Course Archives - Page 17 of 19 - Understand the Bible

The Holy Spirit (Heidelberg 20)

Posted on 7th December 20207th December 2020 by Phill Sacre

What can we know about the Holy Spirit, and why does it matter to us as Christians? The Apostle’s Creed doesn’t have much detail about the Spirit but in this session we look at a few Bible verses which help introduce us to the work of the Spirit.

There is just one Q&A in this session, as the Apostles’ Creed only has the line: “I believe in the Holy Spirit”! But we look into it in a bit more detail, as it’s vital to understand the Holy Spirit in the Christian life.

We focus in on these points:

The Spirit is eternal God, along with the Father and the Son;
He has been given to us personally;
He makes us share in Christ and his blessings;
He comforts us;
He is with us forever.

If you enjoy this, you can do the whole series right here on the website, or on the app (see links on the right hand side of the page). Alternatively, I am uploading them regularly to YouTube and Facebook. All sessions on YouTube are available on this playlist.

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God is… three persons (Trinity)

Posted on 26th November 202027th November 2020 by Phill Sacre

In this final part of our Get to know God series, we turn to thinking about how God is three persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is traditionally known as the doctrine of the Trinity. Sometimes people can have the idea that the Trinity is too difficult to think about, or it doesn’t really make much difference to everyday life. But, as theologian D.B. Knox said: “The doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation of the Christian religion”. It’s essential to our Christian lives: we experience God as Trinity. It matters that we don’t just think of ‘God’, but think in terms of the Father, Son and Spirit.

Obviously there are many books which have been written about this topic (and I’ll link to some of them below). We won’t be able to deal with the whole doctrine of the Trinity in one session! But I hope this will at least make a start so you want to continue learning yourself.

Let’s start by thinking about what the Bible says, before we go on to look at why it matters for us day-by-day.

What does the Bible say about the Trinity?

The doctrine of the Trinity is somewhat veiled in the Old Testament. That is, it’s there if you know what you’re looking for – there are some passages which don’t make sense any other way. And yet, we don’t really get the full picture until the New Testament. Because we don’t have much time here, we’ll concentrate on the New Testament for the moment.

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God is… maker and preserver of all things

Posted on 24th November 202024th November 2020 by Phill Sacre

In the ninth (and penultimate) part of the Get to know God series, we’re looking at how God is the maker and preserver of all things. This means that God made everything, but he also ‘preserves’ everything – he keeps it going day-by-day, moment by moment. If you’ve been following the series, you’ll know the drill by now: we’ll start out looking at what the Bible says about it, then we’ll think about how it applies to us today.

What the Bible says

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:1

Genesis 1:1 is one of the most famous verses in the Bible. So famous, in fact, that we probably don’t give it the attention that it deserves. We often skip over it. But let’s spend a bit of time thinking about it. What do these few words say about God’s creation?

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Our King and Judge (Heidelberg 19)

Posted on 23rd November 2020 by Phill Sacre

This is another topic most Christians don’t spend enough time thinking about: where is Christ now – and when will we next see him?

There are three questions in this session, focussing on the lines in the Apostles Creed:

he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

The questions are:

Why is it added, “and sits at the right hand of God?”
How does the glory of Christ our head benefit us?
What comfort is it to you that Christ will come to judge the living and the dead?

Where did session 18 go? I posted session 18 up a few months ago as I recorded it on Ascension Day!

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God is… infinitely good

Posted on 20th November 202020th November 2020 by Phill Sacre

In this eighth part of the Get to know God series, we are thinking about how God is good. Not just good – God is infinitely good. He is the very definition of goodness itself. But what does it mean for God to be good? What does that look like? And what does it mean for us in our lives and how we relate to him? Let’s start, as always, by looking at the Bible before we turn to think about what it means for us.

What does the Bible say about God’s goodness?

Only God is good

A man once came to Jesus to ask him a question. The man called him “Good teacher”, but Jesus responded: “Why do you call me good? No one is good – except God alone” (Mark 10:18). Jesus didn’t respond like this because Jesus was saying he wasn’t good (we’ll come onto that in the final session!). But he wanted the man to think about what he was saying. Who is truly good? Only God is truly good.

If we want to see and know what true goodness is, we need to look to the Lord. He alone has true goodness. He is 100%, pure good. And, at the risk of stating the obvious, it’s worth making the point that the opposite of good is evil. That which is not good is evil.

You might be thinking – if God alone is good, what does that say for human beings? Are human beings not good? Or, at least, can human beings not be good? We’ll come onto that question in a minute!

