What does it mean?

We had a cancellation in the weekly schedule of our Thursday morning Men’s Bible Study (aka MBS) and I volunteered to fill in this week on short notice. This morning we had our regular weekly Zoom meeting with a sober turnout of faithful and mature believers in attendance. Between my last presentation 4 weeks ago and now, we’ve been blessed to publish our final book in Course 2, entitled Heaven: Our Ultimate Destiny, For those who might be interested, my wife Susan and I will be hosting a weekly Thursday evening group meeting to study the new material together. If any of you are interested, click here for more information about how you can sign up.

Along the way from our Kingdom study to our new one about Heaven, I’ve been impressed more and more with how differently many people who call themselves “Christians” view what is involved in taking on that identity, which has rekindled my interest in what it means to be “evangelical.” Specifically, what is the Good News or Gospel that Jesus and His followers shared during their lives in the first Century? Surprisingly, much of their message remains controversial to this day. The presentation I gave to our MBS group earlier today is pretty direct, which is good because a number of heart-felt conversations are already underway.

This time I was able to keep my presentation to about 50 minutes, which is relatively brief for my more commonly crowded talks. Discussion afterward was more restrained than usual due to the nature of the material covered. Click here to download and view a PDF of my PowerPoint presentation (If you click here you can listen to the YouTube audio early in the PDF) and/or click here (with Passcode !0M^hJGB) to link to a Zoom video recording of the presentation with a split screen showing the PowerPoint. My talk starts at about the 3-minute mark. The day after we met, I circulated an expanded handout entitled “Resources” available for download here. Again, we need to know with security where we are with respect of God and His Kingdom. Are we solidly in or dangling loose out there somewhere?

PS: The Zoom format has also proven to be an excellent venue for Celebrate Salvation groups. If you’re interested, have any questions about my recent talk or groups in general, or would like some support in getting a group going in your neighborhood or church, please feel free to contact me!