Walla Walla University Good Word Broadcasts

I did not wish to combine these three topics into one lesson, so I’ve decided to focus on just the law this week, while offering some thoughts regarding sin and the gospel to next week’s lesson on repentance and forgiveness. God’s law is a transcript of God’s character. We see this when we compare their shared attributes: God’s Character in His Law!GodGod's LawRighteous (Ezra 9:15)Righteous (Psalm 119:172)Perfect (Matthew 5:48)Perfect (Psalm 19:7)Holy (Leviticus 19:2)Holy (Romans 7:12)Good (Psalm 34:8)Good (Romans 7:12)True (Exodus 34:6)True (Psalm 119:142) Let’s look at a few of these just so we can anchor this thought in our mind, for example, ...

Perhaps this lesson might be better titled Exercising Faith since we never generate faith ourselves. As the SS Quarterly itself says: It’s not something we can generate ourselves, for “God has dealt to each one a measure of faith” (Romans 12:3), and faith is a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8-9). Thus, faith is a gift that God has given everyone, but that does not mean that everyone is exercising faith in God. Yet exercising faith is not a mere mental assent to a doctrine or a group of doctrines, or even to the existence of God/Jesus/Spirit. Faith that saves is ...

I’ve chosen to focus this lesson on the idea of Praying as Learners. From the cradle to the grave Jesus’ life was bathed in prayer. In fact, even before His birth we find both Zechariah and Jesus’ mother Mary offering praise to God, see Luke 1. The baby Jesus, brought into the Temple to be circumcised, was the object of thanksgiving to God as the deeply committed Simeon and Anna recognized Jesus as the long-awaited deliver of Israel, see Luke 2. And at the other end of Jesus’ life, Jesus’ final words, uttered as He hung dying on the cross, are ...

Though I am now using them for a different purpose than he did, I am indebted to Greg Boyd for some of the concepts I am sharing below regarding why we pray. Why do we pray? In a nutshell, the reason why we pray has to do with our God-given reality. Love requires freedom. Freedom creates risk. Risk creates moral responsibility. Moral responsibility is generally proportionate to influence. Influence is (generally) irrevocable. Power to influence is limited. Regarding love & freedom: genuine love requires significant freedom. And such freedom is supported through influence, not coercion. God influences humans. Humans influence other humans. Humans also influence God through ...

On my desktop computer I have a file titled Biblical Books. In that file is another file titled Amos, a biblical book I am currently studying. In my Amos file I have individual files for each chapter in the book of Amos, so Amos 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. I have additional files titled Background Stories of the Nations (that are mentioned in Amos 1 & 2). Another file is simply titled Exile, wherein I have placed a few documents I created while exploring the notion of Israel’s Assyrian exile. Another file is titled Key Words in Amos; another: Mourning in ...

Romans 10:17 So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ. In 1978 I finally chose to attend college. I was then 22 years old. I was a bit anxious, knowing that I had not been in an academic program in four years! But I had spent the last two of those four years studying the Bible for myself. For 2-3 hours a day I had used an exhaustive concordance, my Bible, and any other religious books I had, cross-referencing as much stuff as I could. I also made notes on 4x6 ...

In 1988 Margaret Becker wrote a song titled Pico Boulevard. In it she expressed her failure to find the balance between need and desire, and thus fell right into line, this line: “Let me be somebody someone else wants to be;”lost my joy and humility down on Pico Boulevard. This is a problem most of us have—we fail to find the balance between need and desire. More pointedly, we want to be somebody someone else wants to be! This was not only the gist of the Lucifer’s original sin: Isaiah 14:12-14 How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of ...

Several books on my bookshelves wrestle with the idea of “a hidden God.” My Amazon wish list contains a few as well. So here we will put the big question earlier than normal: Question How can we understand the character of God, who is both the single most important character in the Hebrew Bible and yet absent from the majority of it? As we read Scripture, we note that God often uses stand-ins for Himself. Why? Stand-Ins for God: Angels Humans Judges Kings Prophets Humans speak about God: God’s friends God’s foes Narrator Nature Animate Inanimate Absence Additional Questions How many of these stand-ins are created, sin-damaged, or sin-traumatized? The reliability of their witness for/about God is what ...

