Resultados narrador por "Dr. Bill Creasy" en Todas las categorias

The Babylonian Captivity is catastrophic for the Jews. In Psalm 137 we read: “By the waters of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion” (Psalm 137: 1). And 1 Chronicles 9: 1 tells us: “The people of Judah were taken captive to Babylon because of their unfaithfulness.” Cyrus the Great king of Persia (559-530 B.C.—modern-day Iran) conquers Babylon by 540 B.C., and following his enlightened policies allows the people conquered by Assyria and Babylon to return to their homes and rebuild.

Traditionally ascribed to Jude, a brother of both James and the Lord, mentioned in Matthew 13:58, Jude had wanted to write a rather thorough theological treatise, but present circumstances in the church compel him to address a different topic: what believers can do in days of apostasy. Written sometime in the late 80s or early 90s, this epistle offers very practical advice for those living in what appear to be the "end times".

Often incorrectly referred to as one of Paul’s “prison epistles” (he was not in prison in Rome in A.D. 60-62; he was living in his own rented house, free to come and go as he pleased), Ephesians is a brilliant exposition of Paul’s thesis that we are “saved by grace through faith”. It is also a glittering display of Paul’s rhetorical fireworks. Logos Bible Study’s Dr. Bill Creasy examines this extraordinary epistle in detail.

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?

A very short personal letter by John to “the lady chosen by God and her children”, 2 John may be addressed to a literal woman and her children, or perhaps to a specific church (the “lady”) and her members (her “children”). In either case, John emphasizes that love must be rooted in truth, a concept that we often ignore today. Amusingly, John ends his short epistle by saying: “I have much to write to you, but I don’t want to use paper and ink.” Instead, he says, I’ll be stopping by for visit soon!

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.

Saul of Tarsus was one of the most brilliant young men of his generation. He was being groomed for leadership in the Jewish community, and he was destined for greatness. With the birth of the Church and its rapid growth, Saul saw the threat posed by this emerging, radical sect of Judaism, and he took it upon himself to lead a fierce persecution against it.

It is A.D. 68, the final year of Nero’s four-year persecution of the church, and Paul has been arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to death. In 2 Timothy Paul writes his “last will and testament,” appointing Timothy as the one who will take over Paul’s ministry after his death. At this point, Timothy has spent eighteen years with Paul and their relationship has developed into that of a father and a son.

As the Davidic psalms take us inside the heart of David, so do Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs take us inside the heart of Solomon. In 1 Kings 4: 32 we read that Solomon “spoke three thousand proverbs.” In the book of Proverbs we have 375 of them. In the classical genre of “advice to a son” literature, Proverbs offers sound advice for a young person going out into the world for the first time.

In Leviticus, God tells his people to “be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy” (Leviticus 19: 2). Leviticus is a handbook of holiness. Here God prescribes the five great sacrifices that enable a sinful people to be brought into fellowship with a holy God: 1) the burnt offering; 2) the grain offering; 3) the peace offering; 4) the sin offering; and 5) the guilt offering. Four of these five are animal sacrifices.

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.

As a church born in the flames of persecution, the church at Thessalonica has several very important questions to ask Paul - especially about the Lord’s return - and Paul addresses these questions in 1 Thessalonians. Enjoy the rich discussion Logos Bible Study’s Dr. Bill Creasy brings to this book as he emphasizes Paul’s words of faith, hope, and love.

Read through a Christian interpretative lens, Daniel foreshadows the coming of the Messiah as well as the “end time” events in the book of Revelation. Daniel is a very important book for Jesus, who draws his self-referential title “Son of Man” from Daniel 7:13-14; who quotes directly from Daniel 12 in the Olivet Discourse; and who seals his “guilty” verdict before Jerusalem’s religious leaders by reference to the book of Daniel.

Titus is classified among Paul’s letters, but I put it in this lesson before turning to the General Epistles. The General Epistles are all those correspondences written by anyone other than Paul: Hebrews, once attributed to Paul, is now attributed to an anonymous author, someone in Paul’s inner circle; James is attributed to “James, the Lord’s brother” and the leader of the church in Jerusalem (Galatians 1: 19); 1 & 2 Peter are attributed to the Apostle Peter; 1,2,3 John are attributed to the Apostle John; and Jude is attributed to Jude, another of the Lord’s brothers (Matthew 13: 55).

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.

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.

Totally exhausted and spent, God assigns Elijah three more tasks to accomplish to complete his job: 1) on the international stage, “anoint Hazael king over Aram [Syria]”; 2) on the domestic stage, “anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel”; and 3) on the personal front, “anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet” (1 Kings 19: 15-16). Meanwhile, Jehoshaphat, king of Judah (869-848 B.C.), arranges a tentative peace between Israel and Judah.

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.”

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.

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.