Sovereign Grace Baptist Church

The prophecy of the Minor Prophet Obadiah is rich in showing God's warning against alignment with evil and the redemption and hope that only HE can provide to those who challenge HIS people and HIS Word.

After several challenges by his enemies, Jesus earned the right to ask his question because he submitted to the inquiries from the Herodians, Pharisees, and Sadducees. The encounters are bookended by two verses, Matthew 22:15 “Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words.” and Matthew 22:46 “And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask...

This podcast feed hosts the public teaching ministry of Dr. Bryant K. Owens. I am an independent scholar exploring Christian Studies in today’s secular world. I believe that thoughtful Christianity can bring meaningful change in our churches, classrooms, homes, and communities. With years of experience as both a pastor and educator, I am passionate about the historical Christian worldview and the...

The tension in this ONE Question from the representative of the Pharisees reveals the tension between the Law and the Gospel but Jesus shows us that there is no tension. The Law and the Gospel hold up the TRUTH of God’s LOVE. The Law of Love is at the center of the Gospel. This is Jesus’ authority and Jesus’ power to speak it and to insist upon it. We try to focus our attention on Grace over obedi...

It is amazing the length that some people go to in their minds to justify a clearly false idea. This is the basis of troubling ideology. An ideology is a set of beliefs that are so ingrained in a person or a group that no one can counter those beliefs. This is a dangerous place to be in a religion or a culture. We find here the Sadducees now posing a question to Jesus with the hopes of entrapping...

This podcast feed hosts the public teaching ministry of Dr. Bryant K. Owens. I am an independent scholar exploring Christian Studies in today’s secular world. I believe that thoughtful Christianity can bring meaningful change in our churches, classrooms, homes, and communities. With years of experience as both a pastor and educator, I am passionate about the historical Christian worldview and the...

What stands out in Jesus’ rebuttal is the ‘malice’ or ‘craftiness’ or the ‘testing’ that these disciples of the Pharisees and the Herodians pose to Jesus. I think the comparison in these words of Jesus can clearly be made against the words our LORD uses against Satan during his wilderness temptations. In Matthew 4. So if Jesus speaks against these hypocrites with the same language he used against...

This podcast feed hosts the public teaching ministry of Dr. Bryant K. Owens. I am an independent scholar exploring Christian Studies in today’s secular world. I believe that thoughtful Christianity can bring meaningful change in our churches, classrooms, homes, and communities. With years of experience as both a pastor and educator, I am passionate about the historical Christian worldview and the...

This final parable taught in Matthew's scene in the Jerusalem temple is one that describes the Kingdom of Heaven as a GRAND wedding feast given by the king. This time, it is not a master of a house and vineyard at the center of the story. Now we have a king. While this narrative is compelling, its message is very clear in Matthew 22:14. "For many are called, but few are chosen." [Matthew 22:14]

Amos's visions reveal that God is slow to anger and merciful. The visions of locusts, fire, and a plumbline reveal that the Day of the Lord is to be feared by the sinful heart, but in the midst of that is God's mercy.

We have seen in Matthew 21 two parables as Jesus’ rebuttal against the Chief Priests and Elders who challenged our LORD’s authority in the temple. Now we come to the end of Jesus’ parable of the ungrateful servants. Today, I’d like to dig into the final verses of this parable [Matt 21:40-46] to not only grasp the parable’s meaning as Jesus intended but also to gain a greater understanding of God’s...

v. 37 “Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’” This one verse speaks to the final act of God’s mercy over sinful and rebellious humanity. Likewise, in the context of this parable, Jesus speaks to the final act of God’s mercy over the disrespectful and distorted failure of these Chief Priests in their responsibilities as stewards of God’s Word and God’s People. We retu...

This podcast feed hosts the public teaching ministry of Dr. Bryant K. Owens. I am an independent scholar exploring Christian Studies in today’s secular world. I believe that thoughtful Christianity can bring meaningful change in our churches, classrooms, homes, and communities. With years of experience as both a pastor and educator, I am passionate about the historical Christian worldview and the...

