Bible Encounters

When some read that God commanded the Israelites to devote all the inhabitants of a city to destruction, it gives them pause. Maybe it gives you pause as well. I want to introduce the topic with you guys and read some passages in Joshua that speak of God commanding Israelites to kill lots of Canaanites. How do we square this with the story of the Bible and God wanting to bring salvation to all the...

You have made it! This is the last lesson. Let's recap the four worldview categories and how Jesus's resurrection reshapes those categories. I pray God's blessing on you all and that God uses the topics in this study to encourage you in your faith and to be a light to those around you with the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Many of us may have heard of the 'Premil' view or the 'Amil' view and we say, 'I take the Panmil view because I believe it will all pan out in the end. I get it. Revelation is confusing. However, Revelation promises the reader they will be blessed if they read it! So, let's be blessed and dive into the Revelation. My prayer is that the promises found in this apocalyptic, prophetic letter will chal...

Have you ever asked yourself how God's word can be relevant to our lives when it wasn't written to us? Well, I have. Let's take Paul's letter to the Corinthians for example. Paul writes this letter to address problems he has heard about and answer their questions. Now if you think about the questions they had then you realize those are not the questions we ask today. So how can God's word be autho...

Paul tells us in Colossians 3:13 that we have been delivered from the Kingdom of this world and brought into the Kingdom of Jesus when we give our allegiance to Christ as our Lord. Yet Jesus is reigning in heaven and not on earth right now and the Kingdom Jesus brought has not been fully manifested on earth. We live in a period of tension and as exiles. The question I want to explore is what shoul...

The disciples were confused before the cross and remained confused after the cross. They wondered if Jesus would finally restore the kingdom to Israel. Why are they asking that? Shouldn't they just be asking when they will be going to heaven? What significance does Jesus's answer about giving the Spirit have to do with us today? What is the purpose of our life as followers of Jesus as we wait for...

Have you ever thought about the significance of where Jesus went after the cross? I am going to argue he went to 3 different locations. I am also going to say the first one wasn't heaven and that our final destination is heaven just because Jesus eventually went there. Sound crazy? Maybe. Let's see what the Bible says and let's see if our modern ideas are getting in the way here. 

Have you had your credit card info stolen? Ever had to deal with the issues of hackers? Did you learn a few things along the way about how to better protect your info? Well, I am going to try to use this illustration as a way to talk about the cross and what Jesus has accomplished on our behalf. 

Sometimes it is good to ask a question that you already have the answer to. My hope is that even though you know that our sinfulness is a key reason why the cross happened, this lesson will encourage you to worship God for who he is and how he has committed himself to humanity. (check out the accompanying Bible Project videos which each of the 5 points I make in the lesson for more reflection)

We believe Jesus was and is the true Messiah. However, hundreds of years before and after Jesus, many Jews had a very different idea of what it meant to be the Messiah and it was all about picking up a sword. In this lesson, we are going to compare Jesus' Messiah movement with other revolutionary movements. With every revolutionary movement, the death of the leader essentially ended the hopes that...

Beliefs take time to change. Have you changed your beliefs regarding some theological idea in the last twenty years? I know my ideas have changed but I also know changes in our beliefs are not easy. We perceive them as threats. So why did the disciples drastically change their beliefs in the afterlife? Did it come from the Greco-Roman and Jewish cultures? Nope. In this lesson, I will explain why....

Many people today say there is no evidence for Jesus' resurrection. I would beg to differ. In this lesson, I would like to provide some historical and literary evidence regarding the bold claims people made regarding Jesus that function as evidence to consider. As we will see, evidence may not be the issue but rather the philosophical bias towards miracles. 

For many years, the differences in the gospels have been an issue for readers. Why do the Gospels present different details? Could an understanding of the Gospels as ancient biographies help? Are we modern readers guilty of bringing modern ideas of history writing to an ancient text? So I want to give a few ideas on how to read the Gospels as ancient biographies. I also want to explore the Gospel...

What is the 'good news' in the Bible? Do you think you would have given the same answer as the Gospel writers? Do you know what Mark thinks about when he presents his idea of good news? It may surprise you a bit. Could the good news be what we think it is but also much more? In this lesson, I look forward to challenging you to think about the ideas you bring to your study of the Gospels and what i...

Have there been errors in the inspiration, preservation, or translation of the Bible? You may be surprised to hear me say yes to some of these. Can you guess which one I would say no to? What is up with the note after Mark 16:8 in our Bibles? What does it mean to believe the Bible is 'inspired'? Hope this lesson helps answer a few questions you may have. 

Believe it or not but there are people who doubt there was a historical Jesus of Nazareth. In this episode, I am going to provide evidence that shows Jesus did in fact exist. I will also tackle the negative bias people have with the Gospel accounts and argue they are the most important historical documents for proving Jesus did indeed exist. 

Could there be a few things about heaven and hell we need to rethink? Is it possible that heaven and hell are not just future realities? Is going to heaven the goal of our faith and why Jesus died? I would like to challenge some commonly held ideas in this lesson. 

This is a tough one. I have had many intense conversations with students regarding hell over the years. Could it be that people don't understand what hell is and who made it? Could it be that God doesn't send anyone to hell? Hold on, I am not a universalist. I think our choices matter in this life. So much so that maybe we are the ones who choose hell because of the nature of what sin does in us....

Who do you think you are? No, really. Who are you? What is your identity rooted in and who gets to answer that question? Could our inability to properly define who we are be the root cause of what is wrong in the world? Could that be a way to define sin? What can put it all right? 

We read the laws of the Old Testament and become very confused. Why would a dad sell his daughter into slavery? How come you could be stoned to death for so many reasons? Well, what if our idea of 'law' was different from theirs? What if God's intent in giving a law to Israel had more to do with how it made God look to people in the ancient near east? What if these 'laws' could still provide wisdo...

Let's eat some humble pie here guys. How can we respond to people who say they want nothing to do with Jesus because of some Christians they have met. Does the truthfulness of Christianity rely on the faithfulness of its followers?  

Well, I am going to try to touch on some really serious stuff this episode guys. What can we say to people who struggle with the idea that God says don't murder yet he sends the flood and then later wants Israel to kill 'every man, women, young and old' in Canaan? I want to offer a few interpretive ideas for you. Some will be new. My encouragement is to stay open-minded and seek humility. These ar...

We hear people define God based on the hypocrisy of Christians. It seems that the Book of Job talk about how people define God based on what is happening to them. I hope I can offer a few ideas that can be encouraging to you not just on how to read Job but how to fear God. 

Many today struggle with the idea that God could be good or even exist since there is so much suffering present in the world. I want to explore the assumptions being made by someone who thinks that and talk about how the cross can provide insight into the character of God and how God views suffering.  

The Bible presents morality as objective. How can the two trees in Genesis 2-3 help us understand that? People today have many questions when it comes to the trees in Genesis 2. How can the fruit of a tree impart life? Why did God make a tree and forbid Adam and Eve from eating its fruit? This narrative is very unusual to us modern readers but contains incredible insight into the human condition a...