Sovereign Grace Baptist Church

The experiences within Church fellowship and worship can be a distraction from the origin of this experience with “the assembly of the called” … the Church … ekklesia εκκλεσία. The right order of understanding how THE CHURCH is to gather and is to focus corporate worship must glean from passages of Scripture such as Matthew 16:17. The purpose of gathering as the Church can be thought of as not a t...

Here Peter confesses that Jesus is the Messiah … the longed for one that the prophets mentioned in the ‘they say’ response in verse fourteen. Christ (Christos) is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew Messiah. God’s predicted and long-awaited deliverer of Israel. Peter confesses not that Jesus is merely another in the long line of prophets and teachers proclaiming and longing for the coming Messiah …...

Matthew now takes us into a Segway as the end of Jesus’ Galilean ministry and turns attention to Jesus’ final days leading to Jerusalem. The theme of ‘HIS Church’ will now dominate the remainder of the gospel. Today’s passage will emphasize the origin of Revelation as all people, saved or unsaved, believer or non-believer, heathen or Jewish, Hindu or Orthodox, Muslim or Christian, must answer an i...

Matthew now segways from the temptation from the Pharisees & Sadducees for Jesus to do a very great thing … a good thing. “Bring us a sign from heaven, Jesus.” We often consider temptations to be for bad things such as drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, viewing images no one should view, stealing, etc. But Jesus met the temptation from these religious elites with the authoritative assertion tha...

Jesus points out an amazing thing in this passage in regard to the blindness of Pharisees and Sadducees. These learned men of the Torah, who battled one another for political control of Israel, could see the beauty of the physical sky … the heavens … but were blind to the beauty of God’s Sovereignty … blind to the presence of holiness in their midst. They demanded “a sign from heaven” but could no...

Matthew now recalls a second great feeding miracle in this region of the Decapolis, the region of Tyre & Sidon & Magadan (v. 39) ... the home of Mary Magdalene. Lest we forget, Matthew tells us about a feeding miracle to 5,000 men [plus women and children] only one chapter prior [Matthew 14:13-21] The record of this second great feeding miracle indicates that the first miracle with the 5,000 was n...

"And they glorified the God of Israel." We see Jesus's gentleness and kindness to the distressed in this passage and the result of this is that God's glory is restored to ALL nations ... not just the chosen of Israel. Now the chosen are the humble in spirit, who wonder at Jesus's great nature, at his gentleness and kindness that opposes the vile nature of the fallen world. Because they were ignora...

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...

Following the previous passage concerning the hypocrisy of the Pharisees over Jesus’ disciples and the piety of washing hands, today’s passage continues the theme into a parable. The crowds present at this encounter with the religious elite needed clarification from our LORD on what the greater spiritual point was. Just as a refresher, the Pharisees were more concerned about pious appearances than...

Hallelujah! Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed!! The final chapter of Matthew’s gospel is the most important truth for the Christian faith. This chapter begins with the narrative of the resurrection of our LORD and the response to its revelation to the Roman guards and to the two Mary’s. Both of these witnesses reacted in fear of the supernatural event. But only the disciples of Jesus, both these...

The triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem marks Jesus’ last week before his crucifixion and resurrection. It is marked with layers of royal imagery and disappointed expectation. This event is recounted in all four gospels, but Matthew’s account alone references two animals brought to Jesus, a donkey and a colt, as a more direct citation of Zechariah’s prophecy [Zech 9:9 / Matt 21:5]. Yet what we...

Jesus exposes the hypocrisy of the Pharisees 'from Jerusalem' in this text. They charge Jesus of breaking the 'tradition of the elders' and Jesus reveals that they break God's great command to honor mother and father by caring for them in their golden years. The hypocritical know-it-alls actually did not know the true meaning of God's Law since they did not practice it with pure hearts. Jesus dema...

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 taught his 12 disciples many things that would prepare them to carry on the ministry of the gospel after Jesus departed. In this passage, Jesus commands all events to occur from sending his 12 disciples in the boat to go across the Sea of Galilee to sending away the great crowd of 5,000 and more, to the high winds and waves that the disciples fought. Jesus does this to show HIS 12 to depend...

This text records the single greatest miracle that Jesus performed in his ministry. The feeding of the 5,000 is recorded in all four of the gospels. No other miracle of Jesus is testified in all of the gospels. This account of Jesus and His disciples feeding 5,000 is the only miracle of all of Jesus' miracles recorded in all four gospels. This IS important. This miracle is located at the climax of...

This scene in Matthe 14 of the death of John the Baptist shows us that the gospel will always face persecution from evil. This text reveals to us that there is a guilt that evil will face when those who conduct evil come against the gospel. But the servants of the Kingdom of God will be glorified in Christ as they endure even martyrdom. This passage tells us more about the insecurities of the evil...

As the Russian military invades Ukraine this week, the secular world could only express sympathy by saying, "Our thoughts are with the Ukrainian people." But how does the Church respond to the events of this past week? How does the church, full of God's people, respond to horrors of war? We do not merely keep the suffering of innocents in our thoughts WE PRAY. We call upon God to intervene on beha...

The Treasure of the kingdom of heaven is that which is old and new at the same time. The medieval Christian Scholars argued that the mention of the old and the new treasure in Matthew 13:52 referred to the Old and New Testaments of the bible. But there is much more than that. Jesus is not telling these teachers in training that they have only the treasures of the old covenants and the new covenant...

The Parable of the Net in verses 47-50 teaches of the future & final judgment of the Kingdom of Heaven as a time of separating two groups of souls. Parables of this kind are not spoken by Jesus to satisfy the curiosity of those who desire to know about the end times prophecy. Jesus teaches this parable (and other judgment parables) to alter life in the present. Jesus told parables to confront peop...

In this final lecture, Dr. Brand explains the history of the mission's movement in Baptist History as the foundation of Baptists in America. He eloquently explains the issues that Baptists in America faced that lead to the establishment of regional Baptist Conventions, primarily the Northern American Baptist and the Southern Baptist Conventions.

The Kingdom of Heaven deserves our attention, Yet Jesus does not pronounce that the 'hidden treasure or the 'pearl of great value' will be valued by everyone. Many, many souls will never care enough about the Kingdom of Heaven. So, for them, the Kingdom has no value at all. But for the broken and the contrite heart [Ps 51:10] the Kingdom of Heaven has more value than they could ever buy. This is t...

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...

Although Jesus cleansed the church with his own blood, that it may be without spot or blemish, without corruption, as long as the Church functions within this evil and fallen world, it will inevitably be stained from time to time. The parable of the weeds (or the tares) is Jesus' way of showing the truth of the Kingdom of Heaven within the fallen world that we have. The enemy will sneak in and sow...

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 wants us to know that the Kingdom of Heaven begins and grows in ways that are hidden ... mysterious. The analogy of a mustard seed and the natural ways of its growth reflect the truth of Natural Law. God orders all of the natural world and likewise, HE orders the fertilization and growth of HIS kingdom. He needs no help. Our role is to simply cultivate what God has initiated and has given us...