Beans & Bibles

Beans & Bibles A fresh expression of church, and we are moving. Updates to come. It's not a Bible study that's an offshoot of a main church service -- it's church itself!

04/15/2026

So, today I conclude a 20 plus year journey with what was to me eye popping in my daily walk with Christ!

We explored, four days ago, “what is sin?” The best definition I ever heard was from Josh Tovey, “Sin is when Jesus isn’t enough!”

Two days ago i asked, what we do with the Old Testament specifically the Ten Commandments Mark Cryderman, your sermon over 20 years ago started this road, “Everyone has broken almost all of the Ten Commandments!” You broke them all down and taught as Jesus taught, that “the actual killing of another human is not the sin, but just the thought of it, for what’s in the heart, not what the hands did, is the sin!” Adultery actually is when I spend time harboring it in my heart. Not the actual act.

David Clarity(sp) taught that the decision to follow Christ is a change of direction, a u-turn. He joked, did you ever hear of the Farmer who couldn’t make his ewe turn?” But seriously, Paul on the Damascus road has made a u-turn. Now he didn’t turn around on the road, but on the road to destroying Christians he met the Christ of The Christians and thus turned from destroying them to making them.

Paul writes about how there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. How we are free from the law. How in the law there is no justification, but how without Christ, the law doesn’t condemn, because again, without Christ we stand condemned already!

So as I read Leviticus, as I read exodus, I ask again? What do we do with the Ten Commandments? What do we do with the levitical law?

Jesus said, they hear but don’t understand. They see but do not perceive. For how long lord do I walk in darkness? What do I do with the Old Testament?

I pray, through The Word of YHWH! Thru the teaching of the Holy Spirit, that I finally understand something!

The law is NOT a set of lines in the sand, thank you Peter Goodman and Ken Gilmore! The law is a direction, a pathway. It is the wrong way! We do not walk toward it. We do not walk toward murder and stop short. We walk toward love and Good deeds. That’s opposite way, toward Jesus. He gave us a direction to walk, “A new command I give you: love one another…”. When asked which commandment is the most important, Jesus answered, Mark Cryderman’s paraphrase: Love God, Love People!

To a young person who is dating, the question isn’t, how far can we go and still honor God? Asking that question itself is the answer. You’re walking in the wrong direction. Leave the buttons and zippers alone. She might be someone else’s wife one day. She still is not yours!

That boat next door? Don’t be envious. Maybe take half of what it would take to buy that boat, find a ministry that serves people who are truly starving and severely suffering, and support that ministry. That’s sharing. Don’t we teach our children how to share? How did we unlearn that concept?

Which way are you walking? The ten guides show us more where not to walk, not what not to do. Look very very closely to how Jesus talked. Inside His words are these concepts! I truly believe that now; and it has taken me this long. Hmm. I need to figure out how to learn quicker!

04/11/2026

For years I’ve contemplated the law, the Ten Commandments, and the relationship of the Old Testament to the New! Thanks to Ken Gilmore and Peter Goodman for a series of sermons that I can now take what Jesus taught and unite it to our Father’s Word in a far more complete way.

So let’s spend a few days asking questions that will lead us to an understanding of Gods Love that WILL change our lives!

Today, question 1: What is sin?

04/09/2026

Isaiah 3:18-26. “In that day the Lord will sn**ch away their finery: the bangles and headbands and crescent necklaces, the earrings and bracelets and veils, the headdresses and ankle chains and sashes, the perfume bottles and charms, the signet rings and nose rings, the fine robes and the capes and cloaks, the purses and mirrors, and the linen garments and tiaras and shawls. Instead of fragrance there will be a stench; instead of a sash, a rope; instead of well dressed hair, baldness; instead of fine clothing, sloth; instead of beauty, branding. Your young men will fall by the sword, your warriors in battle. The gates of Zion will lament and mourn; destitute, she will sit on the ground.”

Welcome to Christianity today. Yes Zion is the subject here, but isn’t Zion where God is? If that is the case, may I make the case that the church, the body of believers, is Zion? That makes this passage from Isaiah even more pertinent today! And let’s look inside our four walls!

