Tag Archives: Following Christ

In Whom

Posted on September 14, 2025 by bibleteacherorg

Four times in this chapter the Apostle uses the phrase “In Whom” (en hos), or “in this Specific Person”. In Jesus Christ and in no other we have “REDEMPTION THROUGH HIS BLOOD”. This is the first thing mentioned because – though all parts of salvation are important – redemption is key.

The word translated “REDEMPTION” is the Greek apolytrōsis. The word means “to pay a ransom or a fee to liberate a slave or to free a kidnapped victim”. The Blood of Jesus Christ is the purchase price that REDEEMS or BUYS BACK a person from enslavement. You ask the question, “What do you mean by enslavement?” The Scripture explains. When our forefather Adam disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden, Adam was the Federal Representative of all mankind. What he did, or did not do, reflected on us all. The Bible says that when Adam heeded his wife and the serpent rather than God, that, Continue reading →

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Two Kingdoms

Posted on September 11, 2025 by bibleteacherorg

Though a person is not saved by their works before God:

Ephesians 2:8-9 (ESV) For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

For “Salvation belongs to the LORD” (Psalm 3:8). We are all broken at physical birth. We are all sinners. But once God saves a person, He works in the heart of that person. The person who repents and comes to Jesus by faith in Him is “made alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:5). God Himself “gives you a new heart, and a new Spirit He puts in you. He removes the old heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26).

The lost person has a different heart, because he has not surrendered that heart to God. The Bible calls this person the “natural man”. Paul contrasted the “natural man” with the “spiritual man” in his letter to the Corinthians. He said:

1 Corinthians 2:11-16 (NKJV) For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. 13 These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is [rightly] judged by no one. 16 For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

The “ natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God”. The phrase “NATURAL MAN” is the Greek psychikos (pro. psoo-khee-kos’) which means “the man driven by senses, the fleshly person”. This is the person that Solomon is addressing in the first part of this proverb:… Continue reading →

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Sons Not Slaves

Posted on September 9, 2025 by bibleteacherorg

Before I can ever teach you this Scripture, I have to explain something that used to be normal and expected, but in America today has become as foreign as speaking Martian. In the ancient world great civilizations were built by pagan cultures. The longest lasting Empires were:

The Egyptian Empire lasted 3000 years (3100 BC – 30 BC)
The Assyrian Empire lasted 1300 years (2025 BC – 609 BC)
The Babylonian Empire lasted 1351 years (1890 BC – 539 BC)
The Roman Empire lasted 1480 years (27 BC – 1453 AD)

Though not classified as an “Empire”, the Spartan city-state Lacedaemon (pronounced lass-e-demon) lasted 1000 years. All of these empires – along with Lacedaemon – grew to greatness because children were trained to be good citizens – not entertained. We live in a day where children are coddled. When Paul was writing the Church at Galatia, he was speaking to what all parents and adults knew. … Continue reading →

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Do Lord

Posted on September 3, 2025 by bibleteacherorg

Over the past few years I’ve heard a lot of complaining about our Presidents from both sides, Democratic or Republican. I have to admit, I’ve done my fair share of complaining. But the Scripture reminds us that – rather than complaining – we should rely on prayer and on the sovereignty of God. God can and does control the human heart. God can control the heart of the King, whether the King is a believer or a non-believer. The Bible is full of examples of this.

When the cupbearer to King Artaxerxes, Nehemiah, heard that the walls of Jerusalem were destroyed and the city was in disarray, he was very upset. But rather that grieve and despair, Nehemiah went to God in prayer. Nehemiah’s prayer shows how a believer should pray to change the heart of a king.

Nehemiah 1:4-7 (ESV) {Nehemiah said} I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. 5 And I said, “O LORD God of heaven, the great and awesome God Who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His commandments, 6 let your ear be attentive and Your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before You day and night for the people of Israel Your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against You. Even I and my father’s house have sinned. 7 We have acted very corruptly against You and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that You commanded Your servant Moses.

Nehemiah did not blame God nor the enemies of Israel … Continue reading →

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Order Of The Family

Posted on August 28, 2025 by bibleteacherorg

Exodus 20:12 (ESV) Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

The Bibles doesn’t command that we like our parents, or even that we love our parents, but that we show them honor, respect because they are our parents. Our parents may make bad decisions. All are flawed by sin. But God tells us that long life is promised to those who honor their parents. The Apostle quotes this text in the New Testament:

Ephesians 6:1-3 (ESV) Children, OBEY your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 HONOR your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.

I came across this quote from a child psychology site:

“The family unit often acts as society in miniature. When families are strong and stable, they contribute to a thriving community. Conversely, when families struggle, the ripples can be felt throughout society, potentially leading towards breakdown and decline. Today, perhaps more than ever before, the family structure appears weakened, with a significant number of children growing up without a father present in their lives. … Children benefit immensely from exposure to both maternal and paternal approaches. As … research suggests, distinct contributions from both male and female parents seem fundamental to human development. The idea that parenting is gender-neutral doesn’t align with the evidence; fathers offer something unique and irreplaceable.” Continue reading →

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The Law Was Added – Why?

