Foundations

In 1 Corinthians 7 Paul discusses how in the intimacies of marriage, husbands and wives can satisfy each other and how mutual agreement is a very important principle for a fulfilling physical relationship. As the Golden Rule says, "In everything, do unto others as you would have them do to you." The biblical model for marriage is Christ and the Church. We can only have that kind of love by having a vital relationship with Jesus and allowing His Spirit love through us.

God intended sex for many purposes. One of the first purposes is procreation, but it is also meant to be a vehicle of expression for married couples. Unfortunately, what God designed for a joyful expression of oneness often becomes one of the greatest obstacles to our oneness. God's Word shows us what our attitudes and expectations about sex should be in the context of the God-ordained institutions of marriage and family; to bring fulfillment and pleasure to both husband and wife.

The Bible provides answers to help us in understanding our God-given role, but the labor of division in a Christian home should be based on our natural gifts, talents, and our spiritual gifts. If our lives and homes are built on Jesus, and we understand our spouses, it will keep crises from destroying our marriage. God created sex for procreation. God also intended for intimacy to be an expression of love and the joyful expression of oneness.

We must understand the uniqueness of our spouse to be able to communicate at a deeper level. There are eight Biblical questions we should ask: "Where are you?", "Who told you?", "Have you eaten from the forbidden tree?", "What have you done?", "Where have you come from?", and "Where are you going?", "Who are you?", and "What is it you really want?" In other words, Do you want to be who, where and what God planned for you to be?

Understanding our spouse is the link that provides for the growth of relationship and the oneness. The value and worth of a man or a woman is based on their function and role as God has created them. A great prayer for our marriages is by Francis of Assisi: "Lord make me an instrument of your peace; grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love."

Oneness - the two becoming one flesh - is the foundation of a marriage relationship, and love is the expression of that oneness. Without agape love, we can never have the kind of marriage God intended. This kind of love is irreplaceable, indestructible, unconditional, inspirational, and irresistible. We must realize this kind of love is impossible without God's help. God intended marriages to be indissoluble and hates divorce. God's Word teaches us to have boundaries for marriage that protect and preserve the relationship.

Love is the great expression of the oneness God intended when He said, "The two shall become one flesh." One big problem in marriage is selfishness. When we learn to treat our spouse unselfishly - to put our spouse's needs at the center - we begin to love as Jesus does. Divine love is best described in 1 Corinthians 13 and shows us how we should love others. With agape love, marriage can truly be fulfilling and everything God intended it to be.

Compatibility is the evidence of the oneness God designed for a husband and wife. Compatibility includes our: physical relationship, values, spiritual maturity, moral issues, how we spend our time and money, children issues, and every other area of life together. Your spiritual compatibility is foundational in defining the roles and responsibilities each have. In order to maintain compatibility, we must accept our spouse's strengths and weaknesses. The Bible gives us several instructions about how husbands and wives should relate to each other.

Good communication is the tool that helps us maintain and strengthen a husband and wife to work on their oneness. Just as we maintain and cultivate our relationship with Christ by communicating with Him in prayer and listening for His voice, married couples must maintain and cultivate their relationship with each other. Communication is like turning a light on our relationship, exposing things that would harm the oneness and revealing things that would help us grow closer.

God's design for family and marriage gives our relationship a beautiful and meaningful purpose and accomplishes His plans for the world. In scripture there is a providential dimension to marriage; it is to be a permanent and exclusive relationship, but also to be inclusive in the sense that it includes every part of the husband and wife's lives: their spirits, minds, hearts, and bodies. When couples are united as one, and live in this kind of unity, they reflect God's purpose for marriage.

This is a topical study designed for married couples or those who are planning to be married soon. God uses the picture of the love of the Lord Jesus Christ for His Church to model the love a husband is to have for his wife. We will study the marriage links: spiritual foundation, tool of communication, compatibility, love - the dynamic of being one, understanding, and the sexual union of a happily married couple, to be the joyful expression of the oneness.

The mission objective for the Mini Bible College is to get people into the Word of God and to get the Word of God into the people. One key objective in reading the Book of Revelation should be to worship God and the Christ of the Revelation, who is King of kings and Lord of lords. If Jesus the Son of God said He did not know, we must be humble about the chronology of all the events covered in the Revelation.