The Bible tells us that our world is infected with evil. Where did evil come from? Why did sin arise in the first place, and why has it continued to exist for so long? Matt. 13:24-27 Here is another story Jesus told: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. 25 But that night as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away. 26 When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew. 27 “The farmer’s workers went to him and said, ...

Memory Text: “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18, NKJV). INTRO:As we arrive at this final lesson in our Good Word study series on how Christ “unites” heaven and earth, we address one final important aspect of the unity Christ longs for among his followers. As believers learn to treasure and defend their love for God and their life with one another their unity grows. This final lesson is entitled, “Standing All in the Will of God.” Memory Text: “In everything give thanks; for this is the will ...

Memory Text: “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one” (Colossians 4:6, NKJV). INTRO: Last week’s Good Word lesson focused on our new life in Christ. This week we focus “living with others,” which seems to include many and different challenges from our life in Christ. While baptism alone does not perfect our characters, Paul describes how followers of Jesus and “clothe” themselves with the “new self” received in Christ. Colossians 3:1-17 clearly describes these changes which we are to “put away” and other with which we ...

Memory Verse: “Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” (Colossians 3:14, NRSVue). INTRO: Admittedly, there is much in the Christian life that defies explanation. How can a person really “die” and be “raised to life” when, to all appearances, he or she is the same person and has had no such physical life-and-death experience? How can a growing believer effectively explain to someone how a living person dies spiritually and why “spiritual death” is essential to receiving and living an “eternal life?” Q: What is the connection between “love” and “death” that Paul speaks so ...

Memory Verse: “So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ” (Colossians 2:16, 17, NKJV). INTRO: Let’s begin our Bible lesson discussion this week on the Good Word program about what “completeness” in Christ means. Often, Bible Sabbath-keepers are confronted by well-meaning Sunday keepers with the idea that seventh-day Sabbath worship of Jesus Christ is perpetuating Jewish ceremonial practices. Would you agree or disagree? How can Bible Sabbath keepers, like Adventists and Seventh-day Baptists, ...

Memory Verse: “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). INTRO: There is an unsurpassable greatness the “gospel” of Jesus, which Paul describes as a “mystery.” Notice in chapter 1 of Colossians, beginning at verse 26 and concluding in verse 28. Let’s read this passage and see how it connects to our memory verse this week. (READ from Bible, Colossians 1:26-28). Paul talks to believers about “the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations.” Q: What is this ...

Memory Verse: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:15–17, NKJV). INTRO: As we welcome our listeners to this week’s Bible lesson discussion, we turn our attention to a term used by Bible scholars called “the preeminence (or supremacy) of Christ,” a term which ...

Memory Verse: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” (Philippians 4:6, NRSVue). INTRO: Paul has repeated admonished believers in Philippi not to be anxious. Despite Paul’s imprisonment and pending court hearing, despite the difficulties those followers of Jesus may be facing where they live, Paul strongly encourages them not to be anxious in Phil. 4:6 which is this week’s memory verse. Memory Verse: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known ...

Memory Verse: “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:10, 11, NKJV). INTRO: There are many believers that remain reluctant about salvation in Christ by “faith alone,” apart from the “works of the law.” For some reason, we seem to confuse obedience to Christ with works of the law as if it could ensure our salvation. Let’s begin our discussion today with question about the difference between “salvation by works” and ...

Memory Verse: “Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:14, 15, NKJV). INTRO: This week’s Bible lesson focuses on how the members of the Philippian church were to conduct themselves as followers of Jesus. It seems clear that their reputation in the community was an important component of their witness to the power of Jesus Christ in contrast to the corrupt “generation” surrounding them, including both the citizens of ...

Memory Verse: “Fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind” (Philippians 2:2, NKJV). INTRO: In this week’s lesson we are reminded again of Paul’s emphasis on unity among believers through commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. To do so, Paul uses a poem, which perhaps also became a hymn in the early church to describe the humility or condescension it required of Jesus to provide the pathway for unity among all believers who claimed to be His followers. Here is how Paul introduces this poem: Memory Verse: “Fulfill my ...