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We begin this episode by continuing our discussion of the importance to understand that the Bible is complete and we cannot add anything to it or remove anything from it. It is our guide for everything we do in our lives as well as what the church does, how to be saved and what we are to teach. Consequently, we need nothing else to guide us, particularly any man-made documents to specify what the church does like most denominations have. We note that even if the sign says "church of Christ" one must examine if that church follows the New Testament in all that it does. We next begin our discussion of what the Bible says about being saved. We note that God wants all people to be saved. We note what Jesus says about a narrow and a wide gate and how they relate to one's spiritual life. Jesus discusses a proper foundation as well. We look at that. We include in this episode a short discussion of sin, what it is and what it does, as well as what we, as Christians, can do about it. We move to a discussion of the importance of understanding when the Bible is literal and when it is figurative in what is written. We talk about what Peter by the Holy Spirit said about when we are speaking about God and His word. We look at some plain passages that say what one must do to be saved and what many in the denominational world say about them. We discuss the example of Philip teaching the Ethiopian eunuch about Jesus and what the eunuch learned and did. We ran out of time before we completed this discussion. So, we will begin the next episode with it. Take about 30-minutes to listen in on our discussion. Have your Bible handy so you can verify what we are saying. There is a transcript of this Buzzsprout episode provided for your convenience. 

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In this episode, we continue our discussion about the old law, the law of Moses where the Hebrew writer said it was a shadow of good things to come but not the real thing which is the law of Christ. We talk about a number of things relating to His law and how that pertains to us today. We note that the word of God was preached throughout the whole world and continues to be available to all people today. We discuss the fact that the credibility of the word of God is established by the facts contained in it that cannot be refuted. We look at the New Testament and note that it contains a history of Christ's time on the earth, the history of the early church and the instructions on how Christians should live, worship and serve God. We discuss some of the specific books and what they contain. We talk about how important it is to read, study and do what the New Testament scriptures say to us. The Lord expects us to become teachers of the scriptures as the Hebrew writer specifically directs. We continue discussing the law of Christ and its universal application to all people. We talk about what it says concerning the pattern and truth it contains, and the fact that it is our guide to heaven. We complete this episode by referring to two scriptures that tell us how important God's word is. We will begin the next episode with those two passages. Take about 30-minutes to listen in on our discussion. Have your Bible handy so you can verify what we are saying. There is a transcript of this Buzzsprout episode provided for your convenience.

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In this episode, we continue or discussion of the division of the old law and the new law of Christ, in particular what Paul wrote in Galatians chapter 3, verses 5 through 29. The promise that God made to faithful Abraham is an important part of our discussion and we look at that in depth. We look at what was said about the purpose of Moses Law, how long it would last and how it was connected to the law of Christ. Two covenants are mentioned in our discussion of these two laws. We note what is said about them, how they relate to Christians today and what denominations have done relating to them. We move on to look at the separations or divisions in the Bible beginning with the Patriarchal period and then the Mosaic period and some of the important things that occurred in them. We return to Galatians chapter 3 for Paul's discussion of the seed promise that he tells us referred to Christ and was part of the covenant God had made with Abraham. We discuss this covenant and how it relates to the old law, the law of Moses. That old law was said to be a shadow of good things to come. In our next episode, we will look at what this means. Take about 30-minutes to listen in on our discussion. Have your Bible handy so you can verify what we are saying. There is a transcript of this Buzzsprout episode provided for your convenience.

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In this episode, we continue our discussion of rightly dividing the word of truth, God's word, understanding that it is inspired and within it, God has supplied all things that pertain to life and godliness. Consequently, we do not need to come up with our own ideas about the church, how to be saved, how to worship and what the church is and does. We noted that the church Jesus built, the church of Christ is not a denomination. We note Paul's warning to the elders of the local church in Ephesus about false teachers entering among them. We talk about what Jesus said about sincere people who thought they were following Him but were guilty of lawlessness. We also discuss how Jesus says one can come to the Father and what He says about the narrow gate and the wide way. We look at a couple of misconceptions some people have that are caused by taking scriptures out of context. So, we complete this portion of our study by again noting that we must follow God's word and only God's word. The problem that leads to denominations is people teaching what they think is good in their worship and serving God instead of what the Bible says. We move on specifically to discuss what it means to rightly divide the word of truth. We point out in this study that the Bible was written to different groups of people and different times in history. There are some general principles in some books of the Old Testament that are timeless in their applicability, but that is not true of all of the books. We talk about the 4 primary classifications contained in the Old Testament and what each of the 39 books are and not that the separation and classification of these books help us to rightly divide or correctly use them. We next move on to the New Testament, what the different books are and how they are divided. We note that there are three primary dispensations of time covered in the Bible. We discuss these. We close out this episode with Glenn reading Galatians three, verses 5 through 29 and run out of time before we can discuss those passages. We will begin our next episode with those scriptures and what they teach us. Take about 30-minutes to listen in on our discussion. Have your Bible handy so you can verify what we are saying. There is a transcript of this Buzzsprout episode provided for your convenience.