The Revelation has to do with the things that shall take place in the future. John has a revelation and is told that the seven lampstands are the churches and the One in the midst of the lampstands is Christ. Chapters four and five are absolutely beautiful, filled with profound truth about heaven. Chapters six through nineteen focus on one little seven-year period known as the Great Tribulation, which is one among all the events called the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

This word "revelation" is the English way of expressing the Greek word "apocalypses," which means, "the pulling back of a veil." When we study in the area of the future, spiritual things that are yet to be fulfilled, we really need the Master Key, the Holy Spirit. God the Father is turning the center of worship in heaven from Himself to His Son, the Lamb, Who looks as if He has been slain, expressing the essence of Who and what God is.

The little Epistle of Jude expressed concern over the heresies or false teachers who speak against faith in Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection. Jude tells us false teachers are like clouds promising rain but producing nothing. The Revelation is the most difficult book in the Bible to understand for it is written in sign language. God pulled back the veil and gave John a revelation of Jesus Christ and of things to come which cannot be known without the revelation.

John tells that we must love one another, then he gives us ten reasons why. The love chapter of the Bible tells us to love because love is of God. God is love. Love is the essence of Who God is. "This commandment we have from Him, that he who loves God, will also love his brother." We love God because He first loved us and perfect love casts out all fear. It is impossible to be a secret disciple of Jesus Christ.

In First John we see more assurances of salvation: love for fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, love for God the Father, and the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is Who makes us know what we know spiritually. John also points out that the children of God do not make it a practice to sin. Our salvation is not based upon how our hearts may feel. Our salvation is based upon the fact that we believe the Gospel.

The Epistle of First John writes to those who believe, that they might know that they know they believe, and then really believe. In a word, we are looking for assurance, assurance of salvation. The two Gospel facts, remember, are these: the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was not just that God would forgive His people of their sins, but He would save His people from their sins. The evident assurance of your salvation is fruitfulness.

In Second Peter we learn that grace and peace can be multiplied to us through the knowledge of God and Jesus Christ our Lord. We can come into the heavenly dimension and into the knowledge of God, and He endows us with everything we need for life and godliness. Peter explains how, when we come to the Light of the Word, and apply His Word to our lives, the Morning Star rises in our hearts and Christ is born in us.

Peter tells us the end of all things is near and in light of that, what kind of people should we be. We should be calm, self-controlled people of prayer; we should be hospitable; love one another, remembering that love covers a multitude of sins. The one thing that distinguishes one person from another is not whether they suffer but how they cope with their suffering. The purpose of suffering is to "make you perfect, establish, strengthen and settle you."

Peter gives a practical, relational, theological model for marriage; Christ and the Church. The number one problem in Christian marriages is men who will not assume their responsibility to shepherd their wives and children as Christ shepherds the Church. Peter pictures Jesus Christ as the Great Shepherd of the Church. God delegates the responsibility for the marriage and the home to the husband. Follow the Bibles model in all your relationships and allow God to make you all that you can be.

Peter wrote to the Jewish Christians scattered throughout Asia Minor who were suffering and being persecuted. Peter knew the persecution was going to get worse. As Peter addresses their suffering, he did not teach prosperity theology. Peter gave some wonderful insights into why God permits His people to suffer. Peter addresses election and being born again. According to Peter, there is such a thing as spiritual conception, a spiritual gestation period and the crisis of the new birth.

In the New Testament we see three different Peters, but all the same man. In the Gospels his name is Simon, who is up and down, hot and cold, and impulsive, but Jesus called him Peter, a "rock"; after Pentecost we see a Peter who is full of power; finally an old and wise Peter, the apostle of hope. He wants to comfort and console those people in their suffering. The theme is truly knowing God through Jesus Christ.

The theme of the epistle written by James the brother of Jesus, is sanctification that drives life and ministry. What you really believe, you do. All the rest is just religious talk. Works are as vital a part of a living faith as breath is to a living body. James tells us the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will be the ultimate solution to all of the problems we have here on earth. James tells us to take our masks off and be honest with each other.

James tells us about the sources and the sequences of sanctification. Jesus and James teach that the solution for the problem of sin, even sexual sin, is Scripture because the Word of God is alive and powerful. James emphasizes the importance of obeying and applying God's Word to our lives. James focuses the sources of discipline and that the tongue absolutely must be disciplined. We are to bring our life under the control of the wisdom of God, not earthly wisdom.

The intensely practical Epistle of James has been referred to by some as "The Proverbs of the New Testament." It is like a running commentary on the teachings of Jesus Christ, especially the Sermon on the Mount. James tells us about the sources and the sequences of salvation. James addresses suffering and tells you to "count it all joy" when you experience these temptations. We are to welcome our trials as friends because they can produce mature, spiritual character.

