The Word became flesh, John 1:14-18    

I for one am happy that the Apostle John does not dwell on sentimentalism, as he writes of the coming of Christ, but he focuses on theology.  Although most people may think theology and doctrine are dull and uninteresting, I believe that a proper understanding and belief of the truth is the path to true salvation. I passed a Universalist Church in Rehoboth the other day, and they had a sign out front on which was written, “We believe that there is not just one way.” While I knew that they believed that, I was amazed that they would come

Read More…

The Light of the world,  John 1: 5-13 

As we are still in the prologue of the book of John, I think it would help us to realize that John is not interested in merely presenting a biography of Jesus.  We are all, I’m sure, more or less familiar with the history of Jesus Christ.  So to simply retell the story of Christ’s life on earth would have limited benefit, especially in light of the fact that the synoptic gospels had already been written quite some time before.  But what John is presenting in his gospel is doctrine:  the facts about Jesus which according to John’s stated purpose

Read More…

In the beginning was the Word, John 1:1-5 

There is no doubt that John is the author of the Gospel of John. John was younger than his brother James, who were both known as the Sons of Thunder. And of the 12 disciples, John was the youngest as well. His mother was Salome, who during Christ’s ministry enquired of the Lord if her sons could sit on either side of His throne when He came into His kingdom. His father was Zebedee, who was a fisherman, and who had passed on his trade to his sons. John would seem to have been a disciple first of all of

Read More…

Repentance, the path to Reconciliation, Genesis 43-45:15

We have been looking at the life of Joseph and his brothers in our study of Genesis. And I would like to try to conclude this story in this message today. But to do that I would have to cover so much scripture that it would not be possible to adequately deal with it all in one sitting. So today we will look at the next two and a half chapters and see if we can’t come to a reasonable conclusion. There will be some other details of the lives of Jacob and Joseph and the eleven brothers that we

Read More…

Conviction, Repentance, Reconciliation,  Gen. 42.    

Turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 42.  You will remember that in our study of Genesis, we reached the point where Joseph had been delivered from prison in Egypt, where he had been a slave, and promoted to the second highest position under Pharaoh. You might say that he was the prime minister of Egypt.  We all know that to be true, but I wonder if we truly appreciate how incredible it was for an incarcerated slave to be made the prime minister of the largest empire in the world in a single day.   And of course, God

Read More…

Temptation, Interpretation, Exaltation, Genesis 39-41

Turn in your Bibles please to Genesis chapter 39. Today we are resuming our study of Genesis, and in particular the story of Joseph. We saw last time in our study that Joseph was a type of Christ. But that does not mean that every thing that happens to Joseph is correlated in the life of Christ, but there are some significant things that are typical of the life of Christ. Primarily, Joseph was a type of Christ in that he was despised and rejected by his brothers, he became a slave, as Christ became a servant, he went through

Read More…

The Betrayal of Joseph,  Genesis 37 

Today, in our continuing study of the book of Genesis, we come to the beginning of the story of Joseph.  I have decided to skip over a lot of history that was primarily concerned with Jacob and the children that were born to his two wives and two concubines.  But I do need to say that Rachel, the favored wife of Jacob, has by this time passed away in childbirth of her son Benjamin. And so there are 12 sons born to Jacob, with Reuben being the eldest, and Benjamin being the youngest.  Joseph was the 11th son.  There was

Read More…

The wrestling match,  Genesis 32       

Last Friday I was driving by a Roman Catholic church and I saw that it was packed in the middle of the afternoon, presumably for their Good Friday service. Did you know that the Catholic teaching says that if you skip church on a holy day, and you don’t have some reason such as being disabled or something like that, then you are guilty of a mortal sin? That’s a sin unto damnation, as opposed to a venial sin, which isn’t so bad. The Catholic Church has established that the week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday is a holy

Read More…

Deceiving the deceiver,  Genesis 29

In our study last time, we looked at the story of Jacob and his dream about the ladder. And you might remember that I told you that the dream of the ladder and the angel’s ascending and defending upon it, and the Lord standing at the top of it, was an illustration of the gospel. Jesus said in John 1:51 that He was the One on whom Nathanael would see the angel’s ascending and descending.  So we saw that the vision of Jacob’s ladder was actually an illustration of the gospel.  Jesus is the way to God.  He is the

Read More…

The gospel of Jacob’s ladder, Genesis 28

The gospel of Jacob’s ladder, Genesis 28 In our study of Genesis, we come today to the story of Jacob’s ladder. I have titled my message, the gospel of Jacob’s ladder. And I hope you will see the presentation of the gospel as we work our way through this chapter. But we should remind you of the context. Last time, we saw the deception Jacob played upon his father Isaac, which was masterminded by his mother Rebekah. He had previously bought the birthright from his brother Esau, and then when his father had planned to give Esau the blessing, he

Read More…