Thursday, February 27, 2014

End It Movement

This February 27th, join us and other Freedom Fighters from around the world as we SHINE A LIGHT ON SLAVERY. Draw a RED X on your hand. Tell your world that slavery still exists and YOU WON’T STAND FOR IT. Just use your influence any way you can to help us carry the message of FREEDOM so even more people know. Let’s make this SHINE A LIGHT ON SLAVERY DAY even brighter than ever.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Sunday, February 23, 2014

How We Got the Scriptures...

Let me preface this post by stating that a lot of the content you will read in this post will be from a lesson in a course I took from Global University, some of this will be verbatim from my book, some from my notes, and some will be my comments. I'm terrible at citing and other such APA MLA BLAH BLAH BLAH rules, so consider this my blanket, I'm not plagiarizing statement, I learned this in my Intro to Theology course and am now sharing.

Now with that out of the way, let me say this, we had a discussion in my Young Adults Connect Group this morning about "where did we get the Bible from?" Very good question, I'll do my best to answer that here.

The word Scripture means "holy writings." The Scriptures are holy because God gave them. The term canon means "a rule, a standard, a measuring rod." The canon of scripture refers to books that have met a standard and that the church has accepted as the inspired Word of God. At the time of Jesus, the Jews used the Scripture  about a fixed, well-known group of books - the 39 books of the Old Testament. The 27 books in the New Testament formed over a period of three centuries. During those years, church leaders discussed the list often, and the majority of the church agreed on God's inspiration of certain books. Ultimately, the books that were truly from God testified for themselves. Their placement in the canon was not just the decision of the authors or the church council. Although church councils did meet and discuss the different books, their main purpose was to confirm which books the church agreed on. I believe that the Holy Spirit led the people of God in this process.

In AD 367, the theologian Athanasius considered all the books that were being passed around the church as apostolic writings (writings by apostles). His examination reveled twenty seven books, the same ones in our New Testament today, although he placed them in a different order. Thirty years later, in AD 397, a church council met in Carthage to discuss which books were truly Scripture. Before deciding to include a book in the New Testament canon, the Council measured it by four tests-

 The 4-Way Scripture Test in the New Testament


1. An Apostle or someone close to an apostle had to be the author. For example, the Gospel of John was accepted because the apostle John wrote it. However, although apostles did not write them, the gospels of Luke and Mark were accepted because Luke had traveled with Paul and Mark was a friend of Peter.

2. The book had to match what the church already knew to be Scripture. If there was any conflict, the book was not accepted.

3. The book had to be widely accepted by the church. The church as a whole had to recognize that God had inspired the book. If only a small portion of the church believed that a book was inspired, it was not placed in the canon.

4. The book had to have a quality that revealed divine inspiration. In other words, it needed to change people's lives.

After considering all the books, the Council of Carthage confirmed that the only books that measured up to the standard were the 27 books we call the New Testament.

The topic of the Apocryphal books was brought today as well, "why don't we use them and the Catholics do?" Also another very good question, so here is what I can share to shed some light on that. Over the years some have claimed that other books should be placed in the canon. The Catholic Bible and some Eastern Orthodox Bibles contain additional books referred to as the Apocrypha. However the early church did not consider these books to be inspired by God, the books were not included in the Hebrew Scriptures. Some of these books, such as First Maccabees, contain history, but are not clearly inspired by God, while others clearly contain errors and doctrines which are contrary to the rest of the Bible. Other people, like Joseph Smith who wrote the Book of Mormon, have claimed to write for God. Yet their books contain obvious conflicts with Scripture, and they were not written by either an apostle or someone close to an apostle. All of these books, along with the Apocrypha, are not in the canon because they did not pass the necessary tests.

Old Testament - 

 Let's talk about the Old Testament for a little bit.

 What is the Old Testament?
As said previously, the Old Testament contains the first 39 books of the Bible. The Old Testament was a covenant/agreement between God and Israel, the children of Abraham. God promised to keep His part of the covenant if the Israelites kept their part.