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Arnie, Fred and Glenn continue the discussion of why am I a member of the Church of Christ? We ran out of time before we completed our discussion of the term saint that we find in the New Testament. We complete that in this episode. We move on to talk about denominations and some important facts about them that we should know. We begin by looking at some of the titles that are used in them and what Jesus says about that. We talk about how important teaching the word of God is and what James says about those who would become teachers. Next, we note that special clothing is sometimes worn by leaders in denominational churches and what the New Testament says about this. We talk about where the Christians met for worship in the first century and why that is important for us to know. Next, we discuss why denominations exist, where they come from and what the New Testament says about that. We begin the next phase of this study by looking at the exchange Jesus had with the scribes and Pharisees relating to their traditions and how they replaced God's commandments with them. There are a number of important lessons to be learned from Jesus' discussion with them. We talk about some of those lessons and how they relate to the denominations that exist today. We move on to look at a number of passages that tell us what happens when we do not follow what God says or the pattern, He provided for us to follow. We will continue this discussion in the next episode. Take about 30-minutes to listen in on our discussion. Have your Bible handy so you can verify what we are saying. There is a transcript of this Buzzsprout episode provided for your convenience.

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In this episode, we continue to discuss the structure or pattern of the church. We noted in the last episode that Paul had told Timothy to hold fast the pattern of sound words. We noted that part of that pattern was to appoint elders in each local church and we also noted that there was always a minimum of two elders appointed. There are specific qualifications that a man must meet in order to be an elder in the church. We discuss those. We then look at what the elders were responsible for doing. Paul had given them a warning in Acts chapter 20 that we talked about. We also noted that members of the congregation are told to be subject to the guidance of their elders for they would give an account to the Lord of their work. The next group of men who serve the local church are referred to as deacons. We look at the first mention of these men in Acts chapter six. As Paul did with selecting elders, he also provided the qualifications that a man had to meet in order to serve as a deacon in a local church.  We look at those qualifications and note again that there were always at least two deacons in each local congregation. So up to this point, we have seen that the structure or pattern of the local church consists of Christ as Head, elders as spiritual leaders, and deacons as servants. Of course, we do have evangelists who preach and teach the word, but they don't have any other special role in the leadership or work of the church. The remainder of the local church is made up of disciples or saints. We look at a number of passages that refer to them. We close this episode out by noting the simplicity of the structure or pattern of the local church of Christ compared to that of man-made denominations. We will have more to say about this in the next episode. Take about 30-minutes to listen in on our discussion. Have your Bible handy so you can verify what we are saying. There is a transcript of this Buzzsprout episode provided for your convenience.

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In this episode, we continue to look at what the Bible says about why am I a member of the Church of Christ. We have looked at what the local churches of Christ did in their worship of God and were discussing the last item, preaching, when we ran out of time in the last episode. So, we begin by completing our discussion of preaching in the New Testament church. We noted several passages where Paul said that the gospel was preached throughout the whole world in the first century by following the Lord's simple arrangement of the church. In addition to preaching, the other items of worship are the Lord's Supper, Singing, Praying, Giving, and Teaching. We note that there are over 2,000 denominations all teaching different doctrine. But the Lord only built one Church. We discuss a number of passages that say this, that also call the Lord's Church His body and His kingdom. We next move to a discussion of the structure or set-up of the Church as taught in the scriptures. We talk about how the denominational churches are not structured according to the Lord's instructions in His word and why this is a problem. We next talk about the Church and the Body of Christ as the Kingdom of God and the fact that it exists today. Christ is King of the church and has given us His commands in His word that consists of a pattern we are to follow. We talk about this concept and point out the problem of denominations not following that pattern which basically contains the commands of the Lord. In the next episode we will discuss the appointment of elders in every local church of Christ. Take about 30 - minutes to listen in on our discussion. Have your Bible handy so you can verify what we are saying. There is a transcript of this Buzzsprout episode provided for your convenience.

