We begin the Firm Foundations course by asking the biggest question – what is our purpose in life? The Westminster Shorter Catechism gives this famous answer: “To glorify God and enjoy him forever”. But what does that mean, and how do we do it?
Find out more about the Firm Foundations course by watching the Introduction.
Introducing a new course “Firm Foundations – building a faith that will last”.
This is a new course which I will be starting next week. Each new video will be uploaded to the YouTube channel.
The course itself is based on Thomas Watson’s classic book – a collection of sermons called A Body of Divinity. This in turn draws on the Westminster Shorter Catechism (published 1647). Generations of Christians have found Watson to be of immense spiritual and practical value, and in my opinion it’s hard to beat! This is why it’s still in print nearly 400 years later: it’s tried and tested.
I hope that you enjoy it – do subscribe on YouTube, or sign up to the mailing list to get new videos each week. You might also be interested in the other courses which are available on Understand the Bible, such as the Creed, the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer.
In the final part of the Lord’s Prayer series, we look at the line: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”. Why do we find the Christian life a battle against evil? What are we fighting against – and how do we win?
See more courses, including the Apostle’s Creed and Ten Commandments, on the courses index.
Learn to pray with the Lord’s Prayer – part 6: Do we just need to pray for forgiveness once? Or every time we sin? And why is it so important to forgive others?
The Apostle’s Creed course is available as a whole course here on the website, or you can watch The God Who Dies as an individual session.
See more courses, including the Apostle’s Creed and Ten Commandments, on the courses index.
Learn to pray with the Lord’s Prayer – part 5: What does it mean to pray for our daily bread? And why should we bother when we can buy the things that we need with the money we earn?
See more courses, including the Apostle’s Creed and Ten Commandments, on the courses index.
Learn to pray with the Lord’s Prayer – part 4: what does it mean to pray ‘your will be done’? Does it mean giving up everything we want? And how do we know what God’s will is for us anyway?
See more courses, including the Apostle’s Creed and Ten Commandments, on the courses index.
Learn to pray with the Lord’s Prayer – part 3: what is the kingdom of God, and how can we pray this today?
In this session we start by looking at what the kingdom of God actually is, then we think about how that works out in the church and then society.
The session from the creed I refer to is #11 – Eternal Life.
See more courses, including the Apostle’s Creed and Ten Commandments, on the courses index.
Learn to pray with the Lord’s Prayer – part 2: what does ‘Hallowed be your name’ even mean, and how can we pray it today?
In the video we think about what a ‘name’ is, what it means for it to be ‘hallowed’, and how we can learn to pray from it. In particular we think about praying for ourselves and praying for others.
The session I referred to from the Ten Commandments series is Misusing God’s Name.
See more courses, including the Apostle’s Creed and Ten Commandments, on the courses index.
Learn to pray with the Lord’s Prayer – part 1: should we use the Lord’s Prayer as a set prayer? And what does it mean to say ‘Our Father in heaven’?
See more courses, including the Apostle’s Creed and Ten Commandments, on the courses index.
As I promised at the end of the Ten Commandments course, in this new term I will be starting a new series on the Lord’s Prayer. Through the last 2000 years, countless Christians have learned how to pray using the Lord’s Prayer: although there are many prayers in the Bible, there is only one prayer which is given as a model to us by the Lord Jesus himself.
You can find the prayer in the Bible in Luke 11 or Matthew 6 (in the Sermon on the Mount). The prayers are slightly different to each other and probably a little different to the version you might be familiar with.
This is the version of the prayer from Matthew. Here Jesus uses ‘debts’ instead of ‘sins’ and ‘the evil one’ is used instead of ‘evil’:
“Our Father in heaven,
Matthew 6:9-13
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.”
For many people throughout the world – Christian or not – these will be familiar words. But, despite their familiarity, they still have much to teach us about how we should pray. This short prayer helps us to know how we should relate to God every day.
Starting next week we will be working slowly through the prayer, line-by-line, to see what we can learn about how to approach God and how we should pray.
If you’d like to be notified about videos as and when they go live, please subscribe on YouTube – alternatively, if you sign up to the mailing list you’ll get a weekly email with new content.
If you can’t wait until next week, you might like to watch this session on prayer as part of the How to Live as a Christian course.
