Something to Think About: Things Not Taught in School

By Ken Myers

Acts 17:11 tells us that the Christians in the church at Berea willingly received the Word of God and daily searched the scriptures in order to determine the accuracy of the things taught to them. Similarly, Something to Think About: Things Not Taught in School looks to the scriptures in order to determine the accuracy of the teachings presently presented to our generation. This book is a series of Bible studies that look into the foundation of the Christian faith. Based on scriptural references, it looks at not only what Christians believe but why they believe as they do. Each study is written for a new believer, but the subject matter is of great value also to an older believer who is looking into the elements of his or her faith. Most of the studies presented begin as a word study on one of the basic building blocks of our Christian faith. A quick look into the book reveals that the author relies heavily on the scriptures to make a point. This methodology is used for two reasons: (1) the author believes that the truth resides not in his words but in God's word, and (2) he firmly believes that the word of God can and does explain itself when properly presented with other supportive scriptures. This book will cause you to reflect on the things that you have been taught. In fact, many of the teachings presented in the book came from questions asked by fellow believers during Bible studies conducted by the author. The intent of this work is not to question your faith but to establish and ground your faith in the scriptural proofs found in the Bible.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781645599104

Book preview

Coming to Know God as Our Father

Everybody seems to be talking about God, but not everyone actually knows him.

We have been taught in our society that it doesn’t matter what name you use for your Higher Power, it’s all the same—for God is God. I once knew a man who called God Big Billy. His concept of God was universal. Everybody knows God, he’d say! In his mind, God was like a preference in ice cream: some prefer chocolate, some vanilla while others prefer strawberry; but ice cream is ice cream. That’s how he rationalized the many religions of the world and explained the differences in their gods.

In his lifetime, Jesus was faced with a similar situation. Although the people of Israel appeared to be more religious than we are today, they, like most of us, only knew God by hearsay (what others say and teach about God). Similarly our understanding of God is too broad to be accurate and too restrictive to allow us to fully comprehend him. Jesus taught us that God is a good and caring Father, and he taught us to call God "our Father."

Here are some of the things that Jesus told us about God:

The one that you refer to as God, I know as my Father (John 8:54). If you knew God as your Father, you would love me (John 8:42). Every person that has heard and learned of the Father comes to me (John 6:45). I did not come to earth of myself. I came forth (1831: to issue forth) from the Father. He sent me (John 8:42). My Father has delivered all things to me (Matt. 11:27). No one can know the Father except through me (John 14:6–7). The Father is greater than me (John 14:28). The miracles and signs that I do attest to the fact that I am in my Father and my Father is in me (John 10:38). I and my Father are one (John 10:30). The day is coming when you will realize that I am in my Father, you are in me, and I am in you (John 14:20). The world does not know the Father, but I know the Father, and my disciples (students) know that the Father has sent me. I have declared the Father to my disciples so that his love may be in them (John 17:25–26). Tell my brethren that I ascend to my Father and to their Father—to my God, and to their God (John 20:17). To you who overcome, I will write upon you the name of my God, the name of the city of my God (the new Jerusalem), and my own new name (Rev. 3:12). So when you pray, pray to your Father in heaven (Matt. 6:9).

In 1 Corinthians 8:6, the apostle Paul makes this statement to the church at Corinth: For us (Christians) there is but one God, the Father, out of whom all things and we into him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ (Phil. 2:11), through whom all things (Col. 1:16, John 1:3), and we through him. Note: Others may call God this or that, but as Christians in Christ we are to call him Father (Matt. 6:9).

Supportive scriptures used in this chapter:

John 8:54: Jesus answered [them], ‘If I honor myself, my honor is nothing: It is my Father that honors me; of whom you say, that he is your God.’

John 8:42: Jesus said to them, ‘If God were your father, you would love me: for I proceeded [1831: to issue forth) forth and came from God [the Father]: neither came I of myself, but he sent me.’

John 6:45: Jesus said, ‘Every man therefore that has heard, and learned of the Father, comes to me.’

Matthew 11:27: "Jesus said, ‘All things are delivered unto me by my Father: and no one (3762: oudeis, none, nothing) knows the Son, but the Father; neither knows any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.’"

John 14:6–7: Jesus said to him [the apostle Thomas], ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man (3762: nothing) comes to the Father but through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also’ (John 10:9).

John 14:28: Jesus said, ‘I am going (4198: to traverse) to the Father; for my Father is greater (3187: larger, bigger) than I am’ (Dan. 7:13).

John 10:38: That you may know, and believe, that the Father is in me (2 Cor. 5:19), and I [Jesus] in him.

John 10:30: Jesus said, ‘I and my Father are one’ (John 17:21).

John 14:20: Jesus said, ‘In that day you shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you’ (John 7:39).

John 17:25: Jesus prayed, ‘O righteous Father, the world has not known you: but I have known you, and these [his disciples] have known that you have sent me.’

John 20:17: Jesus said to her [Mary Magdalene], ‘Do not touch (680: to fasten, to cling to) me; for I am not yet ascended to my Father (Dan. 7:13): but go to my brethren, and say to them, that I ascend to my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and to your God.

Revelation 3:12:And I [Jesus] will write upon him [the overcomer] (Rev. 21:7) the name of my God [the Father], and the name of the city of my God, which is the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name (1 Cor. 15:24).

Philippians 2:11: That every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Matthew 6:9: Jesus taught us to pray: ‘Our Father which art in heaven.’

Comment: Do you know God as your Father? Do you want to know him better? Do you desire a stronger relationship with your Father? The scriptures presented in this chapter serve as our starting point. The studies that follow seek to give us a greater understanding of the Father and his plan for mankind. Our journey through the scriptures will require prayer, study, and meditation on our part as we go forward seeking to know the truth.