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We begin this episode by noting that in the church of Christ in the first century, we are told that singing was a part their worship. We noted that there were no passages that told us that any local church of Christ ever used any instrument of music in their worship. Consequently, the silence of the scriptures must be respected. Instruments of music were not introduced into the worship of the church until many centuries later. History tells us that the first instruments of music were introduced in the Catholic Church in the 7th century. Other groups began to follow that errant example many centuries later. Next, we note that prayer was also a part of New Testament worship. It is mentioned first in Acts 2:42. We note several passages that tell us brethren prayed as a part of their spiritual life. We next find Paul giving an order to the church at Corinth to take up a collection for the saints on the first day of the week as a part of their worship. We look at the guidance Paul included concerning one's attitude toward giving of their means. We note that Paul wrote to the saints at Philippi, and he mentioned that their giving was a sacrifice or an act of worship. We also find that teaching was something that was done in the assemblies of the saints through the guidance of the inspired apostles. In order to continue in the apostle's doctrine as we are told in Acts 2:42, that doctrine must be taught. We note numerous passages that tell us teaching is an important part of worship as well as the spiritual life of each Christian. We find in Acts 20 verse 7 that on the first day of the week when the disciples came together to have the Lord's Supper that Paul preached to them. Ultimately, it was through the preaching of the word of God that the gospel was spread throughout the world in the first century. We will finish this discussion in next week's episode. Take about 30 - minutes to listen in on our discussion. Have your Bible handy so you can verify what we are saying. There is a transcript of this Buzzsprout episode provided for your convenience.

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In this episode, we continue to look in the Bible to find out what it says about why I am a member of the Church of Christ. We have discussed who built it and is its foundation, what it should be called, how a person gets into the church, and where and when it was established. We noted the scriptures that are recorded in God's word that answered all of these questions. We noted that Jesus said His words would never pass away and consequently we still have those words that guide us today. We also talked about what Jesus said about those words being the standard of judgment on the last day. One of the first subjects that we look at is what the church did in worship. The Bible tells us about how the Christians in the first century worshipped. We note that it was the inspired apostles that guided them to worship on the first day of the week. One of the specified activities was to remember the Lord's death which is called the Lord's Supper or Communion. We look at several passages that record what was done and what it meant. There was also a collection that Paul gave order to be taken up on the first day of the week for the saints. We find that singing was a part of New Testament worship also and we note several passages that Paul wrote. We discuss the fact that no instruments of music are mentioned in any of the passages. We talk about the warning the Lord provided about adding to His words or taking away from them. We will continue this discussion in the next episode by noting when instruments of music were added to various worship assemblies. Take about 30-minutes to listen in on our discussion. Have your Bible handy so you can verify what we are saying. There is a transcript of this Buzzsprout episode provided for your convenience.                                 

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In this episode, we continue to discuss why am I a member of the Church of Christ by looking at more passages that mention baptism as well as repentance and confession. Glenn noted what Mark said in chapter 16 and pointed out that to understand what he said is as simple as reading the passage. Luke recorded what Jesus said about repentance and Fred noted that. Eric read what Philip said when an angel sent him to talk with the Ethiopian eunuch who was reading what Isaiah wrote in chapter 53. Philip began, as Acts 8 says, at the same scripture and preached Jesus to him. Eric points out the specific actions the eunuch was told to do. Arnie takes us to the record of what Ananias told Paul he must do after he spent 3 days blind in Damascus and reminds us of what the record says baptism does. Glenn takes us to Acts 19 where we have an instance where 12 men who had been baptized by John were instructed by Paul as to why they needed to be rebaptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Fred looks at what Peter said when he compared Noah and his family being saved by water and how that relates to baptism. We continue on to notice that Paul told the Galatians how one gets in Christ. Paul explains how baptism and circumcision are related, and Eric looks at what Paul wrote about that. We discuss how baptism is a reenactment of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus as Paul explains it in Romans chapter 6. Glenn discusses our need to be faithful until we die as Jesus said in Revelation chapter 2. He notes that John gave us the guidance on how we can accomplish this in First John chapter 1. We close this episode out by pointing out that these Bible verses that we have been discussing are God's words and His commandments that He has provided us in written form for us to follow. And by obeying His words, we will be saved and added to His Church by Him. Take about 30-minutes to listen in on our discussion. Have your Bible handy so you can verify what we are saying. There is a transcript of this Buzzsprout episode provided for your convenience.