Journey Through The Bible (1 Peter 4)

My thoughts on 1 Peter Chapter 4:

* As believers, we need to prepare our hearts to suffer for Christ, to be ready when that day comes.
* When we suffer for our faith in Christ, it can strengthen our faith and solidify our obedience.
* Before we committed to Jesus, we lived to satisfy ourselves, but after we convert, we start to become concerned with living by God’s will.
* A believer’s refusal to participate in an activity is a silent condemnation of that activity. Be strong.
* Our unbelieving friends will often be hostile toward us (believers) because of our new lifestyle (in Christ). They will one day face God and be judged for their evil.
* Prayer helps us prepare for end times.
* When believers experience deep love for other believers, we will have a human network of support to help us through crisis.
* To cheerfully share one’s home is different from social entertaining. Entertaining focuses on the host while sharing your home focuses on the guest.
* To serve others with God’s strength is to be able to go above and beyond and to do so for one purpose: God will be given glory in everything through Jesus Christ.
* When we suffer for our faith in Christ, we experience the joy of sharing in his glory. People who suffer for the same reasons share a bond.
* We can only receive blessings for suffering when we suffer for faith in Christ. When we suffer from doing evil, we are not blessed.
* We should not seek out suffering for being a Christian, nor should we avoid it. Just do what is right.
* Believers’ suffering is not because God has lost control, it is a purifying process to draw us closer to him.
* God will never fail us if we remain faithful.

Origins (Part 2)

I’m writing about phrases or sayings we know in our culture today that originated from the Bible.

Go the extra mile – This phrase used to describe making an extra or extraordinary effort originated from Jesus. Jesus said this during the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5) when he was teaching this followers about having a serving attitude (Matthew 5:41).

Blind leading the blind - Jesus said this in Matthew 15:14 when he was referring to a group of people who were too proud to follow any way but their own. He said it was like the blind leading the blind.

The Promised Land - Often used as a sports analogy for achieving success, this was first used in the Bible to refer to land God promised to the Israelites (Genesis 15:18).

Looks like a terrific movie!

Origins – Part 1

Although the influence of the Bible on our culture seems to be less and less every day, I’ve been reflecting upon the many sayings we have today that originated from the Bible. I’m sure a lot of people don’t realize some of the things we say actually have a Biblical origin.

Here are a few examples…. You may have heard the phrase “the writing on the wall”, which means some event or some thing (usually bad) is imminent. Did you know that saying originated 2,500 years ago? You can find the passage in Daniel 5, a story about how Daniel was the only person who was able to read a message of prophecy written on a wall for King Belshazzar.

Another common phrase we hear today is when a skeptical person is referred to as a “Doubting Thomas”. The original “doubting Thomas” was a disciple who would not believe that Christ had risen from the grave until he saw it for himself (See John 20).

In the world of sports, it’s not uncommon to hear “David & Goliath” used as a phrase to describe a heavily favored team competing against a weaker opponent. This, of course, refers to the heavily favored soldier, Goliath, fighting against a shepard boy, David. See 1 Samuel 17.

I’ll share more phrases that originated from the Bible over the coming weeks.

Misc. Tech Thoughts

* WINDOWS 7. I’ve been running Windows 7 for about a week now and I have to say that all the reviews stating it’s a terrific operating system are spot on. I’m running the OS on a 3-year-old Dell laptop that previously ran Windows XP, and Windows 7 is running faster than XP did. With a few tweaks (like turning the annoying User Access Control off), I’m happily running all my laptop apps with no problems. And the new features in Windows 7 are cool, but not overwhelming. How impressed should you be by my decision to run Windows 7? This is the earliest I’ve purchased a Windows operating system since Windows 95! I didn’t adopt XP until it was 2 years old and I never did adopt Vista.

* WINDOWS ANTI-VIRUS. Another terrific new product (this one free) from Microsoft is Security Essentials. Like Windows 7, reviews of the product stated it was one of the best AVs available to Windows users. My experience would support that conclusion. I was running AntiVir & Windows Defender on a family member’s computer and it got badly infected with spyware. Defender caught one thing but was waiting for someone to direct it what to do. Antivir also caught one item and deleted it, after it prompted me what to do.

After putting Microsoft Security Essentials on the computer and running a scan, it found another eight items that it immediately removed (without need for user intervention) that were apparently missed by the other two products. AntiVir, according to most reviews, had the best virus recognition available among the free anti-virus programs.

I highly recommend Microsoft Security Essentials for your Windows PC. It’s free, it’s excellent and requires only a small amount of memory to run.

* LAST WORD: In case you’re wondering, the Mac is still my preferred platform (I’m writing this post on a Mac).

Journey Through The Bible (1 Peter 3)

As I continue in my study of 1 Peter, here are my thoughts from Chapter 3:

- A wife’s submission to her husband does not mean she is a doormat. A wife’ submission to her husband is often misunderstood today.
- Beauty and adornments have their proper place, but should be kept in perspective. Christian women should let their beauty shine from within, which comes from trusting Jesus.
- Men: respect your wife. This means you will protect, honor, and help her. This means men should listen to their wives’ counsel, be considerate of her needs and treat her with love, courtesy, insight and tact.
- Wives are equal to their husbands in spiritual privileges.
- Men who misuse their authority over their wives will suffer in their relationship with God.
- Unity is a critical component for Christians living in the world. We must 1) Be of one mind, 2) be full of sympathy, 3) have love for Christian brothers & sisters, 4) have tender hearts, 5) have humble minds (verse 8).
- Jesus teaches us to resist our natural temptation to pay evil with evil, but to instead pay evil with a blessing. We give the enemy ammunition when respond with evil.
- Joy comes from trusting God no matter what our outward circumstances.
- God will watch over those who do right.
- We shouldn’t worry about the persecution from people; they have no control over our eternal lives.
- We don’t all need to be theologians or scholars, but all believers needs to be prepared to explain our reasons for being a Christian.
- Each time we deliberately ignore our conscience we harden our heart.
- It’s better to suffer for good than to suffer for doing evil.
- We shouldn’t sin because we suffer. Look at Christ; he suffered greatly but never sinned.
- Noah being saved from drowning is a picture of baptism; it was the power of God through His promise that saved Noah.
- Baptism is an appeal to God from a clean conscience; this is what saves us today, not simply the act of baptism.