 Who wrote the Old Testament and when? 
The OT is a part of the Bible, a term derived from Greek and Latin words for "book." the bible is the book above all other books in that it contains 66 books written by about 40 authors over a period of roughly 1600 years and inspired by the same spirit. God guided the writers to write what he wanted them to write. He carried them along by His Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21).

 How did the books of the OT get into our bible?
We refer to the books from Genesis to Malachi as the canon of the old Testament. The OT canon is the list of books that meet the standards for being in God's Word. the 39 books in our OT are the same books that Jesus and the Jews of His day accepted as God's Word. As I said before The Catholic Bible and some Eastern Orthodox Bibles also contain books that are grouped in a class called the Apocrypha. The word Apocrypha means "hidden books" but later came to mean "not in the canon or list." During the time of Martin Luther, the Catholics accepted 7 apocryphal books as well as minor additions to the books of Esther and Daniel. the Catholics did not officially accept the books of the Apocrypha until 1546 at the Council of Trent. Although some of these books were included in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures), they were not part of the Hebrew Scriptures during Christ's time. Neither Jesus nor the apostles quoted any of the apocryphal books as Scripture. While the books in the Apocrypha contain some truth, they also contain error. therefore, they do not meet the standards set for recognizing Scripture.

Some other time I'll do a post about authority and inspiration of Scripture, which is a GREAT topic. Although this is not the most thorough and exhaustive explanation of where the Scriptures came from and why we accept them as they are, I hope it does help to shed some light and understanding on the subject. Again the majority of this content came from my Intro to Theology course and a tidbit from my OT Survey course. I'm not nearly as smart as the blog sounds, I promise.

 Be Blessed,
Ryan

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Quotes of the Month

Here are a few quotes from the last few weeks that have really stayed with me. I hope that you enjoy them as much as I have. Some of them are mine, I went ahead and included them, they were revelations for me and maybe they can be for you as well. 

"When you're not under spiritual authority...you're not..." 
-Dr. Douglas Weiss 
- www.ConquerSeries.com

 "A refusal to apologize says, 'I do not value this relationship, and it's OK with me if we continue to be estranged." An apology, however, says, "I value this relationship, and I want to deal with this problem appropriately.'" 
-Gary Chapman
www.facebook.com/5LoveLanguages 

 "Don't regret anything from your past, ask God for forgiveness and move forward. The roads we've traveled in our life make us who we are and build the relationships we have."
-Ryan Rose

  "Faith has to do with things that are not seen and hope with things that are not at hand." 
- Thomas Aquinas 

 "When you lie, you no longer have the privilege of not having everything you say scrutinized."
-Ryan Rose

 "The gift of non-condemnation gives you the freedom to not sin anymore."
-The Conquer Series 
- www.ConquerSeries.com

 "When pride comes, then comes shame; but with the humble is wisdom."
- Proverbs 11:2

 Be Blessed

Friday, February 14, 2014

Happy Valentine's Day

Tell someone you love them today!

For all you singles out there...
Here is something to remember, this is where Love comes from...


Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Sacrificial Availability

I want you to think of a close friend or a family member who at any time you'd drop what you were doing to help them out. Now most likely you'd take a phone call from them, run them gas on the highway if they ran out, pick them up from somewhere, loan them money, offer advice, be a shoulder to cry on, right? Why? Because you care, they are important to you, their needs are important to you and their future is important to you.

 Now I want you to think about someone you know that you aren't exactly "close" to on the same level as the person we just talked about. Get someone on your mind...

 Do they know Christ? If they are a believer, are they grounded? Do they have a good support system, could they benefit from you reaching out to them?

Over the years I've had people come in and out of my life, people that I believe God positioned in my life so that for a time or season I might have some positive influence on them (some more than others). This isn't a "oh wow Ryan you are so wise and almighty" comment, I think God allowed me to learn as much if not more from the experience than what I was able to impart to these individuals. One thing I've taken away from these experiences, which I was reminded of recently in my Sunday School class(we now call them Connect Groups), to truly reach someone and be there for them, we have to make ourselves "Sacrificially Available."

