Leading Question: How certain can we be that we have the truth? 1. Jesus is the way to truth; he is truth: John 14:6. How does the truth in Jesus relate to all the rest...
The Last Five Kings of Judah
October 10, 2015
Leading Question: Is obedience to the law ever a means of gaining favor with God? 1. Gratitude is the key word: Deut. 4:5-8. If defined in terms of its purpose, God’s law was intended as...
Leading Question: To what extent does self-control simply flow from a changed heart, or does it involve blood, sweat and tears as we grapple with temptations, passions and people who irritate us? 1. Two stories:...
Leading Question: When Paul asked the Corinthian believers if he should come to them with a stick or with love in a spirit of gentleness (1 Cor. 4:21), how did he expect to find the...
Leading Question: What is it that inspires us and enables us to be faithful to people, to God? “Saving” faith is a gift of God. But the result of God’s gifts in our life is...
Leading Question: How can God expect good things from people who are bad? When we talk about “goodness” under the heading of “fruit of the Spirit,” several tantalizing paradoxes emerge. We can address these under...
Observations for discussion and questions: The text of 2 John has been translated directly from the Greek in order to get a more literal rendition. Notice that the same sort of style regarding densities of...
Observations for discussion and questions: The Godhead: The clearest examples of triadic formulation of the Godhead are found in Matt 28:19 and 2 Cor 3:14, but even there we do not have any attempt to...
Observations for discussion and questions: The overall unity of this passage may be seen in the density of recurrences of the clause we know that. The subunit of 5:14-17 defined by the recurrences of the...
Observations for discussion and questions: The following passage as a whole is delimited by three recurrences of belief in relation to Jesus: who believes that Jesus is the Son of God (5:5), who believes in...
Observations for discussion and questions: Here again we see John ministering to a community that are suffering from the impact of the schism he mentions later in this chapter. He gives them tests both as...
Observations for discussion and questions: The topic of this lesson focuses on two major passages, 1 John 3:11-24 and 1 John 4:7-5:4. 1 John 3:11-24 is carefully structured by the overall recurrences of we should...
Observations for discussion and questions: The overall unity of 1 John 2:28-3:10 is supported by the recurrences of manifested, everyone, who does/does not do right, children of God, born of him/God. The subsections are demarcated...
Observations for discussion and questions: The principle occasion for the writing of 1 John was most likely a serious schism of the Johannine community over teaching about Christ. There are two well defined passages that...
Life and Death
January 10, 2026
Reasons for Thanksgiving and Prayer
January 3, 2026
Persecuted but Not Forsaken
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Life and Death
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That We May Know Him
January 2, 1999
What Inspiration Is
January 9, 1999