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Bible

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Three Prongs of the Spirit’s Convicting Work

Posted on June 29, 2022

Sometimes, only when it’s time to move on to another passage, do I have my fullest (yet) understanding of the passage I’m having to leave. It’s that way with this months’s dig in John 16. So many of my friends say things like “I made this decision and I feel a peace about it.” (Sometimes the decision is in direct opposition to the Word of God.) From John 16, I understand that my peace (or lack of it) is not the test of my righteousness or even of the wisdom in my decisions. The test is whether or not my decision accords with the Spirit. That clarity shines from the teachings about the Holy Spirit in John 16. As we leave this study for another one that we will love as much, let’s take some blockbuster truths that help us decisively overcome our sorrows in this life, because He has already overcome the world (John 16:33).

  1. The Holy Spirit’s new work, as the Comforter promised to the apostles, began in Acts 2.
  2. That work was to convict men of sin, righteousness and judgment (John 16: 8-11. Here, the reason for each prong of the Holy Spirit’s convicting message is given.)
  3. Signs (miracles) brought attention to and verified the message of the Holy Spirit and were completed when the apostles no longer were laying hands on Christians to impart them (Acts 8:10-15; 1 Corinthians 13). 
  4. The message of salvation—the convicting of sin, righteousness and judgment— was always communicated in words (I Corinthians 2:6-14).
  5. The message did not cease when the miracles ceased, because it was preserved in words in Scripture for all time (2 Timothy 3:16). 
  6. In every instance in the book of Acts where detail is given about the preaching or teaching, we see these three tenets of the convicting message of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2, Acts 3-5, Acts 7, Acts 24, etc.)…
  7. Thus, prior to receiving the comfort, the gladness, the boldness that the Spirit brings, we must heed the words of the three fold message; being convicted of personal sin, believing that Jesus is righteous and accepting his method of making us righteous (the washing of baptism and faithful living), and being sure in our conviction of impending judgment on those who reject Christ. (This last one is one of the strongest motivators to spread the gospel.)
Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

The Persecuted Spirit

Posted on February 8, 2022
Sometimes I believe the Holy Spirit may be the most persecuted of the Godhead. Jesus was persecuted for 33 years in the flesh. The Holy Spirit, though, has been blasphemed daily since time began, when the word is mocked and when men who claim the Word as guide today walk in duplicity. I am understanding more and more why the sin for which there’s not forgiveness is that hardness against the Word of salvation (the blasphemy of the Spirit).The Spirit is not just the last best hope for the souls of men. It is the LAST hope.  I love Him. I cannot believe the relevance to our day of writings that were penned by mere men 3000-plus years ago, but originated in the mind of God. When I pray the Psalms (I am praying Psalm 10 today, and it is incredibly encouraging), I love the Spirit more and more. I stand amazed at Him. You can feel pretty small knowing you can hold and read and apply the Words of the persecuted, blasphemed Spirit. I submit that, not only does the Christ know and understand our heartaches and fears and limitations, but the Spirit knows, too. Maybe that’s why Jesus called Him the Comforter. Maybe that is why, though His revelation for this world is complete, the Bible teaches that His advocacy in heaven, along with that of Christ’s is working for us. 
 
But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:25-28).
I love the fact that, in John 14, when Jesus promised the miraculous Spirit to the apostles, He said that the world would not be able to see Him. Jesus would be persecuted to the cross because they could see and seize Him in the garden. The Spirit, while working miraculously in the first century could not be seen or seized.
 …even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him” (John 14:17).
I’m glad He finished His revelation work and that the Word He left will never pass away (Matthew 24:35). I want to accept the Spirit, through my internalization of and obedience to the words of this Book. I want to glorify the Spirit by telling others of His work. I love Him!
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New Book: You Are A Theologian: Thinking Right About The Bible

Posted on November 24, 2016

sliderYou Are A Theologian: Thinking Right About The Bible is an introduction to God’s Word. In this book, the reader will learn about the nature of God’s revelation, how the Bible was recorded and the books of the Bible became recognized as canonical, and how the English Bible ultimately was translated through the centuries. The reader will also learn about how to study the Bible and apply basic rules of hermeneutics.

What others are saying about You Are A Theologian: Thinking Right About The Bible:

This concise tool from Ben will very quickly unwind false truths and firmly build up those who are just beginning to learn of our God. (Jake Sutton, minister at the Moultrie church of Christ)

We all need this book. It fills a critical void for many Christians in Bible understanding. (Glenn Colley, minister at the West Huntsville church of Christ)

Ben brings a substantive study in simple form to the table. You Are A Theologian: Thinking Right About The Bible will benefit many congregations of the Lord’s church as it helps Christians to understand and interpret scripture faithfully. (Jacob Rutledge, minister at the Dripping Springs church of Christ)

Click here to purchase.

