Jesus’ Trial

I have been teaching through the Gospel of Mark in an online Bible study that meets once a week. Mark has been racing through the stories to get to the cross. In Mark 15, we take a look at the trial of Christ. In a couple of the previous lessons, we covered:

• The Second Coming of Christ
• Peter’s Denial of Christ

Justified by FAITH to be sanctified by FAITH

I am sitting here reading over my notes for the Sunday School lesson at Southern Calvert this Sunday. We just spent the last quarter walking through part of the book of Acts. It was amazing to learn about life on a mission to be a witness, in the context of making disciples. God really motivated our church to be more intentional about being witnesses with the goal of making disciples. Now, we are moving into the Epistles in the New Testament. This week, we are looking at Paul’s epistle to the churches in the region of Galatia. A great need arose in the church causing Paul to take parchment and ink and write out his letter to them in order to give important Christian doctrine to these young, growing churches. Paul was a man who had been discipled by one of the greatest Jewish teachers of his day. After that, Paul was directly discipled by the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. Now, he has been on a mission to be a witness for Christ everywhere among the Gentiles. While on mission, he is constantly looking for people to disciple. The Galatians had been discipled by Paul and they still needed to be discipled. They needed someone to confront them, in the love of Christ, and help them get back on the right path. We all need this in our daily walk with the Lord. We have a tendency to get sidetracked by false teachings and the desires of our sin nature. We all need a Paul in our lives who will love us enough to tell us the truth, even if we do not want to hear it at the time.

An example of what it means to believe in Christ

What does true belief look like? Many people claim to believe in Christ but, is just the head knowledge enough? What happens to a person when he or she believes in Christ, not just the head knowledge, but total dedication based on that head knowledge? Is a statement made as a child enough? Is there any evidence, tangible evidence that proves that a person has really believed?