Church Minute

The family of Israel is large, wide, and diverse. By way of background, the living Sovereign LORD God of heaven and earth restarted the whole world with a new heaven and new earth after the Great Flood, and He restarted all human life through Noah and Noah’s three sons - Shem (Mesopotamia and Arabia), Ham (Africa and Eastern Mediterranean), and Japheth (Europe and Asia). 

Beginning with Genesis chapter 12, the story of the Holy B...

Joseph of the Old Testament is a good example of God’s Presence with His faithful people who obey Him. Sadly, Joseph experienced some hard times and mistreatment by others. First, Joseph was thrown into a deep well (cistern, pit) by his brothers at the age of seventeen (17) and eventually sold to Ishmaelite and Midianite merchants, who sold Joseph into Egyptian slavery. Later, Joseph was falsely accused of sexual assault by an adul...

Genesis first introduces Joseph as a seventeen-year-old young man who gives a bad report to his father, Jacob, about his other brothers. Jacob (Israel) had twelve sons, and these twelve sons would later become known as the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Joseph was Jacob’s eleventh son, and Joseph became Israel’s favorite son, whom Israel loved more than all of his other sons. At an early age, Joseph flaunted his father’s favoritism. Favo...

One night, Jacob had another encounter with the Sovereign LORD God that would forever change his life. Jacob met a mysterious man while alone as he returned to the Promised Land of God (Canaan), and Jacob wrestled and struggled with this mysterious man in the dark until the breaking of dawn - a new day. Later, Jacob would acknowledge meeting the living God (Theophany), but Hosea 12:2-4 states that this mysterious man who met Jacob ...

In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul (Sha’ul) and his ministry focused on proclaiming the Good News (Gospel) message of God’s forgiveness, salvation, grace, righteousness, and peace with a new spiritual life and new beginnings that come to all wholehearted believers in Jesus the Messiah (Christ) as Lord and Savior. This newness of divine spiritual life comes to everyone by God’s grace and mercy through repentance with faithful an...

Jacob is the father of Israel. At an early age, Jacob was known as a deceiver, trickster, and supplanter after scamming and scheming to take away his brother Esau’s inheritance and covenant blessings of Abraham and Isaac. The Sovereign LORD God had already promised and ordained these divine blessings to Jacob before Jacob’s birth. Eventually, Jacob left his home in Canaan (the Promised Land of God, also known as Israel-Palestine) a...

Isaac and his wife Rebekah wanted to begin a family. Isaac pleaded and prayed with faith to the LORD for his wife Rebekah because she was barren like Sarah, and the LORD answered Isaac’s plea, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant with two twin boys. Rebekah’s twin boys struggled within her womb, and Rebekah sought the LORD in prayer for answers and guidance. The Sovereign LORD God of heaven and earth, announced to Rebekah that she ...

Isaac grew into a wonderful man. Later, Isaac’s mother, Sarah, died at the ripe old age of 127 years and was buried in Canaan. As Isaac grew older, Abraham wanted Isaac to marry a righteous and virtuous woman from Abraham’s homeland of Mesopotamia and not from the wicked women of Canaan, who would make Isaac’s life miserable. Abraham did not want his son Isaac to leave Canaan because Canaan (Israel-Palestine) was the Promised Land ...

One of the most incredible messages of the Holy Bible is God’s love for you and the world! The living Sovereign LORD God of heaven and earth so loved that world that He sent His beloved Son, Christ Jesus, as the final sacrificial Passover Lamb of God to save you and the world from Satan’s sins and the destructive effects of Satan’s evildoing. The Apostle Peter in the New Testament states when Christ Jesus died on Calvary’s Cross, C...

The story of Abraham’s sacrifice in Genesis reveals the faithfulness and obedience of Abraham to the LORD God. During Abraham’s life, Abraham had moral failures with half-truths, trying to force God’s promises and even laughing at God’s promises, but Abraham always trusted and obeyed the LORD God by faith. Because of Abraham’s faith and obedience, the LORD God found Abraham’s heart faithful, and He declared Abraham righteous before...

One of the most beautiful themes of the Holy Bible is knowing that our good and loving LORD God of heaven and earth sees, knows, and hears everything - our pains, suffering, failures, mistreatment, good deeds, and the evil deeds of ourselves and others. In Genesis, the living LORD God came to earth to visit Abraham with His two holy angels. Abraham trusted with faith and obedience in the Eternal God, and Abraham was declared righte...

Living and walking daily with faith and obedience to the living LORD God are themes throughout the Holy Bible. Our wholehearted faithfulness with obedience to the living LORD God leads to doing God’s will and pleasing Him. Examples of people walking with faithfulness and obedience to the living LORD God include Enoch, Noah, Moses, Joshua, David, Job, and notable Christ Jesus our Lord. Abraham of the Old Testament is another perfect...

In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve’s disobedience and rebellion against the living LORD God and obedience to the evil serpent empowered by Satan plunged a world once filled with life, goodness, and joy into a world of sin, violence, and death. Even the grounds of the earth became cursed with thorns and thistles because of Adam and Eve’s disobedience and rebellion against the voice and command of the living LORD God. The living LORD God ban...

In the beginning, the living LORD God created the world with abundance and goodness without sin or shame. The living LORD God graciously blessed Adam and Eve, except He commanded Adam and Eve never to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as eating the forbidden fruit would lead to death. Genesis 3 describes the beginning of sin on earth. In Genesis 3, a sneaky and tricky snake (serpent) empowered by Satan (Devil) cam...

The living LORD God is the Creator-King from everlasting to everlasting that has existed before creation with wisdom and power. The beginning of all creation with the heavens and earth began in goodness and wisdom with the living LORD God (Holy Trinity) of God the Father, God the Son (Christ Jesus), and God the Spirit. In the beginning, the heavens and earth were empty and filled with darkness without form until the Spirit of the l...

Jesus is the central story of the Holy Bible. The center of the Holy Bible is Jesus and His loving death on Calvary’s Cross as the Passover Lamb of God to bring salvation, redemption, unity, and healing from Satan’s darkness, despair, and depression. The Old Testament prophets predicted Jesus’s coming as the Messiah (Christ, Anointed One, Son of David) so we can receive heaven’s new spiritual life, forgiveness, peace, and salvation...

Prophecy runs throughout the Holy Bible, including the Old and New Testaments. Holy prophets are true prophets of God empowered and strengthened by the Holy Spirit for service to proclaim God’s message, encourage and comfort His people, and explain or predict God’s will for the future. The Sovereign LORD God appoints His prophets and places His words in His holy prophets’ mouths and tongues, and their message comes true. True proph...

 The wisdom and song books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs come between the historical books and the Old Testament prophetic books in the English Bible. These sacred Scriptures are filled with poetry, hymns, and prayers. Biblical scholars believe Solomon wrote many of the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs, and David wrote many of the Psalms. The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) includes wisdom and songboo...

The Old Testament historical books reveal God’s faithfulness, mercy, grace, and justice. The historical books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther describe the living Sovereign LORD God’s active work in the world to bring salvation to all nations as the only true God of heaven and earth. These books follow the Torah (Genesis through Deuteronomy), and they explain Isr...