Bible Study for the Biblically Challenged Anyone?

As promised, here we go!

*"dead in Christ shall rise"   as explained in my study bible and my own thoughts and understanding:

To get a full sense of what is going on here in the letter Paul was writing to Thessalonica we need to start with verse 13.  The term "fallen asleep" was a metaphor for dying. Though Paul taught the Thessalonians about Christ's return, some of the new converts were questioning Timothy regarding the recent deaths of other new believers.  Paul answers these questions to give them comfort of knowing they will see their loved ones again.   This was a hope that non believers did not have then and still don't have today.

In verse 14 Paul emphasizes that Jesus died and had risen again and this alone is proof that those who call on His name, too shall conquer the grave, and spend eternity with Jesus. 

Now let's look here in verse 14  "bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus."  Some say that this statement implies that Christians who have already died are in the grave physically, but merely "unconscious" until the Second Coming.  BUT the Bible indicates that to be absent from our present body is to be present with the Lord:

1Thes 5: 10 "Who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him."

2 Cor 5: 8 "We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord." 

Phil 1:23  " For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better." 

With that all said, Christians can be assured that when we die, we are immediately in the presence of the Lord.  Our bodies are in the grave, but our souls are with Him.  So Paul answers their questions, and in turn our questions, by affirming that actually those who have died will go before (v. 16) those living on earth.

I personally believe that when Christ comes back and the "dead shall rise to meet Him in the air" means that our souls re-unite with our physical bodies, but not the old body, a brand new body.  I don't know if we will look physically the same, or if this change comes so deep within from being with Christ that we are "transformed" in Him.  But I don't think any of us will care what we look like anymore.

I am also doing the study of Revelations on the new forum http://www.breastcanswers.com/index.html and there was a question posted there regarding the "Rapture" versus "Christ's second coming" and aren't they the same event. 

They are two seperate events and here is what I posted there:

The Rapture is Christ calling up all believers to Heaven so that we protected from the Tribulation. Those who remain will have to go through the Tribulation. The Bible states that those who remain will be changed (prob scared out of thier minds) and that many will then believe in Jesus Christ and will accept Him as their Lord and Savior. The good news for them is that they will then be guaranteed life everlasting with Christ. The bad news for them, is they will be here for all the wrath and destruction and many will die because they accepted Christ.

The Second Coming of Christ takes place AFTER the Tribulation. Revelations 19 & 20 tell of the second coming and Rev 20: 1 - 10 tell of how all believers in Christ will reign with Him for 1000 yrs before the "Great White Throne of Judgement."

This 4 part series gets into the details of all I have mentioned. These things I do truly believe will come to pass exactly as John tells it.

One thing I know for sure is if I live my life believing in Christ and believing the Bible is God's word, I have nothing to lose. If I die and none of it was true, there is no consequence.

BUT if I live my life NOT believing in Christ and I don't study God's word to know Him better I have everything to lose. I would die, see that it was all true, and be condemned to He!!.

I'll take my chances with Christ Jesus.

See EWB, one of the reasons I LOVE you and love this thread, is because I think questions like yours are SO IMPORTANT for everyone to understand so that their faith can grow and put all uncertainties aside.

I am going to spend some time in prayer and with the scriptures before I give you MY personal understanding and beliefs of Jesus, His life, His role, and His resurrection.  I would just ramble it off now, as it is so clear in my head, but I know God needs me to spend some time with Him, because this is about you and not about me.

I have chemo at 1:30 and will be back after 3:30.  I will respond sometime after that.  In the meantime, hopefully others will post thier beliefs and understandings so that you have more insight. 

I still think it is important to hear from more than just me. 

You just keep your communication open with God, and you will know in your heart when His truth is revealed to you. Once you know it, you will have this unexplained peace deep in your gut, no matter what life throw at you.