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

She Facebooked her Friends and said “Rejoice with Me!…

Posted on May 26, 2016

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…for I have found the piece which was lost!”

Several sisters have asked about the lost dress. Facebook can be a huge umbrella of encouragement even in the mundane.  I know life’s not all about finding Cindy Colley’s heirloom dress, of all things, but I was truly humbled and amazed that so many of you cheered us on as we searched for and found a little dress that I very much wanted to put on BabyG2 next September.  Hundreds of you (literally) and many that I’ve never met have been the sweetest sisters a woman could ever have. I love Facebook for giving your encouragement to me. 

The dress was deep in a closet at Hannah’s (my daughter’s) house. It was in a garment bag hiding behind her wedding dress, which was in the back of that closet in another very huge garment bag. The funny thing was, I had everyone looking for a pink box in which I’d originally wrapped that dress for the gender reveal two years ago…the gender reveal that turned out to be for a boy. Thus, the dress was never opened at the reveal. 

What I had forgotten was that the dress had been removed from the box and used as an illustration at a ladies day in Middle Tennessee a few months after that reveal…the very weekend, in fact, that Ezra was due. (Thus the reason it never got out of my car at my house….It just went straight to Hannah’s house and got hung in a closet there because hospital luggage is not conducive to dress preservation.) That’s just where Facebook became very helpful. You found out I was looking and three of you remembered the dress. You identified where you saw it and the garment bag in which it had left the church building at East Main. In turn, I told my son Caleb (via his Facebook page) to stop looking for a box and start looking for a garment bag. Truth be told, I don’t think he’d done a whole lot of looking for either. (He’s a good egg, though.) But Hannah, being the faithful Facebook follower that she is, immediately saw that post about looking for garment bags. She had moved all the hanging clothes in that closet more than once, laid them on the bed and searched the back of that closet for a box. But this time, she rushed home and actually looked through those clothes she’d been moving  back and forth. She looked for a black garment bag. She found the dress and tried to call me…twice. Unable to reach me, she called her Daddy, who got in the car and drove across town with photos on his phone to spread the cheer.

When he walked in the kitchen door in the middle of last Tuesday, I was surprised to see him. 

“What would you give a man…?” he began. 

“You found my dress??!!”

“I think so. But what would you give a man?…Is this the dress?” He offered his phone and a series of photos.

“You found my dress!!!!” 

“Yes and you should call your daughter on that phone that I don’t even know why I pay for.…She wants to hear from you.”

******************************************************

There are always lessons, of course. Here they are:

  1. If Facebook can find a lost dress, surely we can connect some dots and find some lost souls, too. Facebook is a more personal and encompassing kind of outreach than email or USPS. It’s the kind of networking in which you never know if a click that posts or comments may be the click that does click with some lost soul and opens a door to a relationship, a study, an invitation that could result in a saved soul.
  2. Facebook is a neutral commodity. You get to decide whether your use of it is for the Lord or for the devil. Now, finding a dress is not a work of the Lord. But encouraging each other, as Facebook friends did (and do regularly for me) through this medium, is a great way to get the most good out of something the devil loves to control.
  3. You’re never going to find what you’re looking for if you’re looking where it’s not. That dress was not in all those absurd places (like on top of way-up-there kitchen cabinet and in overflowing trunks where I would have never crushed that batiste and damp basement corners) where I was looking. Sometimes life is like that. We can’t find contentment. We look in all those hard-to-do absurd places instead of the obvious place where the “owner” of truth has put it in the first place. 
  4. You may be own, be picking up, carrying, and moving about the answer to all your dilemmas. But until you recognize that, open it up and really look inside, you won’t find what you’re looking for. Hannah did that with that garment bag. She moved it over and over as she looked other places, to no avail. That’s what we do with our Bibles. We lay them on the table beside our beds. We pick them back up and take them to worship. Sometimes we move them back and forth and back and forth without ever really opening and examining them. We move the book, but we don’t meditate on it, memorize it or mark it. There are many people who own a Bible but do not own truth. It’s very important that we show our kids the difference. The Bible is not a lucky amulet. It’s what’s inside that can bring us joy. But that joy exists for me only when what’s inside the book gets inside of me. Hannah had a garment bag that she was transferring mindlessly back and forth, while what was inside eluded us all. 
  5. Some people are so close to what they really want, but just not quite there. Jesus told a scribe as much in Mark 12:34. “You are not far from the kingdom,” Jesus said. I have many friends who are close to the kingdom. I hurt for them because, of  course, being close to the kingdom of God is not enough. Hannah was near that dress we were hunting each time we talked about it on the phone. It was sometimes right there in the same room with her. Close is not good enough. We have to give people the information they need to identify that for which they search. 
  6. Some news is so good, you want to personally deliver it. I love that about my husband. He loves to bring joy…not just to me, but to everyone in all circumstances. We have the very best news of all. When we understand the wretchedness of that from which the good news— the gospel—rescues people, we can’t be stopped. We are going to those people. We will move heaven and earth to reach them with the good news. In fact Heaven has already moved that they might have this good news. It’s up to us to make the move on earth. We simply must. We are going to tell them that we’ve found that for which they are searching. 
Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Can We Interpret the Bible Alike?

