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BIBLE READING: 1 Corinthians 5-8 DISCUSSION                                                                                                               Over the last few years there has been a series of movies and now a television series that is called “The Purge”.   The premise of the show (as I understand it) is that in the future, the American government has declared that every individual is capable of evil.   Therefore, to control this evil there has been designated one day a year in which the...

BIBLE READING: 1 Corinthians 1-4 DISCUSSION                                                                                                       I will have to be the first to admit, preaching is hard work!   I hear all the jokes and comments about how preachers only work one day a week for about three hours and during the rest of the time they play golf, drink coffee with each other and come up with corny preacher jokes.   I hope that most of you already know that is just simply not the case, except for the coffee and joke thing! ...

BIBLE READING: Acts 18. 19-28 DISCUSSION                                                                                            In Acts 18, we are introduced to a new character in God’s story of the growth of the church.   There isn’t a great deal of information we know about Apollos.   We know that he was from Alexandria, which was the intellectual center of Egypt and is most noted for its Library that later burned in 48 BC when Julius Caesar besieged the city.   At its height it was said that the Library of Alexandria may have contained over 400,000 volumes of scroll. ...

BIBLE READING: 1 & 2 Thessalonians DISCUSSION                                                                                            Both First and Second Thessalonians are dominated by the theme of the second coming of Jesus Christ.   It seems from the writing that they had several questions concerning the Day of the Lord, like when it would happen, what about those that had already died, and what about those that were unprepared. These are some of the same questions that Christians have been asking for centuries.   As Paul writes he had a two-fold purpose, first to assure ...

BIBLE READING: Acts 17, 18. 1-8 DISCUSSION                                                                                              I love my job!   I love my church family and I hope to be able to spend the rest of my life here at the Woodlawn Church of Christ.   With that being said, everybody has a dream job…a fantasy job if you will.   If I could work anywhere else in the world…at any given time…it just might have been being the Minister of the Church of Christ in Berea around the time 54-55 A.D. When Paul visits them on his missionary journey, he has one of the gr...

Bible Reading: Galatians 4-6

BIBLE READING: Galatians 1-3 DISCUSSION                                                                            “Father Abraham…had many sons…had many sons had Father Abraham…I am one of them and so are you…So let’s all praise the Lord….”                 That song haunted me as a Youth Minister for years.  How is it, that the one song you can’t stand the most is the one song the kids always want to sing?  It was redundant, it was annoying, and you always seemed to lose control after it.  Although the song is not one of my favorites, the concept of the song is.  Ever s...

BIBLE READING: Acts 15-16 DISCUSSION                                                                                         At midnight, while Paul and Silas were praying and singing to the Lord and while the other prisoners listened, a tremendous earthquake shook the foundations of the prison. The door to their jail cell opened, and they were free men -- but they did not leave because they knew it would mean death for the jailer who had been given the charge to watch over them. The jailer was amazed by their commitment to God and accepted Christ as his Savior. Not only that, but the jailer's entire family was ...

BIBLE READING: James 1-5 DISCUSSION                                                                                                                  I am a list maker.   If I am given a job, I break it down into smaller tasks and list them one by one on my to-do list.   I know that when I check off all the small tasks on my list, my goal is accomplished.   There are a lot of to-do list people in the world.   People like lists.   I even have one friend that say...

BIBLE READING: Acts 13-14 DISCUSSION                                                                                            It is hard being a Christian isn’t it?  As Christians we must face so much persecution in this world.  There are times when we are laughed at because of the way we act, dress, or how we talk.  Since we are to be different from the world, the world has decided to criticize, mock and at times, verbally abuse us.  It is no wonder the church isn’t growing like it did in the first century, because people just don’t want to be part of a movement that fa...

BIBLE READING: Acts 11-12 DISCUSSION                                                                                                                  Did you ever have a nickname? Ever since Jr. High, I have been known by my school mates as Jeupie.  Now my real name is Matt Heupel, but for short, people began to call me “Heupie”, which for some reason or other transformed into “Jeupie”.  Nicknames are fun, because they allow us to be called by something that is not our real ...

BIBLE READING: Acts 9-10 DISCUSSION                                                                                                The story of Cornelius’ conversion in Acts 10 is one of the most important conversion stories of the New Testament.  Now I am not suggesting that Cornelius was any more important to the New Testament church than any of the conversions that had happened before, but his conversion did change things significantly. Cornelius was the first person who was not a Jew that was able to be washed in the blood of Jesus.  ...