I am working on it.  Keep checking back

Well I just want you both to know, I certainly did not take this question lightly.  In fact, I have spent over 3 hours in my Bible, but I LOVE doing that, so   So here I go:

Salvation Through Jesus Christ

Jesus has been the flesh form of God since the earth was made: Gen 1:26-27; John 1:14; 1Tim 3:16

God lets us know in the O.T. that He is coming to us in the flesh:  Isaiah 7:14 - 16; 9:6 - 7; Malachi 3:1

Salvation through Jesus Christ was established in the O.T. start as early as:  Gen 3:15

He is recognized as the Savior as an infant and in His childhood:  Luke 2:30 - 32; 2:40

Began witnessing at age 12:  Luke 2: 41 - 50

Jesus resurrection was witnessed as He walked from Jerusalem to Damascus by over 500 people, for 40 days and recorded 23 times in the N.T.:  1 Cor 15:6 & Acts 1:3

His resurrection is our assurance of life everlasting.  If He does not conquer the grave, then how can we possibly conquer it.

The whole purpose of His coming was to be our Savior:  Isaiah 35:4; 45:22

It was established back in the O.T. that we can not come into the presence of God Almighty because we are of sin.  He can not be where sin is, except in flesh form.  (Leviticus is an excellent book of the Bible that tells of how we are to come before God)  So we must come through Jesus - God in the Flesh.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly is we are to live by faith.

            Romans 1:16 - 17  "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.  For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.'"

Established through Jesus Christ:

            Romans 5: 8 - 11  "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.  For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.   And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement."

In closing, the Bible is full of why Jesus came to earth in the first place.  To give His life for us so that we too will have life everlasting.  If we are not to call on Jesus, then His crucifixion was for nothing, meant nothing, and does nothing.  It is easier to understand my only way to God is through Him in flesh form-Jesus- accepting Him as my savior, than to try and figure out a "justification" for not accepting Him, that there "should" be more than one way to Him, there "must" be more than one way to Heaven.  If this were true, why bother to send Jesus to do all He has done.  Sin wouldn't matter, there would be no consequence for not believing, it would have been in vain and totally useless. 

And I lose NOTHING by accepting Jesus as my Savior, but if I dont, and die and see that the bible is true, then it is too late, and I lose everything.

Here is how I respond to your first two questions.  I dont want to give my responses all at one time, be too much reading and I don't want anything to be missed.  I'm gonna do seperate posts.  I feel this stuff is way too important and eveyone needs time to research and review the scriptures.

Because I think it is important for everyone to read God's word, I am only going to include the actual verses sparingly.  Please look up any referenced scripture, God may speak to you differently, and I don't want you to miss what He is saying:

1.  What sins did Jesus willingly die for?

Sin:  The origin of sin is a mystery, and will remain a mystery to us. For some reason God has permitted sin to enter this world.  

Deuteronomy 29:29  "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law." 

God has us on a "need to know" basis, because He wants us to have faith - the primary idea is to trust.

Adam's sin (Gen 3:1-6) consisted of his giving in to temptation and eating the forbidden fruit. It involved (1) the sin of unbelief, and (2) the guilt of disobedience.  

Sins listed:  Galatians 5:19-21, Romans 1:29, in addition to the Ten Commandments (Ex 20:1 - 17) pretty well covers them all.

2.  Why does His death cover our sins for what we do in our lifetime?

Romans 3:23 "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."  

Since we are all sinners, we all need forgiveness.  During the Old Testament days, the only atonement for sin was animal sacrifice.  They had to be perfect and the best a man had to offer.  The best bull, the perfect lamb.  Partly because God is perfect, and partly to show that they would give up the very best they had to God and not hold the best/perfect animal in a higher regard to God by substituting a "less valuable" animal.  The problem though was, these sacrifices had to be done over and over and over again through out the year.

This wasn't the way God had ever intended to accept atonement for sins, but He commanded it in order to establish the way to be forgiven was to offer up the very best, and shed the blood of the very best. 

In the OT sacrifices also resembled "death of sin" by the death of the sacrifice.  The death of Jesus, shedding His blood was the ultimate perfect sacrifice, the final death to our sins, because there is nothing left to sacrifice.  No animal or person can top Jesus, so any sacrifice after Him would be obsolete.

