Our Blog

Student Life - April 2024

This school semester, pastor Bryan and I desired to teach the students apologetics for the Christian faith and to equip them with a foundation of practical understanding of Christianity. We sought after asking the students: “why do you believe what you believe?” This could look like: why do you believe in creation, or evolution, or Jesus, or God, or even the Bible? We wanted to challenge them to shape their own thoughts and ideas about what they believed, while following closely with facts, truth, and most importantly, biblical truth. I’m pleased to report that during the many weeks of Bryan and I preaching these messages to the students, we could really see some gears turning in some heads.

So, as I said, we covered a lot of ground to help the students form their own foundations for the Christian faith based off of this apologetics series we’ve been going through. Bryan and I have been using a book called The 10 Most Common Objections To Christianity by Alex McFarland. One of our early chapters we preached on was understanding if the Bible is an authentic book or source to study and/or believe. And this is a good question. If you are a Christian, you have to ask yourself: “Do I believe that the Bible is true? That we can believe what is said in it?” Or, if some don’t believe the Bible is true, why would they think that? Would they think because the Bible has been translated so many times, surely there have been errors in the translations? Or the Bible has been written by men, and powerful men got their hands on it to change the message of the Bible or its stories; surely we cannot believe the bible to be authentic and accurate to its original texts. What we were able to teach the students was not only has the Bible been handled and cared for very well, but we have COUNTLESS proof that there are no changes/errors in it. If we were to question any Old Testament writings, we can run to the Dead Sea Scrolls as proof for accurate and faithful translations of the texts and faithful reproductions of the message of the texts. It was amazing to test the students and see how they felt about the very old and dusty Old Testament books, to then build up their confidence in the texts because we can prove the historicity of the texts, the faithful translation of the texts, and the faithful transmission of the texts message. What a joy it was to walk through this sermon with them.

Amongst other chapters and sermons this semester, we also talked about Jesus. That’s probably a good thing and sounds like such a Sunday School thing to say. But, it’s important to ask people who they think Jesus was or is! So we asked the students this! And one of the chapters in our book was a common objection to Christianity is the belief that Jesus was just a man. So, we asked the question: if Jesus was just a man, what does that mean for us? Because, you have to think about it. To prove that Jesus was just a man, find His body. Go to the tomb, see that He is still there. Thus would prove this Man was just human and led a strange ministry. However, the problem is, that tomb was empty!! Praise God! Jesus made a bunch of claims about Himself and about God during His earthly ministry, but it all wouldn’t have mattered if He died and stayed dead. But, since He did rise from the dead, that means we have some serious thinking to do. And it was awesome to walk the students through this thinking! Because it’s so easy to prove that there was a historical man named Jesus around 2,000 years ago and was also crucified, we had to ask them the hard questions! If Jesus really is God and rose from the dead, then what does that mean for them? Does that mean He is an expert con man, or is He the Messiah that was prophesied? What a gift it was to teach them this truth as well.

So, our students have been asking the hard questions these past couple Sunday nights. We want them to form their own opinions and truths about the Bible, Christ, and Christianity. We want them to work through these hard questions as well, not just accepting what others have told them. And I truly believe the Lord has been working in them this semester. Like I said, I’ve seen the gears turning, and what a joy it was to witness. So there’s a little glimpse of what has been going on in our student ministry. It’s been awesome so far, and we are looking forward to the few remaining weeks we have left!

To God be the Glory!

Student Life - March 2024

I wanted to write the article for this month as a follow up from my last article in February. I spoke on being prepared to make a defense for the faith that we have for any circumstance and sharing our faith so that others may be encouraged or enlightened. I do believe these conversations are very important and having a defense is very wise, but I also believe we must stand on guard. I say this because I believe every day we as Christians go to war, to some extent. Obviously not the physical warfare we have seen in the past, but more specifically spiritual warfare. And to be more specific than that, I want us to focus on fighting against temptations and deceit from our common adversary.
Deceit from the enemy can look like a number of different examples and applies differently to each person’s life, but the goal always remains the same: taking your focus off of the Lord. We see this in the garden of Eden where the snake tempted Eve by saying “did God really say?” or when Satan tests Jesus in the wilderness, attempting to shift Christ’s focus to earthly and fleshly desires.

So, lets stand on guard! The Scripture to encourage and help us achieve this is 1 Peter 5 verses 8 and 9. “ 8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your
brotherhood throughout the world.” ESV. Now, how should we be on guard against the adversary? Be sober-minded and vigilant, understanding why Peter used the vocabulary of the devil “prowling around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” He uses these graphic words to describe the destructive threat that Satan is. So, we must take seriously the ability of the adversary in our lives, but also take seriously the foundation that we fight upon. Verse 9 says to resist him and to stand firm in our faith against him. Consider also Ephesians 6:12-18 how we should fight against spiritual forces with the armor of God. Our greatest ability to stand guard against the adversary is to have faith and lean upon the Lord for strength. He will provide the means necessary to battle whatever spiritual warfare or temptation looks like for our lives.

We must always be on guard against the adversary and fight against his temptations in our lives. I’m not going to be able to explain what that looks like in everyone’s specific lives, but something that takes your sight and focus off of God would be a good start. And one fact we do know is that the world will hate us believers just as it did for our Savior. Jesus explains in John 15 that the world will hate us just as it hated Him. I can’t sit here and explain exactly why this is the world we live in, but it is the truth found from the Word. But be encouraged, believer! I will end this article the same way as I did the last article. We have a Savior who has already paved the way for us to win these battles. One that guides us through these hard times. And One that will constantly sustain us throughout our life. He does this because He first loved us. Nothing can separate us from the love and the grip of the Father. He does not leave one of us for the other 99 and He continues to prepare a way for us. So, instead, lean on Him! Let us all sit under the protection and guidance of the Father and be able to stand on guard against the temptations and deceit from the deceiver.