As we go forward, let us remember that Jesus told us to ask, and it shall be given to us; seek, and we shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to us (Luke 11:9 and Deut. 4:29).

Remember also that Jesus has specifically prayed for us and asked the Father to keep us in the truth, having acknowledged that the Word of God is truth (John 17:17, James 1:18, 1 Thess. 2:13, and Isa. 55:11)!

Supportive scriptures cited in the above comment:

Luke 11:9: And I [Jesus] say to you, ‘Ask, and it shall be given to you, seek and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you.’

Deuteronomy 4:29: Moses said, ‘But if from there [the dispersion] you shall seek the Lord your God, you shall find him, if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.’

John 17:17: Sanctify them [Jesus’s disciples, his students] in your truth, your word is truth.

James 1:18: Of his [the Father’s] own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures (Rom. 8:29).

First Thessalonians 2:13: When you received the word of God which you heard from us [the apostles], you received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectively works also in you that believe.

Isaiah 55:11: So shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth: it shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing where to I sent it.

Chapter 2

Who Is Jesus?

Here is the single most important question confronting each and every one of us today! Yet our world cultures and societies have tried to limit and restrict and even forbid the good news (the Gospel) of Jesus Christ from reaching us. In America, we have been taught and conditioned to hide him—Don’t speak of him in public, we are told, because it would be offensive and politically incorrect (Luke 12:51–53). Jesus is too controversial; to speak of him will ruin the fragile fabric of our free society.

Discussing this topic takes me back to the 1970s and to a popular Christian song titled Jesus Is the Answer for the World Today. I recall the time when a young man said to me in jest, If Jesus is the answer, what is the question? My response to him was simple, Will you follow him? However, how can you follow him if you do not know him?

Jesus once asked his disciples, Who do people say that I am? They replied, Some say a teacher, some a prophet, some a holy man. All these observations were true but insufficient and inadequate, so Jesus rephrased the question and asked, But who do you say that I am (Matt. 16:13–17)?

Believe it or not, this is the most important question and answer of your life! Here’s why I say this: Jesus said, Unless you believe that I am he [the Christ, the Son of God] you will die in your sins (John 8:24). Now the Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God [the Father] is everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 6:23). Jesus Christ is our way out of this shipwreck that we have made of our planet. He is our life boat to safety. Every one of us born here will physically die here. Our mortal bodies will die, but to all that believe into Jesus Christ, there is the promise of everlasting life with eternal glory (2 Tim. 2:10).

The life being promised to us in Jesus Christ is not a continuation of the same life that we see here today (John 5:24). God the Father has promised and prepared a new heaven and a new earth for those who love his Son (Rev. 21:1–5, 1 Cor. 2:9). You might say that Jesus is our get out of jail free card. He is our way out of the predicament into which we were all born (Rev. 1:17–18). Keeping this in mind, let us see who this man called Jesus really is!

According to the scriptures and based on his own words, we can come to know Jesus as

The Revelator of God the Father

The Son of God

The Son of man

The Christ (the anointed of God the Father)

The Lord

The Word of God

I. The Revelator of God the Father

John the apostle, also known as John the Revelator, says in John 1:18 that nothing (3762: oudesis) has seen God (the Father) at any time; the only begotten (3439: monogenes, the sole generated or only generated) Son [Jesus], who is in the bosom of the Father, is the one who declares (1834: to unfold, to explain) him.

This is an interesting statement for three reasons:

When the apostle Philip asked Jesus to show them (the apostles) the Father, Jesus replies, He that has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:8–10).

The demons (fallen angels) recognized Jesus as the Son of God, and Jesus would not let them speak (Luke 8:28–29, Mark 1:34).

Jesus told the apostle Thomas and the other apostles that he (Jesus) is the only way to the Father and nothing (3762: oudesis) comes near to the Father except through him (John 14:6).

The apostle Paul, in his letter to the church in the city of Colosse, makes another interesting statement regarding Jesus the Christ when he writes, "He is the image (1504: likeness) of the invisible God [the Father], the firstborn (4416: prototokos) of every (3956: pas, every, all, the whole) creature (2937: ktisis, the formation)." This statement by Paul in Colossians 1:15–16 begs the question—is Jesus Christ the prototype for every formation that the Father has created? Now generally speaking, we know of two formations: one made up of spiritual beings (angels), which are invisible to us, and a second formation, which is made up of material or physical beings associated with Adam’s race (Adam’s progeny).

This can explain why the preincarnate Christ, the Son of God (Micah 5:2, John 8:58, John 17:5), appears to the forefathers in the Old Testament as an angel, the Angel of the Lord (Ex 3:2, Judg. 13:17–18, Isa. 9:6), because he had not yet taken on a human form (John 1:14, Phil. 2:6–8). This also helps to explain why the forefathers considered the Angel of the Lord to be God (Judg. 13:22), because he was and is God (John 1:1). In John 16:28, Jesus tells his disciples about his going back (his returning home to be with the Father) when he said, I came forth (1831: to issue forth) from the Father, and I came into the world: again, I leave the world, and go (4198: traverse, travel) to the Father. Regarding his pilgrimage on earth, Jesus said, Believe me, I am in the Father, and the Father is in me (John 10:38). The Father is greater than I (John 14:28). I and my father are one (John 10:30).

The apostle Paul sums this up beautifully in 2 Corinthians 5:19: "God the Father was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself" (John 3:16–18). (1Tim3:16)

II. The Son of God

Jesus referred to himself while on earth using two titles: Son of God and Son of man. By referring to himself as the Son of God, Jesus was saying that he was God.

In the following verses, which I call the Son of God texts, we see Jesus