The church has become more vulgar, more drunk, more of seekers of pleasure than real justice than ever before. And I’m not talking about immigration, but it has become dishonest in ways I’ve never seen before. The conservatives hold tightly to their right to bare arms. The left hold tight to their right over their own body vs the lives of others. Is this Christianity? No wonder the world rejects the church. What would happen if we were to denounce the killing of babies within the walls of schools? What would happen if we got honest about abortion? A “lead pastor, theologian, and scholar” hates Trump, a president I never voted for, so much that he agrees with abortion, And I quote that pastor’s article on the subject, “only four percent of abortions are for birth control purposes!” Really?

I write this not for politics, but we all need to get some honesty. What is God saying here in Isaiah? I believe it is about how we spend on vanity! And the American church is at the center of it all.

Christian, the next time you buy alcohol, equal the money to a credible organization that does good in a foreign land where there is so much suffering. The next time you get a tattoo, double that money spent, support a good missionary where there is truly changing lives. Etc!

God isn’t against us brushing our hair, he’s not against us using good hygiene, and even some good fragrances. There is no prohibition to looking well dressed. But the over the top spending at Victorias Secrets. The great splurging on oneself at Ultra Beauty. The great money spent at the tattoo shop; where is the sharing we teach our children?

Go to Haiti, what a tremendous need. There are fantastic organizations doing life changing ministries! Go to Bethlehem! Eye opening! There are missionaries who want to see something happen for these people. And what about our own Latino neighbors? Maybe instead of fighting immigration battles, how about we find good missionaries and give them support? After all, who can tell me about the corruption in these Catholic countries? The corruption not only is the governments, but even in the attitudes of the blue collar workers as well. I’ve seen it first hand. They need us to show them love for one another instead of stealing from everyone they can. Again, I’ve been there, I’ve had the m16s surrounding me for both protection and to grease the palms.

Tithing is simply Old Testament. Jesus has a better way! Sharing!

04/04/2026

Good morning. It’s Saturday, Shabbat in the Hebrew world, and that one day no one is celebrating anything. Yesterday was Good Friday, tomorrow, Easter.

Our church has been studying Matthew for a few weeks, and so my morning routine has been in Matthew. Friday was the study of the arrest and crucifying of Yeshua. But there is nothing to look at today. Should I wait till tomorrow? Na.

So I looked at Mark for the crucifying passage. And WOW, something new, though this is also in Matthew, it just happened to hit me in my 126 to time I’ve looked at this section. But to understand where my pea brain is you have to go back to the scene. Insert yourself without the prior knowledge the gospels give us. You must remove all knowledge the holy sprit has taught us and reenlist the rawness of the emotions!

You are a Jew. You live in Israel, your promised land, but the Roman’s have subdued you and tax you into submission. You are watching and have been for four hundred years for the messiah. Then this Jesus shows up. He does miracles like a messiah, but he’s absolutely no threat to the Romans as everyone was hoping. But he is different, and he has a huge following! Could he be the one?

And so let’s skip ahead to Pilates’s “Oval Office” where the Jewish leaders are accusing this “prophet” of blasphemy, and Pilate asks, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus answers,” Yes!” What happens next to me now is absolutely astonishing! Which group is all up in arms? Pilate and the threatened Romans? No. The Jews. Here Jesus claims that he is the greatest threat, greatest threat to the Roman world there ever has been, but the district Roman ruler “doesn’t find anything of significance to charge him with!” But the Jewish leaders? They want Barabbas freed and Jesus killed.

The Romans had more grace than the religious Jewish leaders. The Romans should have been greatly up in arms after the greatest threat ever written about. But it was the religious pious leaders who condemned Him. (How many times cani get away with saying”threat”?)

Sometimes we look at how the christian community has conducted themselves and we must ask, what has really changed?

Toward the end of, God’s Not Dead III, a college girl, full of anger, knocked on the “guilty” pastor’s door and makes the statement of the movie, “The problem we have isn’t knowing what you Christians are against. We just don’t know what you are for!” (My paraphrase).

