Hello, again! Let’s get right down to business. We have already established that the kingdom of God is the future (heavenly) age breaking into the present age. (See Part I and Part II if you wan...
Hello! This is the middle lesson of three on the Kingdom of God. Last week, we saw that God has always had a kingdom. The Old Testament frequently affirms his sovereignty over the nations as King of K...
Who’s on the throne? Of course the Lord God is the one on the throne (Judges 21:25; 1 Samuel 8:7; Revelation 19:16)! There’s never been a time when the universe has been left untended, so ...
Members, membership, & dismemberment (?) We’re all baptized into the body of Christ, the church universal (1 Corinthians 12:13). Yet our membership has a local expression (Acts 2:41) —...
Two churches? Last week, we examined ekklesia, the Greek word unfortunately rendered “church.” This is sad because its basic meaning is assembly, thus stressing the need to be there —...
Ekklesia The Greek word ekklesia means assembly. It’s pronounced “eck-lay-SEE-ah.” The verbal form, egkalein, means to summon or call forth [e.g. to the assembly]. The Romans changed...
The Purpose of Immersion References to baptism in the patristic literature abound. It is clear that for the first few centuries everyone was in agreement that baptism was for the forgiveness of sins, ...
Yes — Wade in the Water Insights from the Syriac:The Syriac translation of the New Testament dates from the 2nd century. Syriac was a dialect of Aramaic, and was the language spoken by eastern C...
After our mini-series on Discipleship, are you ready for another exploration of an important biblical topic? The Bible’s teaching on baptism is clear, and there are dozens of verses that present...