New Testament

On September 7th we are providing an opportunity for water baptisms, so this is a good time to revisit what we believe about baptism. The basic idea is that believers should be baptized by immersion in water as a believer. The two halves of this idea are equally important to get straight in our minds: (1) believers and (2) baptized by immersion in water. Thus, the simple test of whether you (or your child) should be baptized is whether or not you (or your child) believe in Jesus and haven't already been baptized as a believer.

This Sunday morning we have the opportunity to do something unique, life-changing, vitally important to every facet of our life, and also mysterious: We can draw near to God. James 4:8 says, "draw near to God, and he will draw near to you." The author of Hebrews calls us to "draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith" (10:22).

Our final post introducing the book of Revelation will speak on three issues—who, what, and why. Who wrote it doesn't tend to impact how we interpret the book, but when it was written certainly does. Asking why it was written also helps us approach the book rightly.

Now that we've looked at some of the big picture aspects of Revelation we're ready to zoom in just a bit closer. If we were on Google maps, we would be going from the state view to the city view. We'll hold off on the street view until the sermons themselves! Our goal for this post is to give a brief description of the major sections of Revelation. As you'll see, there are seven sections that describe similar events in slightly different ways (and sometimes radically different ways).

A couple days ago we introduced the book of Revelation in preparation for our summer sermon series. We mentioned a few ideas about the book that help us read it well, namely, that it is apocalyptic prophecy in the form of a letter. Now we want to look at four of the basic approaches that people have used to interpret the book.

A dragon. Multi-headed beasts. Scorpions that annihilate countries. 100-lb hailstones. Cities that come down from the sky. Massive and widespread death and destruction… Are we reading another installment of The Lord of the Rings? No, it's the last book of our Bible, Revelation. Revelation has been an obsession to some and a head-scratcher to others. It's been multiple movies, countless fictional recreations, and numerous tracts.

Do we worship what we know or what we do not know? This was the distinction made by Christ to the Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob concerning the Jews and Samaritans of his day. Jesus pointed out that God, who is spirit, was seeking true worshipers who will worship in spirit and truth.

In the first chapter of the gospel of John, John introduces readers to the Word. He tells his 1st century audience (primarily Jews and Greeks) a number of surprising things about the Word. We’ll look at four of those traits followed by a few points of application/significance.

In the critical last hours of Jesus’ earthly ministry, he instituted what we call the Lord's Supper at his last meal with the disciples. As we saw in our Sunday sermon, the Lord's Supper is a simple act, but it has profound meaning. What is the Lord's Supper? We answered that question in four parts.

New Year's is a good time to think about your Bible reading and what changes you might make for the coming year. Here's a new reading plan organized around "the story line of the Bible: God's plan of redemption.