Words fail me to convey to you the awesome wonder that I am feeling now.
In this PODCAST, you’ll no doubt hear that wonder expressed through my voice’s intonations and verbal expressions.
Thank you for listening, and for sharing this message!!!
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God bless you richly as you listen.
In this season of Thanksgiving, as you are about to hear on this PODCAST, we have MUCH for which to be thankful.
Especially for THIS!!!
Thank you for listening, and for sharing this message!!!
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God bless you richly as you listen.
This was a big deal.
This IS a big deal.
As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, this is a Very.Big.Deal, even today. Even for us.
Be encouraged!!!
Thank you for listening, and for sharing this message!!!
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God bless you richly as you listen.
There is a play-on-words in 1 Peter 1:22.
As you will hear in this PODCAST, an insightful play-on-words that we miss to our peril.
Coming as it does from Peter’s pen, I can assure you that this play-on-words is most-intentional. Pregnant with meaning poignantly personal to Peter, and to us as well.
This play-on-words is a bit of a pun—not humorous at all, but serious in the extreme—that goes straight to the heart of what it means to be committed-Christ-follower now, today, in our current Christian culture.
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God bless you richly as you listen.
As you are about to hear this PODCAST, it was a night that Peter would never, ever forget.
Nor should we.
For embedded within the events of this night is a blessedly-enduring word of hope and assurance. Hope and assurance for you. Hope and assurance for me. And certainly hope and assurance for someone or someones whom you and I deeply love.
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God bless you richly as you listen.
In this week’s PODCAST, we engage in a most important discussion that flows directly out of Matthew 18:15-17 — one of the most important passages in all of the New Testament, the so-called “Church Discipline” passage.
Church Discipline, a teaching in many local churches that really rose into prominence in the late 1970’s and became quite the trend.
I can remember attending church leadership conferences back then and hearing pastors — I’ll use word “boast” — of the fact that they recently removed an individual or individuals from their churches, thereby “preserving the purity of their churches.” Others would then oooh and ahhh at the boldness of the pastor in confronting the sin in his church and taking decisive action in order to preserve the purity of his church by the process of Church Discipline as outline by Jesus here in Matthew 18.
Today, one of this nation’s leading Church Discipline proponents insists that church discipline, as outlined in Matthew 18, is one of the marks of a healthy church. He writes this on his website, clearly articulating the prevailing view of Church Discipline, and indeed includes this as one of his main talking points as he addresses pastors’ conferences throughout the country, encouraging them to do the same:
“Church discipline is the act of correcting sin in the life of the body, including the possible final step of excluding a professing Christian from membership in the church and participation in the Lord’s Supper because of serious unrepentant sin.”
Consequently, it has become (and in many places still is) standard practice to remove or “exclude” or excommunicate (you choose the term) unrepentant sinners from their local churches. Or if not standard practice, this notion of Church Discipline is certainly included in most of our churches’ bylaws.
Well, in light of the above definition — More importantly, in light of Jesus’ words in Matthew 18 — I must ask, Is that really what Jesus taught to His disciples and to us?
Let’s find out together in this Encore Podcast, an encore because I am presently leading a Study Tour in Israel.
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God bless you as you listen.
You could call the Holy Spirit Jesus’ going away present, first to His disciples, and then, of course, to each of us. As you will hear in this PODCAST, we’re talking about The Third Member of Trinity, the Mysterious Member of the Trinity.
Here in John 14-17 — the so-called Upper Room Discourse, even though as we noted last week, Jesus taught the amazing truths of John 15-17 after He and the disciples-minus-Judas had hastily departed the Upper Room, steps ahead of the Judas-led-posse seeking Jesus’ arrest — we have the first extended theological discussion of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, actually in the entire Bible.
Up until now the biblical writers have been largely silent regarding the multifaceted ministry of the Holy Spirit. Yes, the Holy Spirit is mentioned throughout the Old Testament. But the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is not developed in the Old Testament. This, as you are about to hear, for very good reason, one that harkens all the way back to the very first podcast in this series.
So here we have, in the Upper Room Discourse, one of the very few places in Scripture where the biblical writers (in this case, John) devote much ink and parchment to a discussion of the Mysterious Member of the Trinity.
One of three principle themes that Jesus develops in this, His farewell address to His men, literally minutes before His arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Underscoring this entire Upper Room Discourse is a vitally
important principle to which Jesus alluded in High Priestly Prayer that we will study in detail in John 17. A declarative sentence of very few words that speaks volumes as to how Jesus wants His committed followers then and now to engage the world in which we live.
