The Gospel of Christ describes the greatest battle of humankind. The battle
between good and evil. And because of his sacrifice and love for us we
are victorious. If we believe and stand on the foundation of the “good
news” of Christ, the enemy will be defeated:
Paul defined the gospel of Jesus Christ in 1 Cor 15:1–4: “Now I want to
make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel I preached to you,
which you received, on which you have taken your stand and by which
you are being saved, if you hold to the message I preached to you—
unless you believed in vain. (Page 18)
The Gospel is 66 books of strategic strategies that Christ has given us
to help remind us of our position and authority in the Kingdom of God:
Ye, shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still,
and see the salvation of the Lord with you, O Judah and Jerusalem: fear
not nor be dismayed; tomorrow go out against them: for the Lord will be
with you. (2 Chronicles 20 vs 17 KJV).
In 2018 I had a brain tumor removed and it was the Word of God
that strengthen me and encouraged me with my own personal battle. I
constantly reminded myself that I was covered by his blood and that Christ
had already solidified my healing on the cross. yy There are no unexpected
situations. None of the actions recorded in the Bible caught God by
surprise. Each word of Scripture is designed to move the plan forward in
a way that glorifies God and points to Christ" is very comforting when
we apply it to our lives and how God is working through us. Great job
on the first quote and explaining the context behind it!!
Your statement behind your quote from chapter one, page six, was so
good!! I love how you said that people may get caught up in his actions
and miracles rather than really seeing the true meaning of what Christ did
for us. My friend always said, "God is not a genie, " reminding us that
our relationship with God is not always about getting what we want
through him but rather our heart's desires turning into what he wants for
us and more freedom in our lives. Building a relationship with the Lord
should not fulfill our "wishes" but rather for our hearts to grow and for
our lives to be fulfilled with love only from the truest love ever to exist.
One of my favorites is the quote mentioning how the Bible is God's story
and how he is the author and the main character. "More specifically, the
Bible is a book of stories that are woven together to tell one complete
story" (Cartwright & Hulshof, 2016, p. 3). Sometimes I forget that the
Bible is simply the story about God. Everything in it is about Him, His
teachings, and story to us about how he created this world and the
challenges that came with it. "Through each person, law, psalm, proverb, or
prophecy, God is drawing attention to himself and what he is doing as he
works out his plan" (2016, p. 3). As God told his story through the
Bible, we too have our own story that we have already written and
continue to write daily. As we see in the Bible, not every day was
perfect. Although God is never surprised by anything we experience, we see
many trials and tribulations throughout the Bible where not everything went
as God wanted it to. This is how I relate to the Bible. Not every day
is going to go as we hope. Like we see in the Bible, we have all had
things not go our way which challenge us in our personal and professional
lives. At the end of the day, God does this to challenge us and to force
us to rely more heavily on our faith in Him and to trust Him with our
life and the direction it is supposed to go. At the end of each day, we
always have God to turn to for unconditional love, support, and forgiveness.
I do agree that the Bible gives us rules and regulations to follow to be
the best possible version of ourselves, a few of those being the ten
commandments. When we follow these rules, we are showing God that we
are good human beings and take what He has to say very seriously.
Without following these guidelines that God has given us, it can lead to
some serious consequences, maybe even the end of the world as we know
it. "Revelation is also prophetic. In other words, parts of Revelation predict
future events. Although there is much debate about the details and timing
of these events, there is a fair amount of agreement on the prophetic
nature of the events." Cartwright et al., 2016) Even though everyone has
their own opinions on how the world might end, it can be a scary time
for many, but also a beautiful and gracious time for God's children. When
we follow his commands and guidelines, we are being set up to go to
the most beautiful paradise that is heaven, which is free of all pain and
misery. It is important to realize that even though thinking about the end
of the world can be scary, the place where we will end up is so much
greater than anything this earthly world can give us. I also agree that even
though we get away with small things, I am also guilty of going 55 in
a 30, God sees the choices we make and how those choices can affect
others. Striving to be the most holy and generous people we can be could
prove to be successful when trying to get into heaven. yy I think "friend
and forgiver" is a great way to describe how Jesus loves us. This made
me think of Romans 5:8 - "But God demonstrates His own love toward
us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." I can relate
to your commentary from the 6th quote. I also catch myself trying to
relate the Old Testament to modern times. Which it isn't meant to do, so
no wonder we aren't understanding it! History is so important to learn
about. I don't want to make the same mistakes people before me did, so
it's important to know what they did so we know what not to do. This
is similar to the 10th quote you chose. I like your insight that even
negative examples are actually positive because we can learn from them.
“God’s greatest but worst creation” to an extent I believe the reason why
so many people don’t worship, or dont know who to worship is the lack
of knowledge. I say this to emphasize it starts somewhere and that
somewhere is with parents. A lot of time it’s isn’t something natural that
comes to many, it’s more of a situation arising and then taking action to
find that solution. Quotes two and six are quotes I have yet to expand
my knowledge on, but quote six stuck out more because who would’ve that
the word gospel mean good new? To my understanding it was a type of
religion or type of genre. when studying the Bible, especially the Old
Testament, it can be hard to fully grasp what is being said. Sometimes,
when reading the Bible it helps if I put myself in the shoes of the
people telling the parable and who is present in the parable to be able to
decipher a few of the details that I feel that I am misconstruing. "When
we read the Bible, we are not reading a recap of a supreme being who
is making it up on the fly. Instead, we are reading the plan of God as
he works his will out in the lives of the numerous characters of the
Bible." (Cartwright et al., 2016) This quote from the text directly
corroborates the idea that God is all knowing as well, and the Bible is
His plan. Sometimes it is important to note that the parables we are
reading are not to be read into so much, but we should still be able to
take away valuable lessons from them. I relate the idea of parables to
trusting God and His plan since he is all knowing. I have been in a
place many times in my life where I have grown frustrated that the plans
I thought I had set in stone were suddenly changed, only to be changed
to something that worked out even better in the long run. Studying the
Bible, especially the Old Testament can be difficult, but trusting in God to
be able to tell us what we need to hear through the His word always
amazes me. I think it's awesome you are reading the Bible chronologically.
I didn't know that was the meaning of Deuteronomy, either! I used the
same quote about Acts being part two. How cool is that! There's probably
so many little things like that we will learn in this class that will make
us view the Bible differently. I agree with your commentary on the 10th
quote. Jesus did come to fulfill the law. This brought me to Matthew
5:17, “Do not presume that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I
did not come to abolish, but to fulfill," which backs up your statement.