Jesus again teaches these Chief Priests and Elders by illustration and inductive questions. Rather than directly answering their challenge “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” [Matt 21:23] … Jesus responds by challenging these men on their understanding of God’s Law and The Prophets as it relates to the coming Messiah and the New Covenant. • The lesson f...

This podcast feed hosts the public teaching ministry of Dr. Bryant K. Owens. I am an independent scholar exploring Christian Studies in today’s secular world. I believe that thoughtful Christianity can bring meaningful change in our churches, classrooms, homes, and communities. With years of experience as both a pastor and educator, I am passionate about the historical Christian worldview and the...

Keeping one’s word is always a virtue. A promise must always be kept. But then there is the dilemma of changing one’s mind too, isn’t it? Can one change a promise and still be virtuous? Can one change a promise and be condemned? This week’s passage in Matthew 21 takes us further into the scene with Jesus teaching in the Jerusalem temple during his last week of life and ministry. During the day(s)...

This podcast feed hosts the public teaching ministry of Dr. Bryant K. Owens. I am an independent scholar exploring Christian Studies in today’s secular world. I believe that thoughtful Christianity can bring meaningful change in our churches, classrooms, homes, and communities. With years of experience as both a pastor and educator, I am passionate about the historical Christian worldview and the...

This podcast feed hosts the public teaching ministry of Dr. Bryant K. Owens. I am an independent scholar exploring Christian Studies in today’s secular world. I believe that thoughtful Christianity can bring meaningful change in our churches, classrooms, homes, and communities. With years of experience as both a pastor and educator, I am passionate about the historical Christian worldview and the...

The prophet Amos continues speaking as God's voice of judgement against the Northern Kingdom (Israel). God speaks judgment by acknowledging the failures of Israel to honor HIS WORD, failure to honor HIS Glory, failure to honor HIM in worship. There are both spiritual and social failures at fault here. God says here that 'because' of these failures, God's protective hand will withdraw leaving Israe...

The efforts of Jesus in preparing the citizens of HIS kingdom are much like the efforts of a good gardener in preparing for an early Spring crop. Thoughtful preparation yields thoughtful production. A smart Gardner intentionally prepares the ground and plants the seeds. He/She does not passively wait for the seeds themselves to ask to be planted nor do the plants volunteer to produce vegetables or...

Jesus came to establish the TRUE Temple. He is the Temple. The dwelling of God. The one who ushers in the Spirit of God with HIS people. The one who sacrificed all so that we no longer carried the burden of sacrifice. The one who atoned for our sins so we would no longer have to offer atonement. The Temple is purged. Yet so many cannot hear the praise of the outcasts who praise HIM Why? Because th...

The humble shepherd and orchard farmer was called to speak the LORD's judgment to the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The prophet Amos was from Judah and God sent him to the enemies of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The prophet was a master rhetorician by beginning his message to the king Jeroboam II with God's judgment against Israel's enemies. But God's warning of judgment to Israel is coming next.

All four gospels speak of this 'cleansing' of the temple of commercial corruption and desecration. I personally hold to the argument that Jesus only cleansed the temple one time. I do not see that the gospels show conclusively that Jesus cleansed the temple twice. Although we cannot ignore the fact that the gospels clearly show us that Jesus was in Jerusalem for the Passover many times in his life...

Matthew 21 begins the final days of Jesus’ ministry. Matthew’s gospel has shown us who Jesus is by showing us his miracles and sharing his greatest teachings. All of Matthew’s gospel describes the kingdom of heaven. Remember that Jesus began his ministry by preaching the message to the people of Capernaum [in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali … a dark territory] … “From that time Jesus began t...

Bad theology [dare I say heretical theology] has often reduced the mysterious birth of Jesus to a distortion of the true nature of the Grand Miracle of Christ's Incarnation. Heretical thinking describes the Incarnation as a mere manifestation of God's presence in a human life rather than a real incarnation in human flesh. I think this is important for us to ponder as we too often reduce the gift o...