In this lesson on Jesus the Christ, we will survey the facts and significance of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry by looking at the periods of his birth and preparation, his public ministry, his passion and death, and finally his exaltation. Each of these portions of Jesus’ life gives us significant insight into Jesus’ role as God’s Christ.
Much of Christian education is enveloped in costs which place heavy burdens. Our mission is to prepare Christian leaders to lead a transformation of the world into God’s Kingdom by providing biblical education, for the world, for free.
Coming to “know” God is like meeting a stranger who has come to rescue us from the danger we did not even realise existed.
A love of believers in other religions and an appreciation for whatever true and good things there may be in these other religions should not blind us to their errors and defects. If Christ is the only Savior and all the other religions of the world deny this, then logically and necessarily all the other religions are dead wrong about this crucial point. It does not fol- low from this that non-Christians must be condemned, but that they must be told the truth, out of love for them and for the truth
One of the hottest controversies today about God concerns the traditional exclusive use of the pronoun he. Nearly all Christians admit that (1) God is not literally male, since he has no biological body, and (2) women are not essentially inferior to men. Those are red herrings.
Jesus exhorted His followers not to “labour for that which perishes” but to “labour for that which is eternal” (John 6:27). The prosperity gospel, by contrast, encourages Christians to focus on what they can receive from Christ in the here and now. Much so-called Christian television and radio programming today panders to what people’s “itching ears” want to hear: the promise of earthly gain.
The devil uses this access to plant temptations in our minds. Sometimes Christians are terribly upset by the ghastly, horrible thoughts that come into their minds. They wonder, ‘How can I be a child of God when I think such terrible things?’
Christians do not sufficiently cultivate a critical attitude towards what they see and hear. The technique of the media is often so subtle and attractive that we can be taken in by it and never realise the content of what is being presented to us. Our minds can be bent without our being aware of what is happening.
Proverbs 23:7 says, ‘For as he thinks within himself, so he is.’ What we think determines what we do; what we do determines what we become.
We can fall into an equally dangerous error of thinking that all we need in order to walk with the Lord is a spirit – ‘forget about the intellect’, they say, ‘it only creates prob- lems’. ‘Big mind, big problems; little mind, little problems; no mind, no problems!’ seems to be the attitude. Anti- intellectualism of this kind can be truly disastrous.
The Word-Faith teachings are corrupt. Their undeniable derivation is cultish, not Christian. The sad truth is that the gospel proclaimed by the Word-Faith movement is not the Gospel of the New Testament. Word-Faith doctrine is a mongrel system, a blend of mysticism, dualism and Gnosticism, that borrows generously from the teachings of the metaphysical cults. The Word-Faith movement may be the most dangerous false system that has grown out of the Charismatic movement so far, because so many Charismatics are unsure of the finality of Scripture.
I believe, gone are the days when we used to play cows-boys and Indians, for the Christian and the devil is much more exciting. Hence, making Harry Potter and the Lord of the rings a reality that a supernatural world exists, and Christians need to use their authority in possessing this land for the extension of God’s Kingdom.
The Holy Spirit will take us in hand, time and again, over our breaches of the law of unselfish love; if we respond He will write part of that law in our hearts. We, in fact, are ourselves changed, from one degree of glory to another, but always in the direction of liberty –‘where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom’ (2 Corinthians 3:17).
In this lesson on Jesus the Redeemer, we’ll explore the person and work of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, during four different periods. First, we’ll consider his existence and plan in eternity, before the creation of the world. Second, we’ll survey his activity during the initial period of creation. Third, we’ll speak about the era of redemption that began after humanity’s fall into sin and stretches through the present age. And fourth, we’ll examine the consummation of history that will take place when he returns. Let’s begin with eternity.
Community life and engagement can have a positive influence on mental health and emotional wellbeing. Community participation provides a sense of belonging and social connectedness. It can also offer extra meaning and purpose to everyday life.
