how can he know they are steadfast?

Visit https://www.lfbi.org/learnmore