Résultats lu par "Dr. Bill Creasy" dans Toutes les catégories

The story of Job is set during the time of Abraham—the beginning of our story. Here we read that Job “was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil…. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East” (Job 1: 1; 3). Job has done everything God asks; yet his life is a disaster! Placed after Esther, Job calls into question everything we have learned about God in the previous books.

Both Isaiah and Hosea are writing at the same time, during the reigns of kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, 740-686 B.C. In Isaiah 1-35, Isaiah hauls Israel into court, charging her with unfaithfulness, calling out witnesses and finding her guilty. The theme of these chapters is judgment. In Hosea, God says: “You know what I think; now I want you to know how I feel.”

After staging on the Plains of Jericho, the Israelites cross the Jordan River and attack Jericho. It is springtime; the Jordan River is at flood stage; the Israelites approach a heavily fortified city across five miles of open territory; and they attack a city on a plateau, moving up hill. How in the world do the Israelites accomplish this daunting task?

As Paul writes his last will and testament in 2 Timothy, so Peter writes his in 2 Peter. It is A.D. 68, and Peter, like Paul, has been arrested during the persecutions under Nero, then tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. In his second epistle, Peter urges us to remember the foundational teachings of the Gospel and not to be led astray by false teachers and those who serve their own interests, rather than Christ’s. Join Logos Bible Study’s Dr. Bill Creasy as we bid farewell to Peter and listen to his last words of encouragement.

In Revelation 1: 19 the risen and glorified Christ tells John to: “Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later.” That is the basic architectural structure of Revelation: 1) what you have seen (past tense, “what was”: chapter 1); 2) what is now (present tense, “what is at the time John is writing”: chapters 2 & 3); and 3) what will take place later (future tense, “what will be”: chapters 4-22).

St. Paul dominates in the New Testament. Thirteen of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament are attributed to him, and during three missionary journeys, he managed to evangelize all of Asia Minor and a major part of Europe. Today, St. Paul is viewed as the apostle who worked tirelessly to spread the gospel in the ancient world. Yet, Paul began as the great persecutor of the Church.

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.

The Book of Job explores “why bad things happen to good people.” Job is indeed a righteous man, so why are terrible things happening to him? We find our answer in these chapters.

In 1 Kings 4: 32, we read that Solomon’s songs “numbered a thousand and five”: The Song of Songs is #1 on the Hit Parade. A frankly erotic love poem, the Song of Songs speaks of fiery romantic love and crushing loss. As an allegory, it may also speak of God’s love for Israel and of Christ’s love for the Church.

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).

Abraham’s son, Isaac, plays a key role in God’s plan of salvation. But in Genesis 22, God says to Abraham: “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering…!

With Samuel an old man and his sons corrupt, the people demand a king to lead them, like all the other nations have. God tells Samuel, “It is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king” (1 Samuel 8: 7). So the people choose Saul, son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin to be their king (1050-1010 B.C.). Although Saul looks like a king, he lacks the heart of a king, and very quickly the weight of kingship begins to crush him.

Jonah knew that if he delivered God’s message to the Ninevites they would repent and God would save them; but he also knew that even if the Ninevites repented, they would backslide into their old ways. And that’s exactly what happens. The prophet Nahum makes clear what will happen to the capital of the Assyrian empire if they turn away from God.

Paul arrives in Corinth in mid-A.D. 50 and spends 18 months forming a church there. Of all the churches Paul founded, the Church at Corinth presented the greatest challenges and the most difficult problems. When Paul finally leaves Corinth in A.D. 52, he sails home via Ephesus, recognizing an enormous opportunity in that city. In A.D. 54, Paul begins his third missionary journey, going directly to Ephesus and spending most of his time there, A.D. 54-57.

Drawing primarily on Luke and Matthew this session focuses on Jesus’ birth. John writes in his prologue: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... [and] the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1: 1, 14). This is the great miracle in the Bible: God Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, became man and lived among us.

When the kingship and the priesthood become corrupt, God often raises a great prophet to counter them. Ahab reigns over the northern kingdom of Israel (870-853 B.C.) and Asa over the southern kingdom of Judah (910-869 B.C.). Ahab “did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him. To counter such massive corruption and idolatry, God raises one of his greatest prophets, Elijah. His story begins here.

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.

Notice that from Genesis through Judges, our story moves across a linear timeline: We move in a straight line from Genesis through Judges, from creation through roughly 1,000 B.C. Ruth is a recapitulation; it turns around and goes back to “the days when the Judges ruled” (Ruth 1: 1). Back in those awful days, there was Ruth, Naomi, Boaz—and the greatest love story in the Bible.

God then gives his people their second greatest gift: The Tabernacle, a portable structure by which a sinful people gains access to an infinitely holy God.

Although the primary meaning of what a prophet says always emerges from the historical context in which he writes, what he says will sometimes foreshadow messianic or eschatological (“end time”) events. It is our responsibility as educated readers of Scripture to determine when such foreshadowing occurs and when it does not.