Ever since the Garden of Eden, men have been in sin. Therefore, the New Covenant is designed to prepare the seed for the possession of the promises. It is the Covenant that relates to the forgiveness of sin. When the Lord Jesus Christ came, He inaugurated the New Covenant. At the Last Supper, Jesus took the bread and wine and said, “This is my body which is given for you, and this cup is the New Covenant in my blood, which is shed for you”. In other words, the Lord’s Supper is a symbol of His death.
The world searches for peace by making agreements with kings, presidents, armies, and countries. However, it never lingers as a solution. Here is the solution: Christ died for all mankind’s sin and thereby made a way to have peace with our Maker. This is a better sacrifice than any man has made in a war, no matter how valiant, yet it is ignored. It is scoffed at, just as during the day in which it happened. Consider the humiliation that comes along with being accused of a crime that you did not commit.
Calvin and Luther, both agreed that man was created in the image of God. Luther believed that man lost the image completely in his fall, and Calvin said no, that man did not lose the image of God completely. However, what Calvin believed to remain is a frightful deformity; he believed that man was mutilated and disease ridden. In addition, he further agreed with Luther, believing that it was the Word of God through the saving work of Christ to restore man to the image of God in sanctification.
The varieties of the divine goodness are expressed in other terms, which are very familiar to us (e.g. the love of God).
The reason we affirm this is because the Bible is the product of the Holy Spirit; the principle passages that deal with this are in 2 Timothy and 2 Peter.
The Bible states that man is the unique and special creation of God. He is not the product of evolutionary progresses. Man was placed in the Garden of Eden, in covenant relations to God. Man was told that he was able to do this, but not able to do that. It is said in Genesis 2:16-17, “forth the part of that pact”. He was made Lord of the creation, like the Psalmist mentioned in Psalms 8:1-9.
When we think of the infinity of God, we think of the divine being or essence as having no bounds or limits. Infinity refers to boundlessness and limitlessness. When we say that God possesses infinity, we mean that His being… Read More ›
The Bible says that this love is not traceable to their works or their faith; He just loves. His love is eternal like His love for the Son.
The Bible tells us that man was created in the image of God. Therefore, it should be obvious to us that one of the ways we learn of ourselves is to learn of God. So, the answer to the question as to what is man, is related to the question, who is God?
In the School of Christian education, the Bible is our text, the Spirit of God is our teacher, and we are progressively led by Him into all truths.
Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counsellor hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding? (Isaiah 40:12-14)
In today’s churches, we witness believers maintaining their own views and understandings of the Holy Spirit. Some would refer to Him as a “dove” or “fire”. However, the greatest misunderstanding of the Holy Spirit can be found in the choruses we sing on a Sunday. The most notorious is, “Come, Holy Spirit”. It is an implicit recognition or failure to recognise the most fundamental fact of the Holy Spirit—that He has already come. These songs we sing speak of the Holy Spirit as if He is absent.
Today, there are many who believe that men do not respond to the gospel in the 21st Century because they have intellectual problems with the facts of Christianity. To set the record straight, no man responds to any Gospel message if the Holy Spirit does not prepare his heart for the reception. One can set forth the gospel in the most beautiful logic, the most beautiful system. Men are just as blind and dead to it as it is possible for a person to be. The only reason men do not respond to the gospel is because the gospel comes to them with the proclamation that they are dead in sin and they regard it as totally irrelevant.
man was to be understood chiefly from the stand point of his rational faculties—his mind. They thought that man’s mind was the immortal principle of man, and thus it was largely a divine principle. Man, then was a rational being and because he possessed reason, he was immortal. Man’s body is the material or the substance in which evil inheres. Therefore, to the ancient man, the body was sinful by definition, and the soul was immortal.
The views that men have had concerning life in the soul are important. Origin believed that the soul was in existence before conception, becoming part of the foetus after conception.
THEOLOGY SCHOOL 