Bible Reading: Acts 7-8

BIBLE READING: Acts 4-6 DISCUSSION                                                                                      Even though Jesus had been resurrected and the church had been established, that did not stop the Jews from seeking to put a stop to this new movement of disciples.   In fact, after Peter and John heal the man at the gate, called Beautiful in Acts 3, Peter and John are arrested.   After being scolded rather harshly they commanded the men to not teach anymore in the name of Jesus Christ.   After their release, the disciples continue following the Great Commission and are arrested again for ...

BIBLE READING: Acts 1-3 DISCUSSION                                                                                      Have you ever just wished you could be like Marty McFly and climb into your supped-up DeLorean and use that flux capacitor to take you back in time to witness events in history as the happened?   If I could, the Pentecost of Acts 2 would be one of my first trips.   Can’t you just see the looks on everyone’s face as Peter stands up and preaches that first Gospel sermon declaring the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ?   Not only would you be able to sense their shock and guilt, ...

BIBLE READING: Luke 24, John 20-21 DISCUSSION                                                           “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:30-31).   As John closes out His account of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, he wants us to know a few things.   First, there are many other things that Jesus did in His ministry to show that He was the Messiah that he did not include in his account.   In fact, not even a compilation of all the Gospels include everything that Jesus did. Could you imagine the size of the book that...

BIBLE READING: Matthew 28, Mark 16 DISCUSSION                                                        As Matthew closes his account of the Gospel of Jesus, he leaves us with what has been called the Great Commission.   A Commission is an instruction, command, or duty given to a person or group of people.   In this case, the instruction is given by Jesus and the group of people who are commissioned are His disciples. It is referred to as “Great” in the sense of how important this command is to the culmination of God’s plan. Jesus, as the risen Savior, has the authority of all heaven and all earth and now commissions His Disciples to open the doors to His Kingdom. Specifically, Jesus is directing this towards His eleven disciples. So, does this passage...

BIBLE READING: Luke 23, John 18-20 DISCUSSION                                                                 Jesus must have had a good relationship with all His disciples, but there was really something special about John.   The Bible describes him and his brother James as “the sons of thunder”. That gives us reason to believe that he must have been very bold in his behavior and demeanor.   We do know that at least on one occasion he is arguing with the others about which one of the disciples is greatest; yet when we read his account of the Gospel, we see more of a quiet disciple, one who even feels uncomfortable with naming himself in his own book.   Throughout his account of the gospel he re...

BIBLE READING: Matthew 27, Mark 15 DISCUSSION                                                                    In Matthew 27.1-2, the chief priests and the elders have taken counsel against Jesus to put Him to death.   Something very interesting happens before they lead Him away to Pilate the governor. The text says that they “bound” Him.   The word “bound” simply means to “tie up” or to “put in chains”.   I guess the idea was that they were going to tie Jesus up so that He would not be able to escape or break free and run away.   Don’t you think it rather strange for them to do this?   After all, they had all been around Him and seen some of the magnificent thing...

Bible Reading: John 14-17

BIBLE READING: Luke 22, John 13 DISCUSSION                                                                                    “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat” (Luke 22.31).  We have all understood how those words must have haunted Peter for the rest of his life, but have we ever thought about how difficult it was for Jesus to say them to Peter?  Imagine this scenario, your child is about be faced with a temptation.  This temptation is so great that you know there is a strong chance that your child will fail this test.  Your child’s entire future is ri...

BIBLE READING: Matthew 26, Mark 14 DISCUSSION                                                                                        The disciples of Jesus had not been strangers to the Passover meal.  In fact, they were all good Jews and had taken part in the Passover feast ever since they were children.  However, this Passover was different.  It was different in the fact that this would be the last Passover they would share with Jesus in the flesh.  This was also different because Jesus was going to use this Passover to institute a new feast that would be partaken of later by New Testa...

BIBLE READING: Matthew 25 DISCUSSION                                                                                       Last week I heard a preacher give a lesson on his favorite person in the Bible.  He gave people an opportunity to guess who it could be, of course you got the standard answers like: Jesus, God, Moses and Peter.  However, none of these possibilities were even close.  His favorite Bible character was a man that did not even have a name; we simply refer to him as the two-talent man. You see, he wasn’t as blessed as the five-talent man, but he was blessed more than the one talent ...