In 2013 I presented a series of lessons I called “The Jesus Documents.” This was eight lessons reminding the church that we can trust the New Testament as a historical record concerning Jesus.
I have noted before that Apologetics (or “Christian Evidences“) are an important part of my teaching routine. The world is constantly hammering away at our faith in the truthfulness and reliability of the Bible records. And I believe in regularly educating our people about the both the evidence for and reasonableness of believing the Bible.
The hero of our story is David, youngest son of Jesse, whose family lived in Bethlehem. This section will seek to answer the who, what, when, where, why, how and how much questions; these are key to any serious exegesis of Scripture.
Here are four messages I delivered in 2010 exalting the Bible’s view of the Church. It was originally planned as a 7-lesson series, but was shortened to four. Following this series I will post two additional sermons I delivered in 2012 and 2013 as follow-ups to this series.
1. The Church in God’s Eternal Plan – “His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Ephesians 3:10-11) This morning we begin a seven lesson series we call, “7 Things to Know about the Church!” Our first message focuses on the role of the church in God’s eternal purpose. Some religious groups teach that the church is simply a “stop gap measure” by God until He can bring in the Kingdom at Christ’s second coming. Many groups and individuals seem to believe the church should be whatever they want it to be – in organization, worship, practice, finances, and purpose. Paul’s statement in Ephesians 3 (above) says that “through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known.” The church reflects God’s planning, wisdom and purpose! It is not an afterthought or temporary measure.
During the first quarter of 2008, I had the opportunity to teach this series of twelve lessons on Sunday evenings at the Tanglewood Church of Christ in Odessa, Texas. This was a challenge since normally I teach this in the classroom instead of in a sermon format. Entitled “How to Understand the Bible,” my goal was to introduce our church to the actual work involved in studying the Bible, rather than just assuming everyone already knew how to study and understand. Click here to access the entire series.
Another key character in our story is Goliath, typically referred to as a “giant.”
It is interesting to me that the term “giant” is not actually used in Scripture of Goliath, even though his size clearly would satisfy our modern definition.
Modern skeptics question the whole concept of giants in biblical times.
So, as part of our background research for the story of David and Goliath, we want to look at some of what we find in the text of the Old Testament.
The “Jesus Documents” is a study of the writings we call the New Testament, but which are, in fact, the “Jesus Documents,” because they are the primary sources of our information and knowledge concerning Jesus. In this 8-lesson sermon series, we look at the criticism and challenges to these documents, and the reasons I believe we can trust in their reliability. Click here to access these messages, or find our title, The “Jesus Documents” in the Series list in the right-hand column of this page.
In this Preaching Series, we are focusing on people with whom Jesus had relatively brief contact, but which were chosen by the Gospel writers to appear in the records about Jesus. We hope these studies illustrate the use of Biblical research resources to help assemble a coherent and appealing story about each person.
We don’t see Jesus spending much time with people in “high places,” and most of those important people He did encounter produced negative results:
Pontius Pilate, Caiaphas and Annas the High Priests, and King Herod
Sadducees, Pharisees, lawyers, scribes, teachers of the Law, and priests
To the contrary, He was criticized for those He did often keep company with:
Tax collectors (publicans) and “sinners” (outcasts) – Matthew 9:10; 11:19
Prostitutes and sinful women – Matthew 21:31; Luke 7:37; John 4 (Samaritan woman at a well)
Fishermen, common people, and the poor
Non-Jews like Samaritans, a Canaanite woman, and possibly a Roman centurion (Luke 7:1-10)
For the past three years (2017-2019) I have taught a “Christian History & Doctrine” course at the Sunset International Bible Institute where I work in Lubbock. I recorded all the classes during the 2018 school term and have posted them up on my channel on YouTube.
This is about 30 hours of video and includes the Powerpoint slides and video clips that were presented in the class. Here are the resources my students were required to use for the class:
In this series on the story of David and Goliath we are trying to provide four things:
Demonstrate the value and importance of digging deeper into the context, background, and details of biblical stories and passages.
Create useful research results for teachers and students wanting to see what “digging deeper” looks like.
Make it possible for a teacher or student to use this research to teach others, as well as repeat this process in their own studies of other passages.
Helping the Bible student realize that research and notes created for one study, even if unused immediately, then become resources already in hand for other studies further down the road.
I Samuel 17 is recording a war between the Philistine peoples of the southwestern coastal plain of Canaan and the Israelites who occupied the interior of Canaan between the coastal plain and the Jordan River valley. Conservative Biblical scholars use the approximate timeline below for Israel’s history in Canaan before I Samuel 17:
1446 BC – Exodus from Egypt by Israel led by Moses
1406 BC – Crossing of Jordan River and conquest of Canaan begins under Joshua
1396 BC – End of Book of Joshua
1396-1050 BC – Death of Joshua and Period of the Book of Judges
1050 BC – Saul crowned King of Israel by Samuel
1024 BC – 27th year of Saul’s reign; Israel’s army faces the Philistines at the Elah Valley
“Now the Philistines gathered together their armies for battle…”
The writer of I Samuel carefully chose what to include and not include in his chronicle. He would have done this because of the limited amount of space he would have (limited by what would fit on one scroll). Even more importantly, he would have chosen based on the purposes and point he wants to make in his recorded history. Critics may claim that this would be “creating” or “editing” history. Not so. Every historian today does the same thing, choosing what is included in his account which best illustrates his emphasis.
Here are four messages I delivered in 2010 exalting the Bible’s view of the Church. It was originally planned as a 7-lesson series, but was shortened to four. Following this series I will post two additional sermons I delivered in 2012 and 2013 as follow-ups to this series.
INTRODUCTION:
The “Jesus Documents” is a study of the writings we call the New Testament, but which are, in fact, the “Jesus Documents,” because they are the primary sources of our information and knowledge concerning Jesus. In this 8-lesson sermon series, we look at the criticism and challenges to these documents, and the reasons I believe we can trust in their reliability. 
For the past three years (2017-2019) I have taught a “Christian History & Doctrine” course at the Sunset International Bible Institute where I work in Lubbock. I recorded all the classes during the 2018 school term and have posted them up on my channel on YouTube.
In this series on the story of David and Goliath we are trying to provide four things:
“Saul and the men of Israel were gathered…”
“Now the Philistines gathered together their armies for battle…”