Being a pastor I am surrounded by preachers and have the opportunity to go to church all of the time, but I seldom have the opportunity to sit down in a church and listen to another brother preach. That is why I am so excited about the upcoming Bible Conference at Southern Hills! It takes place January 27-29 and it will be a blast. We have invited 4 preachers from across the country who will be bringing the Word of God.
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…”
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:
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)
