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OnceDelivered.net: 2011 in review

31 Dec

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for OnceDelivered.net. You can read the full report below and see which posts were most popular, how many visitors came to the Web site, and more. Thanks for visiting OnceDelivered.net this year. Please check back regularly in 2012. We might even finish our study of Revelation (but I’m not making any resolutions).

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 34,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 13 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

 
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Posted by on December 31, 2011 in Uncategorized

 

1 Timothy – download the free study

28 Dec

Between his first and second imprisonments in Rome, Paul writes a letter of encouragement and instruction to Timothy, whom Paul has left as overseer of the church at Ephesus. Timothy faces some tough challenges: false teaching, leadership and organizational problems, and an absence of sound doctrine. Sound like the local church today? This 11-part study explores how Paul urges Timothy to face these challenges head-on, with the goal of “love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.”

Download the complete study (pdf)

 
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Posted by on December 28, 2011 in Uncategorized

 

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Are there times we shouldn’t talk about Jesus?

19 Dec

Consider Matt. 8:4 – Then Jesus told him, “See that you don’t tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses prescribed, as a testimony to them.”

Is the leper whom Jesus healed really not to tell anyone? Obviously, he has to say something to the priest in order to fulfill the requirements of the law. But what about his family, friends and others in the community? Is he expected to hide this obvious miracle from their eyes — especially since now, for perhaps the first time in years, he’s able to have personal contact with the ones he loves? What’s the point of Jesus’ stern command?

Quite simply, it appears Jesus is making it clear that the time has not yet come for Him to be fully revealed as the promised Messiah. Although in some private settings — as with the Samaritan woman at the well and in the presence of His closest disciples — He affirms His Messianic identity, He carefully calculates the day in which He must ride triumphantly into Jerusalem and be hailed King of the Jews. Until Palm Sunday, however, He must continue His earthly ministry without inciting His followers to prematurely declare Him King or His detractors to prematurely seek His death. All is done in God’s perfect timing. His command to the healed leper to hold his tongue looks to His future date with destiny, when He is declared King and fulfills the role of Suffering Servant in a single week.

The apostle Paul puts it well in Gal. 4:4-5: “But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (KJV)

One final note: After Christ’s resurrection, the recipients of His grace are never commanded to hide the message of the Messiah.

 
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Posted by on December 19, 2011 in Uncategorized

 

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10 reasons we suffer

09 Dec

Horatio G. Spafford was a prominent attorney in Chicago in the 1800s and a friend of evangelist Dwight L. Moody. While Spafford was both respected and comfortable, he was not free from severe hardship. First, he lost his four-year-old son to scarlet fever. Then his real estate investments along Lake Michigan literally went up in flames in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Not long after that, his four daughters drowned in a shipwreck, and his wife Anna survived the ordeal only because the ship’s debris buoyed her as she floated, unconscious, in the Atlantic Ocean.

Crossing the sea to join his bereaved wife, Spafford was called to the captain’s deck as the ship sailed past the foamy deep where his daughters were lost. The captain informed him that the waters there were three miles deep. Returning to his cabin, Spafford penned these words to the now-famous hymn:

When peace like a river attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll;

Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,

It is well, it is well with my soul

Why did such tragedy befall this godly man? Spafford may have wondered why, but ultimately he rested in the sovereignty of God.

Everyone can better appreciate God’s sovereignty, even in the darkest nights, by observing 10 biblical reasons we suffer.

Read about them here.

 
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Posted by on December 9, 2011 in Uncategorized

 

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What about those who have never heard of Jesus?

23 Nov

What about those who have never heard of Jesus? Christians often are asked this question. In fact, a fellow believer put this very question to me the other day. It’s a very difficult question to address, and one that I struggle with answering. At the same time, God’s Word is not silent on the issue, and we should glean the Bible’s clear teachings to discern answers to it’s thornier doctrinal issues. There are, for example, some important biblical truths to ponder as we address this question.

Read more.

 
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Posted by on November 23, 2011 in Uncategorized

 

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Seven reasons to trust the scriptures

13 Nov

Muslims claim The Koran is the perfect revelation of Allah given to the prophet Muhammad by the angel Gabriel. It corrects corrupted Jewish and Christian scriptures and supersedes all other religious writings.

Members of the Unification Church say Divine Principle is their written authority, coming from the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, “the Lord of the Second Advent” who completed the work Jesus left unfinished when Jesus died on the cross rather than marrying and having children.

Mormons profess belief in four standard works: The Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, and the Bible (“as far as it is translated correctly”). The Book of Mormon is especially important, recording Jesus’ appearance in America to the descendants of a Jewish prophet; it is, in Mormon teaching, “Another Testament of Jesus Christ.”

Adherents to the Church of Scientology study Dianetics, a book by one-time science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, who claimed that people are eternal beings who go through a series of rebirths and must shed the negative baggage from past lives in order to become “operating thetans.”

Then, of course, there’s the Bible, which most Christians agree is the Word of God.

Add to these the sacred writings of countless other belief systems – from Buddhism to Baha’ism – and the claims to truth are astounding in their number and variety.

But which of these books is really true? Is it possible that all of them contain some truth – or that all of them are true for the people who choose to believe them? Is it narrow-minded, arrogant, or even bigoted to say that any of these writings is false? Why do Christians insist that the Bible is the Word of God? Can’t we all just get along?

