opinions and musings

In our previous two studies we found that the word “salvation” in the Old and New Testaments simply means “rescue."   We realized that the context of the Bible passage tells us what someone or some group of people is being rescued from.  Many times in Scripture the people were being rescued by God from physical enemies.  Other times God was rescuing people from their sins and sometimes from sicknesses or from spiritual oppression. As we move now to our final study let’s look at the use of the word “salvation” in the writings of Paul the apostle.   We don’t have time to cover each time that Paul uses the Greek word soterion or one of its derivatives in his writings, but let’s look at three key passages in his letter to the believers at Rome.  (All Bible quotations are from the New American Standard Bible translation, NASB) Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel , for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the ...

In part one of this study on salvation, I wrote about the confusion that we 21 st century folks run into when we read the Bible.   We often read meanings into words that are really not there in the original languages.     Even when we do understand the original meanings of the words, we often add meanings from our 21 st century Christian traditions that the author of those words never intended to convey. We do this so easily that we are not even aware of it. The word “salvation” is a prime example.   When many Christians hear the word salvation, they tend to think of God’s actions in forgiving our sins, giving us His Divine life and placing us in his family.   While it is true that God does all these things for us, the Biblical word salvation in both the Old and New Testaments simply means “rescue.”   I think it is important to reclaim the true Biblical definitions of words like “salvation”, “repentance” and “kingdom” to help us remove the layers of...

We all know that words change meaning over time.  Many of the words we commonly throw around in Christian circles such as salvation, eternal life, hell, etc. have taken on different meanings over the years and have diverged from their original meanings as used in the New Testament.  I think it is important to define our terms and to have clarity on what Jesus or the apostles really meant when they used a certain Greek word.  We tend to read our current cultural Christianity *into* the Scriptures, rather than reading out the meaning that would have been apparent to the first century audience to whom the New Testament was originally written. One of these words is the word “ salvation .”  When we 21 st century evangelical Christians hear the word “saved” or “salvation”, we tend to think, “a state where an individual’s sins are forgiven and they are assured a place in heaven when they die.”  This however is not what the Greek word means that is translated...

One of the truths that I’ve discovered over the past several years is that we can each hear Jesus talking to us personally.    What a wonderful truth this is!   The King of the universe wants to take the time to speak to us individually and to reveal His personal love for us!  If we have surrendered to Him as our Shepherd, that makes us His sheep.  The Lord Jesus tells us in John 10:27 that "my sheep hear my voice."  It's as simple as that!  If the Lord is your shepherd and you are his sheep then you do hear his voice!    You might say, "no, Bill I really don't think I've ever heard the voice of Jesus."   Really?  Let me ask you some questions....Have you ever been going about your daily routine when someone will come to mind and you have a sense to pray for them?   Have you ever been minding your own business not thinking about God and suddenly a praise song starts playing in your mind?  ...

Welcome to the new year of 2013!  For my first post this year I would like to share some thoughts about the humanity of Jesus.   Most of the people I know who follow Jesus believe like I do that he is the God-man.   He is fully God and fully man at the same time.   I believe that the God who created the universe came to the earth in the form of a man named Jesus.    The Bible tells us that Jesus laid aside all his divine power and came to earth as a sinless human being. It is interesting to me that while many people who are not followers of Jesus don’t believe in his divinity, the same seems to be true among many followers of Jesus in regard to his humanity.   We Christians just seem to be uncomfortable talking about and thinking about the humanity of Jesus.   We are quick to acknowledge his divinity – the miracles, the holiness, the power, the resurrection, etc. but slower to acknowledge that he was a human like us who experie...