Short Review You’ll recall that we looked at how the altar call and the so-called “prayer of faith” do not conform to the Biblical example of how someone gets saved. And you’ll recall that there is a model for salvation. In other words, there is a solid example for evangelism in the Church today. That example is repeated time and time again in the Bible, and it demonstrates what it looks like for someone to truly get saved. You might also remember that we said that a solid Ch

A Proud Generation This generation is filled with itself. It’s proud. You can observe this pride even in the Church, and that’s very sad. It's very unfortunate because Christians are supposed to be humble. Aren't we? Well, yes. God put the Church in the World not for us to conform to the World, but for us to be a transforming agent for the World. We should be light in the darkness, but many churches have become darkness instead of light. Jesus' words of warning, words he dire

Jesus’ Example The Lord Jesus lived an exemplary life. We should imitate everything he did. For example, he was baptized so we should be baptized too. Jesus got baptized for a reason, and so do we. In fact, we get baptized for the same reason! Jesus got baptized to get the gift of the Holy Spirit. We too should get baptized if we want the gift of the Holy Spirit. He didn't experience the baptism of the Holy Spirit until he got baptized in water, and that's the way it works fo

There Is a Model People in Evangelical churches often talk about how someone “got saved” or how they themselves “got saved.” In like manner, they push for people to “get saved”—meaning they want people to walk to the front of a church in response to an altar call. But there is no altar call in the Bible. There are only calls to repentance, faith in God, and baptism. So, the idea that someone “gets saved” by passing to the front of a church is unbiblical. The idea of an “altar

Take Two! Let’s get back to our text and zoom in on the second part. We’ve already explained how (contrary to popular opinion) Paul's...

Poor Interpreters Most Evangelical pastors today use Paul’s statement ‘Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the Gospel’ to...

Top Hymn Appearing in every Evangelical hymnal published in 2024, a hymn says: Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! Oh, what a foretaste of...

Death-for-Death We receive the mercy of God through the blood of Jesus. The blood Jesus spilled on the Cross was his lifeblood and when...

The Benefit of Blood The sprinkling of blood is a cleansing  in God’s eyes, but it’s not so in the eyes of modern man. Modern man thinks:...

Personal Hygiene How important is personal hygiene to you? For children it’s not very important, but for most adults it’s very important....

The Text Elisha cut a stick and threw it there, and made the iron float  (2 Kings 6:6). A Review: Baptism Saves At this point, if you’ve...

Context Let’s read the full text of the Israelites' crossing of the Jordan. If we do, we’ll become more aware of the context. With a...

God’s Five Purposes God had five purposes for bringing the Israelites through the Jordan River. We just read Joshua chapters 1-4, so we...

The Rivers of Israel The Jordan is by far Israel’s longest river at 251 km. The other rivers of Israel are either very short or they are...

A River Not to Be Despised Do you love to see the New Testament in the Old? Consider the story of Naaman. He got cured of a terrible...

Baptized into Moses Let’s look at a little-known Bible passage—one which uses the phrase baptized into Moses . You’ve heard of the...

Down and Dirty Sin soils us. Sin contaminates us. It makes us dirty, and dirtiness brings us down. It will even bring us down to Hell if...

The Gospel According to Paul, the Gospel is that Jesus died, was buried, was raised, and then appeared to the Apostles. His Gospel...

The Heavyweight Champ We’ve already seen many powerful Bible passages about baptism, but few give the punch Romans 6 gives. We have...

Hades: Hell and Paradise The Bible describes a realm under the Earth called Hades. The Jews called it Sheol and other cultures called it...