TruthWhys

05/08/2019

For anyone who is checking back here at our TruthWhys Bible Study page—we have moved! We now offer our studies at TheMeasuringLine.ORG. Please visit our website. All the resource material of study summaries is located there. We are currently in a new series on Genesis.
If you are in the SC upstate area, please visit us in person at our church—The Measuring Line, 805 Asheville Highway, Spartanburg, SC 29303

11/19/2018

Paul concludes his letter with a doxology, a fitting summary of worship and purposed encouragement. Read the final installment of our Romans series.

Paul mentions several other people in his greetings. The next three appear to be close. He calls them dear friends and coworker. And that seems to contrast with Apelles who is mentioned as “approved in Christ,” showing appreciation without that close tie. Some have wondered whether Apelles is ac...

11/12/2018

Was Phoebe a deacon? Was Junia an apostle? We are closing in on the end of Romans. Read the next installment in our series.

With the topical discussion of the letter over, Paul turns in chapter 16 to final greetings. In the first two verses, however, he commends a woman named Phoebe to them. Why? Phoebe is designated in verse 2 a prostatis. This Greek word appears in the New Testament only once. However, it appears in i...

10/29/2018

In his classic overtly obvious hinting style (see Philemon), Paul suggests without saying as much that the Roman Gentile Christians should follow the example of the Macedonian and Achian Gentile Christians in collecting money for the poor Jews of Jerusalem. Read the next installment in our Romans series.

So Paul’s mission goal, as apostle to the Gentiles, was to present the gospel to Gentiles and incorporate them in the believing church. As Paul discovered, incorporating them into the church was a struggle. A clash occurred with the Jews who often misunderstood their heritage and its Law to be nee...

10/22/2018

As Paul begins his conclusion to his letter to the Romans, he wants them to understand his mission and goal. That mission and goal is summed up in the symbolism of the offering of the Gentiles for the poor among the Jerusalem (Jewish) Christians. Read the next installment of our Romans series.

We begin now our last section of Romans—Section 6: Ending Comments. In the first part of this last section, Paul discusses his travel plans. But he begins in verses 14 through 24 of chapter 15 with a transition, explaining the reason he had written to them and how that interacted with his view of ...

10/14/2018

We need to go back to our Atonement series to finish out a final question not addressed: Was the shedding of blood necessary for atonement to take place? While a strictly literal understanding of this question (such as, did the technical release of blood from its housing in Christ at his crucifixion cause atonement?) would seem to indicate an answer of no, I think there is more to it than that, which would actually lead me to answer yes. Read the next installment of our Romans series, which takes a step back into the Atonement mini-series within.

In our atonement series, we failed to discuss the particular role or emphasis of the Bible on the blood. Verses such as Hebrews 9:22, which tells us, “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness,” indicate that an intricate and seemingly necessary relationship exists of blood shed to t...

10/01/2018

Chapter 15 reveals more surely that unity of believers is the core of Paul's message in this letter as it is in so many of his others. Read the next installment in our Romans series.

Before continuing on with our Romans 14 discussion, there is another point regarding the atonement that I want to clear up. We understood God to forgive us (our spirits) for sins we have committed, but the cross was required to cleanse our essence (what I have consistently called our physical part)....

09/24/2018

Paul tells in Romans 14 to accept the weak. Who are the weak? And what does accepting them mean? Read the next installment of our Romans series.

Regarding the righteousness involved with New Covenant living, Paul had seemed to start his discussion of interchurch relationship in the first half of chapter 12. He moved from that to those outside the church (last part of chapter 12) and then to duties to the state in chapter 13. He seems to have...

09/17/2018

We had the last (seventh) session discussing the atonement in our TruthWhys Bible study this past Sunday. Our conclusion provides the reason for the necessity of the atonement in order to have everlasting love relationship with our God while explaining fully why imputation of sin guilt to Jesus could not be the means of forgiveness. Read our final atonement installment.

The picture—the image—of what occurs in the Day of Atonement sacrifice informs our understanding of Christ’s sacrifice. The goat upon which sins are placed is not scorned or punished. In fact, nothing is done to the goat (indicating that the goat’s body and blood are not the focus of the sym...

08/27/2018

Only once does the Bible tell us of sins being symbolically placed on an animal involved with sacrifice, and that is on one of the goats on the day of atonement. But they are not placed on the goat to be killed; they are placed on the goat taken far off into the wilderness. Therefore, the atonement is not pictured as the animal dying with the penalty of sin; rather, the atonement picture is in the blood sprinkled in the Holy of Holies which results in sins being taken away. Lev 17:11 tells us, "For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have appointed it to you to make atonement on the altar for your lives, since it is the lifeblood that makes atonement." Read our next installment in our Romans series, focusing right now on the Atonement.

The Christian understanding of the atonement, then, has suffered from the confusion of the world’s faulty ideas. Both progressives and evangelicals (biblically conservative Christians) assimilate those wrong death-gift-for-blessing ideas. So the progressives shun the whole idea of sacrifice as a b...

08/20/2018

Jesus cried out on the cross, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" Was Jesus in agony bereft of God's love? Had God indeed turned aside because jesus hung guilty of our sin and, as Habakkuk had said, "Your eyes are too pure to look on evil!" (1:13)? Perhaps not. Perhaps Habakkuk had to learn the lesson of Job and David that when God is silent, it does not mean he has left. Thus, perhaps the cry of Jesus, who certainly knew of God's plan in sending him to the cross, was not so confused as the cry may make us think. His question may not have resulted from his own mind's struggle, but may have been given for those around the cross, wondering where God had gone. Thus, he may have been directing them to the conclusion of that quoted psalm. Read the next installment in our Romans series, currently concentrating on the atonement.

In our last discussion, we learned that redemption and forgiveness have a close relationship. Regarding the former, as evidenced all through the biblical record, redemption rescues material possession. Therefore, because of the curse on our essence, our redemption involves rescuing our essence from....

08/13/2018

Forgiveness is the cancellation of an unpaid debt. Penal Substitution argues that the debt must be paid. Is there no forgiveness in penal substitution? Read the next installment in our Romans series currently discussing the atonement.

Ruth is the Bible’s extended metaphor for the idea of the Kinsman Redeemer, and the Kinsman Redeemer, of course, in the actual sense for world restoration is Christ. Therefore, in this metaphor we see each of the characters symbolizing the various players in the overall redemptive history of the w...