The congregation sings a hymn to “help prepare our minds” for the Lord’s Supper.  The words are very meaningful, even though we’ve sung it a hundred times before.  Then, a group of men stand up and walk to the front table and pass some trays to each other.  They stand there in respectful silence as a man gets up to make some…

Isaiah 53 is probably the most famous Messianic passage of all Scripture. In this chapter, we learn of the Suffering Servant. The prophet tells us that this servant would be “despised,” “rejected,” “a Man of sorrows,” “smitten by God,” “wounded for our transgressions,” “bruised for our iniquities,” and heal us “by His stripes.” If you are in any way familiar with the…

Most in Christendom believe that Jesus was the Son of God who came in human form to do the will of His Father. They believe that He arose from the dead and shortly afterwards ascended into heaven. What is often overlooked is what impact He had while on this earth, and what His plan was after He ascended. Even a casual reader…

We often struggle to understand difficult passages because of our lack of knowledge of the Old Testament. When we come to the New Testament and read the expression of being “filled with the Spirit” or being “full of the Spirit,” we have difficulty comprehending what these phrases mean. Look at the following to see this illustrated. Men in the Old Testament were…

God said, “Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Deut. 5:12).  So, are we supposed to “observe the Sabbath day” today?  The Biblical answer to that question is, “No.”  Let’s study the Bible together. First, we must observe to whom the command was given.  “God made a covenant with [Israel] in Horeb” (Deut. 5:2).  The command to keep the Sabbath was…

One of the reasons that the Bible seems so relevant today is because the basic nature of men does not change. The second chapter of Peter’s second epistle describes how this is true of false teachers. By looking deeply into this chapter, we can see that while the specific doctrine they teach varies, the motivational force is the same. The closing verses…

The precision with which the solar eclipse could be calculated this last week was astounding.  I was in Henderson, Tennessee when it occurred.  Here were the details that were available in advance of the eclipse (for where I was located): You “will see a partial eclipse for 2 hours 36 minutes.  96.1% of the sun will be obscured by the moon at the…