A lot of people thought that Jesus was going to come back very soon after he went to heaven. They didn’t have any idea that he would wait 100 (or 2000!) years. Remember, Jesus told them to be ready at any time. But with the apostles dying, the writing of the New Testament was coming… Read More »
This letter is a lot like the second chapter of 2 Peter. Jude also is warning the people against false teachers. This was a very severe danger because the apostles (who were eyewitnesses of Jesus’s ministry) were dying. False teachers were coming in and leading the people astray. Were all of these warnings (as also… Read More »
1 John Most people in our world today see things in shades of gray. Some things are mostly right or kinda right or not really very wrong. The book of 1 John sees things in black and white. There is truth and there is error. There is salvation and there is damnation. There is light… Read More »
1 Peter One of the main ideas in this book is that being a Christian means that you suffer a lot. The question is “how should one suffer?” The answer is: suffer like Jesus did. He is a good example to follow in everything. 2 Peter All of these books have good nuggets that I… Read More »
This is one of the most practical books. It was written by Jesus’s brother and it sounds a lot like Jesus does, such as in his teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7). There are many things that you can apply to your own life in this book. I memorized this book with… Read More »
This is probably the toughest book in the New Testament to understand. The main problem is that some people that the author is writing to are tempted to stop being Christians and go back to being Jews. So the author explains why Jesus is better and everything they ‘re thinking of going back to is… Read More »
The letters of Paul keep getting shorter, and in fact, that is probably why they were arranged in the order they are – from longest to shortest. Philemon is a friend of Paul’s, and Paul writes him because he found one of Philemon’s slaves, a man named Onesimus. The point of the letter is for… Read More »
1 Timothy Paul had a disciple that he sent to Ephesus to be the pastor of the church there. But Timothy was young and needed some advice. This letter is so helpful to us today because we learn a lot of things about how a church should run. For instance, we learn about what is… Read More »
1 Thessalonians This is one of the earliest letters that Paul wrote. He didn’t have much time to spend with these new believers before he was run out of town by persecutors (Acts 17). So he writes this letter to answer some questions that have come up. One of the main concerns is about whether… Read More »
Philippians You ‘ll probably find this book easier to understand than some of the others. Paul is real down to earth with a congregation that has been some of his best friends throughout much of his ministry. Even though Paul writes this from prison (as he did Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon), he is particularly joyful… Read More »