Posted on November 12, 2011

After hearing the simple truth of the scripture, some will say, “That is just one way to interpret the Bible. I interpret it differently.” In other words, they are saying, “It is impossible to agree about what the Bible says.” Such a statement is grossly in error. In an attempt to justify society’s religious diversity, many end up portraying God’s Word as a relatively confused and ambiguous book. Do we serve a God who is unable to give mankind clear instructions on matters of salvation, worship, obedience, and spiritual living?

By saying it is impossible to agree on what the Bible says, several implications must be accepted:

  1. The wisdom of God is insulted. To say that God, who is infinitely knowledgeable (Job 36:5, Isa. 40:28) and abundantly wise (Isa. 55:8-9, Rom 16:25-27, 1 Cor. 1:25), failed to give man a revelation that can be logically understood is nothing short of blasphemy. If fallible man can produce a written work that can be reasonably understood and followed, such as a textbook or a cookbook, why can’t the Infallible Creator give the human race a written work that also makes sense? The Word renders the man of God “complete” and by it he finds himself “thoroughly equiped” (2 Tim. 3:17).
  2. Unity among Christians is rendered impossible. Unity means oneness, sameness, likeness, harmony, concord, agreement, unanimity, etc. How can Christians be united and divided by interpretation at the same time? If the Bible is explained merely by man’s relative interpretation, then there can only be unity in confusion! In contrast, our Lord prayed heartily for unity among Christians (John 17:20-23). The apostle Paul begged Christians to “speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions” among them (1 Cor. 1:10). How can this instruction be taken seriously if people are incapable of understanding the Bible alike? How can unity be possible without being able to agree upon the fundamental teachings of the Bible, such as how to be saved, how to worship God, and how to distinguish between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’?
  3. Espousing ‘relative interpretation’ puts one in opposition to Biblical teaching. Jesus told His disciples they can “know the truth” (John 8:32). Can anyone “know” anything from the Bible if one interpretation is as good as another? Paul commanded Christians to “understand what the will of the Lord is” (Eph. 5:17). Is it possible to understand the will of the Lord if the specific details of what we are to understand are relative to the individual? Jewish leaders once asked Jesus an ignorant question about the afterlife, to which Jesus replied, “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Matt. 22:29). Could the problem of relative interpretation actually be a problem of Biblical ignorance?

The simple truth of the matter is that we can understand the Bible alike. Whenever a specific passage is studied, several things should be understood before a conclusion is drawn:

  1. The context of the passage (Who is the author? Who is he writing to? Why was it written?)
  2. The covenant under which it was written (Patriarchal, Mosaical, Christian)
  3. The difference between custom & principle
  4. The difference between figurative & non-figurative language
  5. The elimination of any prejudices and personal biases

As we hope to better understand God’s Word, we must recognize that some scriptures in the Bible are difficult to understand. Peter plainly taught that there are some things that are “hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction” (2 Pet. 3:16). Difficult topics, therefore, require more in-depth study. The responsibility to understand the truths of the Bible is placed upon the individual. Paul instructed Christians to “work out their own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:13), which should make understanding the Bible a high priority for each of us. The Christians in Berea were commended for studying the Scriptures “daily” to better understand the Divine truths (Acts 17:11). There are other things that are beyond our capacity to understand (Deut. 29:29, Isa. 55:8-9). We must acknowledge that God is without beginning or end and is infinitely wise and understanding. We, on the other hand, are fallible creatures who are bound by time and matter. There are some truths (not essential to salvation) that we simply can’t comprehend.

The statement that one interpretation is as good as another is made because of one of two reasons. The first reason is due to ignorance. Obviously, we can understand the Bible alike. The second reason is due to an attempt to justify error, and in so doing, they are “twisting” the scriptures to their own destruction (2 Pet. 3:16). Personally, I prefer to place my salvation in the truth of God’s Word. “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man” (Psa. 118:8).