Hebrews says to discouraged, persecuted people, "Do not throw away your faith because a great cloud of witnesses surrounds us!" Hebrews chapter eleven is known as the "faith chapter", and gives reasons why we should hold on to our faith. Faith saves and gives substance to our hope. We must live by faith. The author gives many examples of what faith can mean and what faith can do. The author closes with an exhortation to obey those who are our spiritual shepherds.

The Book of Hebrews is filled with exhortations and warnings about the subtlety of apostasy. The mission of the book is also to strip false assurance from those who had not yet made a commitment of faith. "Exhort one another daily, while it is called 'Today,' lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." His exhortation throughout is directed to professing believers who have not yet been born again because they stop short of saving faith in Jesus Christ.

Hebrews, "The Mysterious Masterpiece," more than any other book in the Bible, ties the Old and New Testaments together. The Book of Hebrews presents Jesus Christ as the Messiah Who was prophesied in the Old Testament, as the Lord Who was revealed in the New Testament and as the coming King of kings Who is going to come again. Faith is one of its themes and there are three key words: better, believe and beware that guide our study.

In Second Timothy, Paul is reminding Timothy of instruction already received. Paul instructs that God has a unique plan as to who, what and where we should be. Scripture is a living power, brings new birth and builds up those who have been born again. Paul says, "I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith and, I have stayed true to Him. I have won the fight and the victor's crown."

In this session we survey the last letter of the Apostle Paul. As Paul writes his second letter to Timothy he knows his days are numbered. Paul uses illustrations of a soldier, athlete and a farmer to emphasize the disciplined, difficult and patient work of living out the Gospel as disciples of Jesus Christ. There are rules for the life in Christ, and one of them is you must pick up your cross and be willing to follow and suffer for Him.

Philemon is the fourth of Paul's prison epistles, a brief and dynamic letter Onesimus took in his hand when he went back to his master, a wealthy believer. Although a short letter, it is long on its social application and its social implications. The fact that God has made us creatures of choice who make deliberate choices seems to be very important to Paul. Jesus Christ is the only Solution we have to our personnel or relational problems.

Paul warns Timothy against materialism and teaches, "Godliness with contentment is great gain." Paul gives a word of exhortation for the rich: Do you possess the wealth or does the wealth possess you? Between the first appearing of Christ when salvation came and the second appearing when Christ returns, there is the appearing of God through you and through me, His peculiar people. The emphasis of Paul's letter to Titus is that godly oversight means godly overseers.

Paul profiles the Gospel: there is only One Mediator between God and man. In the same sense that Christ oversees the Church and shepherds the Church, a man should shepherd and oversee his wife and family, and men should oversee or shepherd the church. The Bible clearly gives the man the responsibility to be the leader of the home and the church. Paul lists the qualifications for spiritual leaders. Paul teaches us to measure your life by the Word of God.

As we survey the Books of First Timothy, Second Timothy and Titus, we are entering into the "Pastoral Epistles." The Paul/Timothy relationship has been a model for hundreds of thousands of senior pastors and junior pastors throughout church history. II Timothy 2:2, focuses for us a kind of education that will never be replace: teach reliable men who are also capable to teach other men. Paul emphasized the character that the men should have who are going to lead in church.

In Thessalonians Paul says the Lord Jesus is coming back and we are to be busy while we watch and wait for His return; pray without ceasing, and always give thanks. Although we cannot know when Jesus will return, He said there are signs of the times to watch for. In Second Thessalonians, Paul explains about the Day of the Lord that will come once Satan is given free reign over the earth before the millennial rule of Jesus Christ.

The theme of Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. It is important to understand that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ is not one event but a series of events. We will note how Paul encourages the Thessalonians with the coming rapture and physical second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul writes that the first thing to happen when the rapture of the church takes place is "the dead in Christ shall rise first."

The Book of Colossians is Paul's masterpiece on the "Christ of the church:" Who Christ is, what Christ has done, and His all-sufficiency. The church at Colosse had 3 major problems: a philosophical attack upon the deity and person of Jesus Christ, an intellectual attack upon the faith of the people, and there were Jews imposing legalism upon the church. Paul emphasizes that Christ was Very God. Paul challenges believers to pray earnestly, with thanksgiving.

