The Final Days of Class

Friday marks the last day of my class A Survey of Bible Doctrine. [Attached is a picture of the class. There were two absent.] The class has went well. Some of them struggled with eternal security, but looking at Heb 10, 1 John 5:9-13, and passages from John's gospel, definitely helped solidify this doctrine in their minds. They had many questions about the warning passages in Hebrews, the branches and the Vine in John 15, Phil 2:13, Matt 7:15-23, Matt 24:1-14, etc., but I went passage by passage and did my best to explain these passages. We also talked about what eternal life means (never ending). As Dr. Howard Hendricks always says, if eternal life isn't eternal, we need to call it something else. Another important issue was the verb "save/deliver/rescue" (/swzw/) and the noun "salvation, deliverance" (/swteria/). It normally means rescued from enemies (cf. Ps 7:9-11), delivered from imminent death (cf. Matt 8:25; Acts 27:20; etc.), delivered from disease [to health] (cf. Mark 3:1-5), and delivered from sins (cf. Mt 1:21; Lk 7:48-50). Hence, when we see "saved" in the Bible we need to ask two questions: 1) Saved from what?; and 2) Saved to what? After it was all said and done, many of them changed their minds or already believed in the security of the believer.

This is the second day of Gina's third VBS. The numbers are a little lower than expected, but it is going well. The unexpectedly lower numbers have allowed her to use some of the extra gospel bracelets, which were made by many of you, at the Deborah House (a house for former street girls).

It's amazing how fast this six weeks has flown. We only have eight full days left!