His resurrection guarantees us ever lasting life.  With all the powers of God witnessed throughout the OT, the resurrection of Jesus is the ultimate display of Divine power.

We are sinners, and we will sin until the day we die because of Adam and Eve.   

There is nothing left in our lifetime that we can do to be forgiven now except to believe that Jesus did pay the final price for our sins. 

Hebrews 10:10 "By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."

patoo, thank you so much for posting here!  My son was having some doubts a few years ago, and in an effort to help him better understand the Bible, I spent hours studying it.  Then I started reading at Genesis and read it straight thru to Revelations.  It was his questioning that broguth me to a whole new level in my Christian walk.  I say "ask, ask, ask" !  LOL

The Nelson's study Bible is out of print in some areas.  I bought 2 online for Christmas presents in Dec.  and they were only about 35$.  I will look to see if I can find the website and post it here for you.

I do believe we can never have too many Bibles!  I have 2 on my BlackBerry, 2 on my laptop, 2 KJV, 2 NKJV, 1 NIV, and my daughter has GW so I can use it whenever I want.  I guess it also just proves my "OCD"  less the "C" as I am not compulsive, but absolutely obsessive.  LOL 

yep.

Lu, I am glad you stuck with Genesis.  keep reading it and asking.  We can talk about more than one subject at the time.  Besides, I think Genesis and Revelations are intertwined

Elaine, 5, 6, & 7---my responses to some tuff yet excellent questions 

 5.    What do I need to believe about Jesus, and what happens if I do?

John 7:38, Acts 16:31, Romans 7:24, Romans 6:17, Eph 2:4 - 9,

6.  Why isn't believing in God not the same as believing in Jesus?

Romans 3:22 "even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe.  For there is no difference;"

John 1:1-4  " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through Him and without Him nothing was made that was made.  In Him was life and the life was the light of men."

John 1:14  "And the Word became flesh and dwelt amoung us, and we beheld His glory as the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth."

John 8:12  " Then Jesus spoke to them saying, 'I am the light of the world.  He who follows Me sahl no walk in darkness, but have the light of life'."

and lastly John 8:19 Jesus tells us if we know Him then we know our Father. 

See Jesus is God, and if one doesn't believe in Jesus, how can one then say they believe in God?  For it is much more of faith to say "Yes, I beleive in Jesus Christ, Son of God, God in the flesh".  Millions of people say "I believe in God."  But what does that mean?  Does it mean they believe in a higher power? 

If so, this "higher power" in infinite wisdom and strength, who can flood the whole earth, part the Red Sea, turn a rod into a serpent and back again, cause plagues in Egypt, feed 5000 with 5 loaves of bread, rain manna from Heaven to feed the children of Israel, tumble the Wall of Jericho, save 3 men from the burning furnace, hide Lot from the soldiers, protect Jonah in the belly of the whale,TAKE A TINY GRAIN OF NOTHING AND MAKE THIS ENTIRE UNIVERSE, yet believe that He can't become flesh and walk amoung us?  Believe that God has the power to save us from death, from the grave with the promise of a place called Heaven, which BTW, we HAVE NOT seen, but He can't come in the flesh that 1000's DID see and touch and hear and smell?

If one denies ONE miracle, they deny them all when it pertains to God.  Why would God give us the Bible, His word, that was compounded over centuries by many, many prophets, yet NEVER changed, only to be "making up" the part about becoming flesh and dwelling here?

SO........believing in Jesus, IS believing in God, but to deny Jesus, is to deny God.

7.  Is Jesus the "Front Man" for "the group"?  Nope:  

1 John 5:7 " For there are three that bear witness in Heaven: the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three agree as one."

EWB, I have "Nelson's Study Bible, NKJV" and it is my favorite.  I also have "New Student Bible, NIV" which is also very good, it just doesn't have as much help in it as the Nelson's does.