Do you have the continuous peace of God? If not, that should not surprise or disillusion you if you are not meeting God's conditions. In Philippians 4 Paul teaches us twelve conditions for the peace of God: Do not worry, pray about everything, think on good things, do the right thing, be thankful, have a reputation for gentleness, be patient, accept your circumstances, look up, delight in Him, value the approval of God, and rest your heart and mind in Christ.

The theme of Philippians is "Living in Christ through fellowship." Let this mind be in you. Paul emphasizes the importance of humility in the fellowship of believers and to consider others higher than ourselves. He teaches that we can and should know and fulfill God's good and perfect will for our lives. Paul also said, "This one thing I do, I forget the things that are behind and I reach forward to those things which are ahead."

In this lesson we begin studying Paul's eloquent thank you note to the church at Phillipi; the one he pointed to as an example for others to follow. Phillip was focused on reaching the lost. We are introduced to what is called an inside-out church, which was faithful in its witness. The true church is made up of people who are followers of Christ because they have heard the Holy Spirit calling them to fellowship with Jesus Christ.

The book of Ephesians teaches us how to apply the principals of Christianity in the most difficult of all the arenas, the home. Paul tells us we must take off the rags of the old man and put on the new man's robes and walk in the Spirit, in love, especially in the home. In the fifth chapter, Paul gives God’s plan for families and that the father and husband is to love as Christ loves the Church.

The purpose of Ephesians is to show the Church who and what they are to be in this world; to show the Church we have received all we need to live victoriously, and it is possible to live in the heavenly dimension. We are exhorted to stop playing church and be the Church. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you how all that you are, by the grace of God, makes you an integral part of the Church of Jesus Christ.

In our concluding look at Galatians we have insight into Paul's handicap and his explanation of the new birth which is like physical birth. Paul teaches if Christ has made us free then we should remain free. Paul's little letter to the Ephesians is very profound. Paul tells us that in Christ and in the heavenly realm we have access to everything we need to live a Godly holy life. The problem is we sometimes look in the wrong place.

We have two opposing forces within us: our sin nature and our new nature. The Apostle Paul says in Galatians, the Spirit can overcome the flesh. It all depends on what we plant in the garden of our lives. If we plant God's seed into our life then the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. We must plant seeds to please the Spirit to reap eternal life.

Can you be good enough to be saved or stay saved? Paul says such thinking is of the flesh. When Paul heard the Gospel was being perverted to a works based gospel, he responded to the Galatians explaining we are justified by faith not works. Paul went on to say the only way to live is be crucified with Christ; Paul wasn't talking about dying, he was talking about living by faith in Christ.

Paul concludes 2 Corinthians challenging those who are in the church to examine themselves to see if they are really in Christ. The next book we study is the letter of Paul to the Galatians where Jewish leaders were teaching that to be saved and stay saved one had to observe the Jewish laws. Paul said that if anyone comes preaching a different gospel, they should be rejected and cursed of God, because the Gospel he preached was from God not from men.

In 2 Corinthians 8-9, Paul writes about an offering for persecuted believers in Jerusalem. Paul describes the faithful stewardship of the Philippians, giving us a masterpiece on the subject of Biblical stewardship. God accepts our gifts, not based on how large they are - the Philippians gave generously even in their poverty - but on the attitude with which we give it. Our motivations should be love and gratitude, joyfully giving back to God a portion of what He has given us.

In addition to Paul's experience when he encountered Jesus on the Damascus road, he learned from Jesus in the Arabian Desert, and was taken into heaven and given revelations too deep for words. Paul was also given a thorn in his flesh, a messenger from Satan. No one knows exactly what this thorn was, but it is clear God used it to keep Paul humble and to use Paul's weakness to show His strength. God likes to demonstrate His adequacy through our inadequacy.

Paul's second letter to the Corinthians is all about the ministry God wants every believer to experience, the ministry of reconciling all people to Himself. But our lives must be characterized by Christ who has saved us and lives in us. Paul described our relationship to Christ in three ways: by Christ, in Christ, and for Christ. When we respond to pressures, storms, and trials, people will see that we are different, we are filled with a priceless treasure: Jesus Himself.

Some in the church in Corinth had begun to attack Paul's apostleship, others criticized his speaking abilities, and still others thought he was out of his mind. In 2 Corinthians, Paul defended his credential as an apostle and the nature of his ministry. He explained how suffering for the sake of the Gospel can be used to qualify us to be ministers of God's comfort. Paul said his life and ministry was one of reconciliation, to bring people back into fellowship with God.