Posted on August 25, 2025 by bibleteacherorg

God loved Adam, and proved it by what he did. But Adam doubted the love of God, and proved that by what HE did. He disobeyed God. He hid from God. He blamed God. This is THE Transgression (1 Timothy 2:14). And yet, God loved him anyway, and gave Adam life for death. Death reigned on the earth from Adam to Moses. Why? It wasn’t because people ate of the forbidden fruit as Adam did (for no one could get into Eden).

Death reigned because people rejected the love of God, choosing instead love of self and by extension love of sin. The wages of sin is death, and God is life. There was no law, and man embraced death while rejecting God.

When Jesus Christ came to this earth, He came to mediate a New Covenant, to bring us, through the Gospel, into a loving relationship with God. The Bible says: Continue reading →

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Bible Doctrine Matters

Posted on August 24, 2025 by bibleteacherorg

Here’s a question: You’re a Christian without a Church. What should you look for in a Church? The National Association of Evangelicals asked that question, and people said that the most important things were:

1. Friendliness (19 %)
2. Children’s Programs (19 %)
3. Worship Music (16 %)
4. Sermons (14 %)
5. Likability of the Pastor (12 %)

How does this match up with the Church that Jesus, through the Apostles, formed? Let’s look at the beginning, the Book of Acts. We read:

Acts 2:40-47 (ESV) … {Peter} bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” 41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. 42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

The Apostle Peter’s message was separation, not union Continue reading →

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We All Need The Lord

Posted on August 20, 2025 by bibleteacherorg

It’s all the fashion now to get on the Internet through your “smart phone”, then to rant and rave over the phone via a video – usually about politics. I had to laugh out loud at a young black woman in her car. She went to a drive up ATM at bank, and got $60 in cash out (three 20 dollar bills). She suddenly had what my mama called a “conniption fit” because someone had stamped on the back of one of the 20’s, right over the picture of the White House, in red letters “Trump Lives Here”. She said she was so mad she wanted to throw the money away. I support that. Throw the money MY way.

The Internet has amplified self righteousness & virtue signaling. God says no one is clean

I know a lot of people do not like Trump, but he’s the President of the United States whether you like it or not. Yes, he lives in the White House. President Trump has his failings, but also his good points. Beloved, no one makes themselves clean. Shouting into your phone doesn’t make you clean, but stupid looking. If this nation was settled not by White Europeans, but Black Africans, I suspect we’d STILL have had a problem with slavery – only in reverse. We’re all a mess.

The heartbeat of Christianity is that “all sin, all fall short of God’s glory” (Romans 3:23). King Solomon wrote:

Ecclesiastes 7:20 (ESV) Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

It is a sign of a deluded person who thinks they are righteous and perfect, but all others have flaws. Sadly when that young lady screamed and hollered about nothing, all this proved was that she is delusional. Those who are deluded stay in a perpetual child-like state. They never mature, and often become those in Continue reading →

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Paul’s Second Amen

Posted on August 18, 2025 by bibleteacherorg

To be honest with you, there are parts of the Bible that I skim through, parts that I find difficult to read. Those parts are what I call the phone books of the Bible. Younger people have no idea what a “phone book” is, but when I was growing up you had phone books. These were thick, alphabetized books where everyone who had a phone number was placed in it. Unless you paid the phone company extra, everyone had access to your phone number. It was in the Phone Book!

As you go through the Bible, there are lists of names, often hard to pronounce, written in the Book. You find lists like this in Genesis, Exodus, Chronicles, Nehemiah, Matthew and Luke. One of the greatest lists of names is in the Book of Numbers. Name after names is listed, like: Continue reading →

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The Curse Of The Law

Posted on August 18, 2025 by bibleteacherorg

The Mosaic Law did not bring a blessing to God’s Israel. In fact, it wasn’t supposed to bring a blessing. God has never ruled His people by Law, but by Promise and by Love. The Law was not given until Mount Sinai, and it was given to Israel to show them that they needed the love of God.

Galatians 3:10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.

Paul is quoting the Bible of his day, from

Deuteronomy 27:26 (ESV) CURSED be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

The Law demanded compliance, or else the curse. God told Israel:

Deuteronomy 28:15-21 But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these CURSED shall come upon thee, and overtake thee: 16 CURSED shalt thou be in the city, and CURSED shalt thou be in the field. 17 CURSED shall be thy basket and thy store. 18 CURSED shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. 19 CURSED shalt thou be when thou comest in, and CURSED shalt thou be when thou goest out. 20 The Lord shall send upon thee CURSED, vexation, and rebuke, in ALL that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly; because of the wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me. 21 The Lord shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until He have consumed thee from off the land, whither thou goest to possess it.

The Law had to be kept perfectly, something that no one but Jesus Christ has ever done. The Law did not bless, but CURSE every aspect of your life. Continue reading →

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