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God is… infinitely wise

Posted on 18th November 20206th September 2022 by Phill Sacre

In the seventh part of the Get to know God series, we’re looking at how God is infinite in wisdom. We’ll think a little bit about what wisdom is, how it relates to God, and what we need to do. As usual for this series, firstly we’ll look at what the Bible says, and then we’ll think through some practical points for us.

What does the Bible say about God’s wisdom?

Wisdom belongs to God

Where then does wisdom come from?
   Where does understanding dwell?
It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing,
   concealed even from the birds in the sky.
Destruction and Death say,
  ‘Only a rumour of it has reached our ears.’
God understands the way to it
   and he alone knows where it dwells
Job 28:20-23

Wisdom is something that God alone possesses. This is echoed in the New Testament in Romans 16:27 where Paul says, “to the only wise God”. Wisdom is something that God simply has perfectly and infinitely, it is part of who he is.

In the Bible, wisdom is about making good and right decisions. (If you’re interested, I have a post about Wisdom and Guidance in Proverbs). It’s about doing what is good and avoiding what is evil. We human beings have limited wisdom – and we’ll come onto that later. But this is not the case with God.

God doesn’t have to listen to advisers to tell him what the right course of action is. God simply knows, because he is perfect wisdom. We human beings are capable of making poor decisions for all sorts of reasons. Maybe we make decisions based on misunderstanding or incomplete knowledge. But God never has that problem: all of his decisions are perfect. God never has to worry about which way to go – he always knows.

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God is… infinitely powerful (omnipotent)

Posted on 17th November 20206th September 2022 by Phill Sacre

The sixth part of our Get to know God series looks at God’s omnipotence – the fact that he is infinitely powerful. I don’t know about you, but I’ve found the last couple of sessions have dealt with some pretty tough concepts. This week is, I hope, slightly less tough in that respect. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty here to get your head around – and plenty to be encouraged by. Let’s look into it. We’ll start out by drawing out a few points from the Bible, and then we’ll think about what it means for us.

What does the Bible say?

No-one is powerful like God

No one is like you, Lord; you are great, and your name is mighty in power.
Jeremiah 10:6

The Bible often describes God’s power as being incomparable. Nothing else in all creation could come anywhere close to matching his power. His power is often seen in the things that he does.

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Raised to new life (Heidelberg 17)

Posted on 16th November 2020 by Phill Sacre

In this session we look at the best news ever – the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Why is it the best news? Let’s look into it!

There is only one question in this session: “How does Christ’s resurrection benefit us?” But there are three parts to the answer:

First, by his resurrection he has overcome death, so that he could make us share in the righteousness which he had obtained for us by his death.
Second, by his power we too are raised up to a new life.
Third, Christ’s resurrection is to us a sure pledge of our glorious resurrection.

The key thing is that the resurrection is not simply a future event, but something that makes a difference for our lives in the here and now.

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God is… impassible (without passions)

Posted on 13th November 202019th November 2020 by Phill Sacre

In this fifth part of the Get to know God series, we’re looking at something called God’s impassibility. This is a really important aspect of God, and yet out of all of them this is probably the least popular. Part of the problem is that people don’t understand what ‘passions’ means! But this is important for understanding who God is: do we want a God who is actually able to help us in our suffering? For that, we need a God who is impassible.

What does impassible even mean?

A few years ago, a friend of mine wrote an article defending God’s impassibility. He started out with a brief definition of impassibility:

Divine impassibility refers to the belief that God can neither be acted on from without, nor experience ‘emotional’ change within, and that, more specifically, God can thus neither be caused to suffer, nor choose to suffer, in his divine nature.

This is a good definition to be going on with. Impassibility, or being ‘without passions’, means that God doesn’t have emotions in the same way that we do. (This is especially true about suffering – God does not suffer). Emotions, as it says, are about change: we human beings generally can’t go through a day without experiencing a number of emotional changes. An emotion is a change. But – as we have already thought about – God does not change. God is constant. That’s good news for us!

It’s good news because it means that God is not changeable like us, but is above our ways. Let’s take a look at the Bible to see what it says.

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God is… simple (without parts)

Posted on 11th November 202011th November 2020 by Phill Sacre

In this fourth part of the Get to know God series, we’re going to be looking at God’s simplicity, or the fact that God is “without parts”. Now, simplicity is probably the most misleading word in the theological dictionary! It’s a very particular definition of simplicity which has very little to the way that we use the word in common speech. It is important, however, because I think it has a direct bearing on issues in our society today.

But let’s go into what simplicity is. Let’s start out by thinking about a jigsaw.

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