Showing results for "Bill" in Bibles & Bible Study

In this lecture we introduce the four foundational principles upon which our Logos Bible Study program is built. The Bible is: 1) rooted in geography; 2) it emerges from history; 3) it is—in its final, finished form—a unified literary work and 4) it is the Word of God.

Forget about redesigning your living room or adding “curb appeal” - how about redesigning the world? Author Bill Johnson reveals the secrets of using God's unlimited supply of everything to transform your family and community, your job or business, the nation and the world. You were created to be a “design star” by using your unique imagination, creativity, wisdom, and dreams. God has given you a blank check to create a better world - just sign your name!

Paul meets Timothy at the beginning of his second missionary journey. On the first missionary journey (A.D. 46 – 48), Paul visits Lystra, a city in central Asia Minor. It seems he had little success there, as in Lystra “they stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead” (Acts 14: 19). On his return to Lystra in A.D. 50, however, Paul meets Timothy, a young man whose grandmother Lois and mother Eunice had become believers, apparently during Paul’s first visit to Lystra.

“When David was old and well advanced in years, he could not keep warm even when they put covers over him” (1 Kings 1: 1). Old and sick, the consequences of David’s sin continue to dog him. Adonijah, now David’s eldest surviving son, engineers a palace coup to overthrow David. When David learns of the plot, he anoints his son, Solomon, as king (970-930 B.C.). As David’s tenth son, Solomon is nowhere close to being heir to the throne, but David raises him to power to fulfill a promise made to Bathsheba.

When Paul is arrested in Jerusalem in late A.D. 57, it plunges Paul into a legal morass that sees him held under protective custody in Caesarea for nearly two years, transported to Rome for his legal appeal, and two more years waiting in Rome for his court hearing. Altogether, Paul is sidelined for nearly five years, A.D. 58 – 62. It is important to understand that Paul is not a prisoner at this time: He is a Roman citizen, first arrested for inciting a riot, but quickly put under protective custody and sent to Rome for a legal appeal that he initiates.

Sennarcherib, king of Assyria (705-681 B.C.), attacks Jerusalem in 701 B.C., while Hezekiah is king (715-686 B.C.) and Isaiah is prophet (740-686 B.C.). Working together, Hezekiah and Isaiah implore the Lord to save Jerusalem and Judah. And he does. God vows that “[Sennarcherib] will not enter this city or shoot an arrow here” (2 Kings 19: 32). “That night the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp."

In this lesson we turn to future events, what the prophets refer to as “the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” Here we witness the cataclysmic events that the prophets foretell and that Peter foresees in 2 Peter 3: 10—“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.”

Seventy-three of the 150 psalms are traditionally ascribed to David. As we read the "Davidic Psalms," we see deeply into David's heart as he struggles with God, with others and with himself. These psalms are deeply moving and often, brutally honest.

Seventy-three of the 150 psalms are traditionally ascribed to David. As we read the "Davidic Psalms," we see deeply into David's heart as he struggles with God, with others and with himself. These psalms are deeply moving and often, brutally honest.

The march to the Promised Land takes 40 years. But the Israelites do not wander aimlessly in the wilderness during that time. (Recall the old explanation that Moses, like most men, was too stubborn to stop and ask for directions!) Refused passage through Edom on the King’s Highway, Moses diverts northwest to Kadesh Barnea, a large oasis, where the Israelites spend nearly 37 of the 40 years, finally entering the Promised Land through Moab, by a remote and very dangerous desert route.

Although Romans is not the earliest of Paul’s writings, like Isaiah and Matthew, Romans sits at the head of the epistles and letters. Written as a formal argument and structured as a scholastic diatribe, Romans presents Paul’s great thesis that we are saved by grace through faith, not by works of Law. This is revolutionary! Romans, perhaps more than any other book ever written, has fundamentally changed Western civilization, and it is foundational to understanding all of Paul’s other epistles and letters.

Forgiveness of sin does not cancel the consequences of sin. And in 2 Samuel 12 the consequences envelop David. David’s eldest son and heir to the throne, Amnon, rapes his half-sister, Tamar. Absalom, Tamar’s brother and David’s favorite son, murders Amnon in revenge, and then Absalom flees into exile.

By the end of Joshua, the Israelites have a foothold in the land of Canaan, but the conquest raises several critical issues: 1) strategically, how do the Israelites conquer a much stronger and more numerous enemy; 2) can a land conquered so brutally result in a peaceful and blessed life for the conquerors; and 3) what about the moral and ethical issues involved in such a conquest? Joshua is a deeply disturbing story on several levels.

After being sold into slavery by his brothers, Joseph soon becomes “prime minister” of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh himself. The boy is handsome, smart and he always lands on his feet!

With the conflict of sin fully resolved and “the great and dreadful day of the Lord” a memory, our linear narrative doubles back on itself: Revelation 20-22 bring us back to a new beginning. In Revelation 21: 1-5 we read: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband."

Jacob and his wives produce twelve sons, the founders of the twelve tribes of Israel. Jacob’s eleventh son, Joseph, is his favorite, yet none of the twelve tribes is named after him! This is Joseph’s story.

At Mt. Sinai, God gives his covenant people their greatest gift: The Law, ten principles by which a covenant people is to live with God and one another.

While Paul is in Corinth, A.D. 50 – 52, he writes three epistles, two to the church in Thessalonica and one to the churches in Galatia. Paul spends only “three Sabbath days” in Thessalonica (Acts 17: 2) and he encounters such opposition that “as soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea” (Acts 17: 16), lest they be stoned.

If Isaiah is the Thundering Prophet and Jeremiah is the Weeping Prophet, Ezekiel is the Weird Prophet! Ezekiel is taken captive to Babylon after its second attack on Jerusalem, 597 B.C. Ezekiel’s book is set in Babylon and it consists of thirteen separate “visions” that span twenty years. And they are very strange visions, indeed!

As we move through the Bible, we encounter both oral and writing prophets. Elijah and Elisha, for example, are oral prophets, neither one writes anything that we know of. We simply have their stories in 1 & 2 Kings, stories about what they said and did. Writing prophets, on the other hand, write books. Prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and the twelve Minor Prophets commit what they have to say to writing, sometimes in long books like Isaiah (66 chapters), and other times in short books like Obadiah (1 chapter).