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NEW QUIZZES ON
"FUNDAMENTALS OF THE FAITH"
NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE
The "Bible Quizzes" section of our Website continues to be one of the most popular sections of the site, attracting thousands of visitors each month. In this edition of our newsletter, we are pleased to announce the addition of yet another new group of quizzes to accompany our recently released video and audio programs on "Fundamentals of the Faith." In the not-too-distant future, we will be making available more quizzes to accompany this series as additional programs are produced. For now, however, we invite you to try your hand at these first four new quizzes, which are available on our Website at www.thegospelofchrist.com/quiz.
A REMINDER ABOUT OUR
NEW BIBLE QUIZ FOR USE
AT FAIRS, CONVENTIONS,
LECTURESHIPS, ETC.
In the September 18th edition of this newsletter, we announced the availability of a special, ten-question computer Bible quiz that we had created for use at fairs, conventions, lectureships, etc. Each of the questions in the quiz was carefully selected from the New Testament quizzes that we already had in place on our Website. This new, shorter quiz was designed to be run from either a CD or a computer's hard drive in order to help spread the Gospel by means of an attention-getting electronic medium (specifically, a laptop computer).
We want to remind you that this new stand-alone Bible quiz is available free of charge to anyone who might wish to use it. If you would like to view, take, or even download the quiz (with instructions on how to use it), you may do so by clicking on this link, which will take you to a page that we have created on our Website specifically for that purpose.
LESSONS FIVE AND SIX
IN TGOC'S NEWLY REVISED
N.T. SERIES ON MATTHEW
In our last two newsletters, we announced the availability of the first four lessons ("The Birth of the King," "How to Overcome Temptation," "The Greatest Sermon Ever," and "The Compassionate King") in our newly revised New Testament Series on the Book of Matthew. In this newsletter, we are pleased to announce the availability of lessons five and six in the series ("The Life and Teaching of the King—Part 1" and "The Life and Teaching of the King—Part 2"). Lessons seven and eight will be announced in the next edition of our newsletter, bringing the series to a close.
In Part 1 of his lessons on "The Life and Teaching of the King," Ben Bailey examines chapters 12-15 of the Book of Matthew, which discuss Jesus as the Master Teacher. In these chapters, we learn much about Jesus’ life, how He lived, and how He dealt with others. In chapter 12, Jesus is presented as Lord—which was the thrust of the apostle Peter's comments on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 when he said, "Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ" (vs. 36). The teaching of both Matthew and Acts is that Jesus must be Lord of our lives. We must allow Him to rule and reign in our lives today by giving ourselves fully to Him, submitting to His will, and living faithfully in service to Him in His kingdom.
In Matthew 13, we are exposed to several of the parables that Jesus used to teach and encourage both His disciples and others who heard Him as He taught. In fact, this chapter contains eight different parables that Jesus used to illustrate numerous important points regarding the kingdom and those who would compose it.
In Matthew 14, we learn of the untimely death of John the Immerser at the hands of the adulterous King Herod. And, we also witness two of Jesus' best-known miracles—the feeding of the 5,000 men, and the calming of the raging storm on the Sea of Galilee. As with all of Christ's miracles, the miracles were not an end in and of themselves, but instead were intended to be a means to an end. Jesus' miracles were merely the tools by which He taught people important spiritual truths. When Christ fed 5,000+ people, His main purpose was not just to satiate their hunger. Rather, He wanted them to know that He was the "Bread of Life" (Jn. 6:35), and that if they would partake of the spiritual food that He was offering, they would never hunger again. Or, He wanted them to learn that, no matter how rough the "seas of life" might get, He would never forsake them (Heb. 13:5-6; 1 Pet. 5:7).
In Matthew 15, we find one of the most relevant lessons for the religious world today. In verses 7-9, Jesus addressed our worship, and how, if we are not careful, we can worship God in vain. On that occasion, Christ said, "Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: 'These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.' " As Ben notes in his discussion, "These people thought that they were right, yet all along their worship had been displeasing to God. They honored Him with their lips, but they did not have their hearts in the right place." Exactly.
In Part 2 of "The Life and Teaching of the King," Ben focuses on chapters 16-20 where Jesus taught about the kingdom and the relationship of the citizens of the kingdom to God and to the world. In Matthew 16:18, we find Christ stating explicitly, "I will build my church [singular] and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it" [singular]. In God's plan, the church always has been singular. There is only one body (1 Cor. 12:25-27), although there are many members. This is why the apostle Paul, writing to the Christians in Corinth, said, "Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you" (1 Cor. 1:10). As Ben correctly points out, the religious world today is badly fractured due to the unscriptural concept of denominationalism, which has split the body of Christ into multifarious parts, each of which teaches doctrines different than the others. It is obvious from Jesus' comments in Matthew 16, and from other New Testament discussions of the church (Eph. 1:22-23; 4:4ff.; Col. 1:18) that this is not what God intended. Nor is it the reason why Christ died. His "unity prayer" in John 17 proves that beyond any shadow of a doubt.
Matthew 17 presents the transfiguration of Christ, from which several important lessons can be learned. But surely one of the most important of those lessons was God's admonition in regard to Christ, "Hear Him!" (vs. 5). Christ—and no one else—is our authority in all religious matters (Mt. 28:18; Jn. 12:48). In Matthew 18, we see Jesus teaching on the kingdom and on the characteristics of those who are a part of the kingdom, including how Christians are to deal with other Christians who have sinned against them (vss. 15-18). In Matthew 19, Jesus deals with the thorny topic of marriage, divorce, and remarriage, and presents the one-and-only scriptural reason for divorce: sexual immorality on the part of one of the spouses (Mt. 19:9). In Matthew 20, Jesus teaches us more about the kingdom, which He likens to a vineyard—a place where work is carried out and fruit is produced. That, of course, is exactly what the Lord's church is all about—working (to spread the Gospel—Mt. 28:19-20; Mk. 16:15) in order to produce fruit (new Christians—Acts 11:26).
Ben provides a fitting conclusion to this lesson by reminding us that Jesus is the way to salvation, as Paul pointed out in Romans 5:6-8 when he wrote that
"when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." It was Christ's death that instituted His kingdom, and that allows us, even today, to become members of it.
Both of these lessons are now available on our Website, where you will find them in video,
audio, and written transcript formats. We invite you to examine them for yourself, and to share them with others.
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