John 17:15: “Father, I do not ask you to take my followers out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one.”
HOW UTTERLY IRONIC!!! (I’ll tell just how ironic in this podcast. Enjoy!)
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God bless you richly as you listen.
It is, without a doubt, one of the most precious truths in all of the Bible. From the lips of Jesus Himself to the seventy upon their return from their first mission’s trip, in this PODCAST you will hear Him say,
“I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning.”
Fact: Satan is a fallen foe.
Fact: The devil has been defeated.
As we have discussed for the past two weeks, Fact: Satan is not losing the war; he has already lost it.
There is a day coming, sooner rather than later, when in the words of John,
“The devil who deceived them (will be) thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20).
There is a day coming, sooner rather than later, when at the mere mention of Jesus’ name,
“every knee will bow (including the devil and every one of his demonic minions)… and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father,” (Philippians 2).
The day has already come when, in the words of James,
“the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror,” (James 2).
So yes, Satan IS a fallen foe. The devil IS — right now, in real time — a thoroughly defeated foe.
Consequently, there is a verse. Or more accurately, a part of a verse. A half of a verse. One that is buried in the very back of the Bible. In the Apostle John’s first letter, chapter 4. Fourteen words (in the NASB) to be exact.
One sentence we will now highlight and underscore and amplify. A precious truth that perfectly frames any discussion of spiritual warfare and our vulnerability to what Paul described as
“all the schemes, strategies, and deceits of the devil.”
A fundamental fact of our faith that you will now hear, and cherish, in this PODCAST.
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God bless you richly as you listen.
“Epic,” as in Your-Salvation-and-Mine-Rides-or-Falls-on-This. I kid you not.
This PODCAST is going to be fun, and so instructive. Instructive on two levels.
1. Instructive as we discover together exactly what Jesus meant here in Matthew 18:18-20.
2. Instructive as we are handed, courtesy of Jesus, an opportunity to learn what to do, and perhaps more importantly, what not to do with the Bible.
As you are about to hear, we must bring to this passage every interpretive tool in the tool box in order to arrive at an accurate interpretation and application of this passage.
Let me put it this way: The Apostle Paul encouraged his protégé, young Pastor Timothy, to…
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth, (2 Timothy 2:15).
Do you know why Paul encouraged Timothy to handle the word of truth correctly? Because there were then, as there are now, scores of people — pastors, teachers, conference speakers, authors, commentators — who routinely handle the word of truth incorrectly.
In 1 Timothy 1:3, Paul similarly wrote Timothy,
I urged you to stay there in Ephesus and stop those whose teaching is contrary to the truth.
Why write this? Because there were Sunday school teachers or small group leaders in Timothy’s church who were teaching error.
It is so easy to make the Bible say whatever we want it to say. It is so easy, too easy, to carelessly teach what the Bible does not say.
Case in point: Matthew 18:18-20. A commonly-quoted passage made to mean all sorts of things that, to be perfectly honest with you, Jesus never intended. A passage so often applied in ways that Jesus did not have in mind. He would cringe today to see what so many have done with this passage.
And, as you are about to see, this passage will indeed require us to bring to its interpretation and application a whole set of interpretive tools — a knowledge of language, history, geography, culture, chronology, context, literary & Jewish background — all in an effort to understand what Jesus did indeed intend to convey to His disciples and to us at a singularly watershed moment in Jesus’ ministry.
So in this podcast, dear friend, we have a lot to talk about.
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God bless you as you listen.
The scene could not have been more chaotic. Crowds clamoring for Jesus’ blood. The blood-thirsty mobs hurling their false accusations at Jesus as they tried to convince the Romans that this man needed to die. The Roman soldiers salivating at the prospect of torturing yet another helpless victim.
And through it all, once the mayhem ended, once the maelstrom calmed down, the echoes of one question continued to reverberate against the city’s walls and over her cobblestone streets. You can read this singularly significant question in John’s account of Jesus’ execution.
Pilate, the Roman governor who held Jesus’ fate in his blood-stained hands, looked Jesus right in the eye and inquired of Him a three-word question that, in a haunting sort of way, continues to resound in our day.
Jesus had just said to Pilate, “What I say is true.” Pilate then sneered and cynically asked Jesus, “What is truth?”
In this PODCAST, we will discover the answer together.
And that answer IS the FIRM foundation of our faith!
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May God richly bless you as you listen.
Dewey Bertolini’s Podcast
The Latest News from Jerusalem
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Dewey Bertolini 