Most Christians believe in the veracity of Scripture. That is, we trust the Bible to be the inerrant, infallible, inspired Word of God and the authoritative source of all we believe and practice. By inerrant, we mean the original autographs are without error. By infallible, we mean the Bible is incapable of error because God, as its author, does not lie or make mistakes. By inspired, we mean the Bible is “God breathed.” And by authoritative, we mean that the Bible, as God’s Word, is His written revelation to us and must therefore guide our thoughts, words and deeds.

But are there sound reasons to trust the scriptures? Indeed, there are.

Listen. Read. Learn more.

 
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Posted by on November 13, 2011 in Uncategorized

 

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Contradictions — and too many translations: Can we really trust the Bible?

30 Oct

Can we really trust the Bible? After all, critics say it’s full of contradictions. Plus, there’s an alphabet soup of translations — from the KJV to the NIV, and the NASB to the HCSB.

When someone raises the “contradiction” objection, a reasonable first response is, “Show me one.” Often, the person cannot do so. However, it must be acknowledged that there are numerous places in Scripture where there are seemingly conflicting testimonies and apparent contradictions. If the Bible comes from God, and if God neither lies nor makes mistakes, how do we reconcile these Bible difficulties? There are good explanations for these seeming contradictions.

Even so, the explosion of modern Bible translations has led some people to ask, “Which version is right?” and others to conclude that because there is so much variation between translations, none of them is correct. Keep in mind, however, that the autographs, or original documents, of Scripture are inerrant – not the subsequent copies and translations. Even though there are dozens of English translations that differ in varying degrees from one another, we have a high degree of confidence that the source documents from which these versions come are accurate representations of the autographs.

Listen. Read. Learn more.

 
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Posted by on October 30, 2011 in Uncategorized

 

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Lost originals. Multiple copies. Thousands of variations. Can we trust the Bible?

21 Oct

Two commonly raised objections to the Bible are: 1) No one really knows what the Bible says because the original manuscripts are lost; and 2) The Bible has been copied so many times, with so many variations, there’s no way to know what was originally scripted.

It is true that the “autographs,” or original manuscripts, written on a variety of degradable surfaces from parchment to papyrus, no longer exist. But the fact that so many copies exist — dating back in some cases to within a generation of their authorship — is powerful evidence for the trustworthiness of scripture. In fact, no other book from the ancient world has more, earlier, or better copied manuscripts than the Bible.

Read. Listen. Learn more.

 
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Posted by on October 21, 2011 in Uncategorized

 

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The Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot)

13 Oct

Today marks the first day of the Jewish celebration of Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles. It is the seventh and final feast God gave Israel. It is the most festive of all the feasts and is mentioned more often in scripture than any of the others. The word sukkot in Hebrew is translated “tabernacles” in English and means booths or huts. Throughout this seven-day feast, the Jews are required to live in temporary shelters to remind them of God’s provision during their 40 years of wilderness wandering. The holiday also is called the Feast of Ingathering (Ex. 23:16; 34:22) because it is observed after all the fall crops are harvested. This happy feast commemorates God’s past provision in the desert and His present goodness in providing the fall harvest.

The feast begins on the 15th day of Tishri (September/October), five days after the Day of Atonement. The first day of Tabernacles and the day after Tabernacles (known as Shemini Atzeret) are sacred assemblies, or Sabbaths. No work is permitted on these days. This is one of three pilgrim feasts, along with Unleavened Bread and Weeks (Pentecost), requiring all Jewish males to appear before the Lord in the Temple.

Learn more about the Feast of Tabernacles:

Sukkot – Part 1

Sukkot – Part 2

Download a free study:  Jesus in the Feasts of Israel

 
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Posted by on October 13, 2011 in Uncategorized

 

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Rosh Hashanah and the Rapture

28 Sep

Today at sundown, Jews around the world will celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. This celebration is more than a secular event, however. It is rooted deeply in Jewish life and worship. One of the seven major Jewish feasts, Rosh Hashanah also is called the Feast of Trumpets, and the ram’s horn, or shofar, plays a prominent role.

Many Jewish Christians, and their Gentile brothers and sisters, see the significance of this feast as pointing to the rapture of the church — the physical removal of Christians from this world to meet the Messiah in the air. Just as the four spring feasts (Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, and Pentecost) signified the work of the Messiah in His first coming and priestly ministry, the three autumn feasts (Trumpets, Atonement, and Tabernacles) depict the Messiah’s second coming and kingly reign.

The sounding of the shofar and the resurrection of the dead are connected in the New Testament. Consider these passages:

  • 1 Cor. 15:51-52 – “Listen! I am telling you a mystery: We will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed.”
  • 1 Thess. 4:16-17 – “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are still alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will always be with the Lord.”

In Old Testament times, the reasons for trumpet blasts were well established. It appears their purposes continue in events to come, if indeed Rosh Hashanah foreshadows our resurrection. The reasons for sounding the shofar are:

  • To gather an assembly before the Lord (the rapture of the church).
  • To sound a battle alarm (God will defeat Satan and his rebellious followers). 
  • To announce the coronation of a new king (Jesus the Messiah will sit on the throne of David as King of kings and Lord of lords).

Listen to podcasts or read Rosh Hashanah Part 1 and Rosh Hashanah Part 2.

Download a free study: Jesus in the Feasts of Israel.

 
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Posted by on September 28, 2011 in Uncategorized

 

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