Growing up in church, I often heard preachers talk about the flesh and the spirit. As I understood it, the flesh was bad and the spirit was good. I was not to live in the flesh, walk after the flesh, and enjoy fleshly things. Yet, this confused me, because I looked at myself and understood that I was just a guy made out of flesh. So, what is the Bible talking about when it uses that word, flesh?
The majority of the books found in the New Testament are actually letters sent from a particular person to a church, region or individual. We call these books epistles or letters. Some of the letters in the New Testament were long and formal like Romans, while others were short and personal like Philemon. An amanuensis was a professional scribe that was used to physically write the letter while the author would dictate.
I have often sat with those in our church who have recently come to faith in Jesus Christ, as they retell the story of their conversion there is almost without fail a reference to “something missing.” “I had a job, a family and a home. My life seemed good but something was missing. Then I came to Southern Hills… or Then someone shared Christ… or Then I found a Bible…”
This is a guest post from my father Dr. David Teis. Dr. Teis has been the pastor of Liberty Baptist Church in Las Vegas for over 30 years. His wisdom and insight is a tremendous help to me and I pray it will be to you as well. Check out his blog at davidteis.com
The best book I have ever read personally on the subject of prayer is a book by John R. Rice called Prayer Asking and Receiving. Reading that book changed my prayer life. I have read it several times and it always makes an impact on me. The main point is that prayer is asking. It is not thanksgiving. It is not worship. It is not praise. It is not adoration. Prayer is asking. That is what the word means. God wants us to come to Him and ask Him for things.
As a student of Scripture begins to go deeper into the realm of Bible study he will begin to ask or be asked the most frustrating questions. Such as, who wrote this specific book, to whom was it written and when specifically was it written? If we are not careful we will look at these questions as pure trivia without truly understanding the value of their answers. Though it is true that the Scriptures are eternal (Psalm 119:89) and the truest author is the Holy Spirit (II Timothy 3:16), the date of the penning and the human penman are extremely important to a proper understanding of any book of the Bible. For our purposes we will use the book of Acts as an example:
After spending the last 10 years in ministry in Las Vegas I cannot tell you how many times I have asked a person, “Are you a Christian? or How did you become a Christian?” And though I have heard many solid testimonies of God’s saving grace and genuine stories of Biblical conversion, I quite often hear rather unbiblical answers to these simple questions.
When we think of Jesus we think of a man who helped many. He healed the lame, fed the hungry and received the rejected. Then why would they kill him?
I suppose the issue of baptism has been so divisive within the church because of man’s proclivity toward tradition. We hear this most often in the phrase, “Well, that’s just how I was raised.” As if that is an authoritative argument. I propose that we ask with Paul, “What saith the Scripture?” (Rom. 4:3)