How are we different than the world? Jesus was the only one who deserved His rights, but it is us who hold tightly to them. He wasn’t a threat to the world, but aren’t we? He’s the one who suffered so greatly, why is it we believe it was so that we could live in comfort? I don’t see that anywhere except for after our time on this earth.

As one pastor said it, Jesus tore the curtain. Pastors today are trying to sew it all up again. And to be honest, not just pastors but christian leaders wanting pastors to sew it up. We are looking for religious systems. We don’t want to suffer, which is ok, but we reject our suffering, that’s not what Jesus said. We in America are becoming seekers of pleasure. In the church we are witnessing p**n, gluttony, drunkenness, materialism, and what else?

What are we for?

Remember, God has you where He has you to advance the gospel through you!

03/30/2026

President Donald Trump,

Recently I see you posted a letter from Franklyn Graham, where he gave you the location of the keys to the gates of heaven. He’s exactly right! No one can work their way to heaven. The question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”, is a wrong question because it refers to people as good. Not one person on earth is good except the Son of God. Only Jesus can be referred to as good! So when bad things happen to anyone on earth, bad things happen to bad people. That’s just truth according to His Word.

But! Concerning those who follow the ways of our Lord, those who bow down to the only one true God, how can we do bad works? How can a fruit tree provide thorns?

President Donald Trump, while policies might be good, what we say comes from the overflow of our heart. If you do something right for the wrong reason, there still requires a change of heart, then the good things that are done get perceived better. And in addition, the right things that are done are done even better. For instance, you might have a good immigration policy, but is it carried out well?

So, what if a change of heart recognizes that people need to be treated better? What would happen if you were to invite Liz Cheney to the White House simply to apologize? What if you invited John McCain’s family to Washington to ask forgiveness? Just think about it? The press wouldn’t know what to do with that!

A change of heart! A U-turn in life! One day using God’s name in vain, the next day, calling God Lord! A change of heart! He’s ready and waiting! For how long? I don’t know! But He is!

P4U. (Praying for yoU).

03/25/2026

President Trump

We are commanded to pray for our leaders. I was asked back in the day, “Steve, do you pray for President Clinton?” “Ron, I don’t know how! I don’t agree with anything about him!” “Steve, Steve, Steve. You don’t have to pray for his success in his policies. What if you prayed for his salvation? What if you prayed for him to find Jesus as Lord and savior? What if he found the Lord while president? What a difference that would make!”

How convicted I was! I was so short sighted! I was wrong. Not this time!

“Father, become so very real to President Trump that even when he does right he sounds right! Change his heart even in truth to have grace! Change his language! While carrying the big stick, soften his bark! Father, change him into a meek and humble leader under control!”

03/24/2026

Good morning all. I’m back. My desire is to start the dialog again through this venue.

A couple avenues from where I try to communicate:
1: on paper I’m a citizen of the USA. In reality, I’m not. I’m a citizen of the kingdom of YHWH. Yeshua is Lord! Jesus is Lord!
2. God’s word IS the final authority. It isn’t a list of things to do or not do. It is life itself. The Ten Commandments aren’t to be followed, they are to be lived! What IS the difference? Following them is legalistic, but living them is loving. Let me give you concrete examples of the difference.

Thou shall not commit murder. Following this command means no one dies by my hand. Living this command means not hating someone wishing them dead.
Or, thou shalt keep the sabbath. Thou shall do no work on the seventh day. The Hebrews and to a degree the church teach that we do nothing. Legalistic. How about we live it? Why do we think we need seven days of wages or spend seven days making and protecting our wealth? What if we lived it? On the seventh day we don’t worry about our wealth or maintain our possessions, but instead we focus on our relationships, with God through our worship or our relationships with one another being a blessing to one another?

Jesus, Yeshua didn’t abolish the law. In fact, he didn’t even water it down using grace as His sword. But in fact, He elevated it to show us how far off the mark or target we truly are!

So, the church lately has been assisting those who would divide us. And they do it in the name of pacifism. But if we would lay down our opinions for God’s complete word we might look inside just a little more and say a little less.

Thank you

06/17/2023

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