 So you might ask, "What do you mean 'Sacrificially Available?'" Well I'm glad that you asked, I feel like it means to make yourself completely and totally available to a person in order to benefit them to the best of your ability. Often times we tell people to give us a call or shoot us a text if they need prayer or anything at all. Frequently we press ignore on our phones or don't call them back for days. This is not being available at all and certainly not on the sacrificial level. 
So why the sacrifice? To be a Christian means to be Christ-like. What did Christ do? Sacrificed himself so that we might have eternal life. Any chance we can sacrifice something to help someone else we are being like Christ. I feel like true "Sacrificial Availability" means that you put another person's needs and priorities above your own, this would be the common behavior in a marriage or between a parent and their children. This kind of activity obviously breeds love, success, maturity, discipline, the list goes on. Why not try this with someone in need? 

 Pray that God opens your eyes to see a person in need, or ask that they literally be dropped in your lap. It can happen, and this is the kind of ministry where we can be really effective in sharing about Christ, what He's done for us, and what He can do for them. Think about Phillip and the Ethiopian eunuch from the book of Acts, Phillip was minding his own business traveling from one town to another town and God brought him somebody....
29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.” 30 Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked. 31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:

 “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
    and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
    Who can speak of his descendants?
    For his life was taken from the earth."
34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” 35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus. 36 As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” 38 And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him."
-Acts 8:29-38

 Phillip, in this instance, made himself "Sacrificially Available" to this man, and because of it, he was able to lead this man to Christ and Baptize him as well. More often than not, our experiences won't be this simple or short lived, but the moral of the story stays the same. As ambassadors of Christ, we make ourselves available to deliver his message, but we don't just leave it at that. We must make an effort to continually encourage and build up those we witness to. Sometimes the continual contact and conversations will minister more to a person than all our efforts to "evangelize" them. Personal contact goes a LONG ways today.
So again, what is "Sacrificial Availability?" I say it means answering the phone when that person calls, it may mean stepping away from the dinner table, muting the TV show, waking up in the middle of the night, or going over to someones house to let them unload all of their emotions. It means going beyond what any normal person would, because guess what? We aren't normal people, we are believers in Jesus Christ, we are Christians, we are more than Conquers and we are empowered for ministry by the Holy Spirit and called by the Great Commission to go preach, teach, and reach.

 Become "Sacrificially Available" to those people you are ministering to, or to that friend who needs your help, or that coworker or classmate that really doesn't have anybody. Go out of your way to care about someone else's needs and make their priorities your priorities. Their future ought to matter to you, they need to be important to you, you should care...

 Be blessed!

Monday, February 10, 2014

The Power of Words....

From an experience I had recently.

Things we say, especially those recorded on the Internet forever, can be very powerful for many many years in the future.

Our words have the power to do good and to bring harm, what are you saying when you communicate?

"The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit."
-Proverbs 18:21

Fortunately in the instance I'm referencing, my words did some good. I gave a friend of mine a reference a few years back. She worked under me when we were in a University Television Program. She was awesome at anything she did, but she really excelled in graphic design. One of the lines in my reference was, "(she) is the kind of person you wish you could clone and make an entire team out of."

We are connected through LinkedIn among many other social media platforms, and I happened to see this tidbit listed on her profile. I was shocked to see that she was portraying it front and center on her profile, not because I didn't mean what I said, I did, but I figured there were just better things a person could use to promote their abilities than a quote from little old me. After a little messaging, she shared with me that this quote from me had been very beneficial to her professionally with interviews and promotions and much more. Here is a quote from one of her responses, 
"I have to say this quote has taken me places! ...not only has it given my employers a "better" idea of the kind of person I am, but it has given me a lot of confidence to think of myself in this way and know I can be a valuable team member. Sometimes the job market takes away your confidence! 

 So, obviously, thank you. 

 Who knew such little things could have such an effect in someone's life, huh?" 

Who knew indeed? It struck me, what if I said something bad about her, or anyone else, and what if those comments had been made in anger, haste, frustration. What if I had posted it on Facebook, text it to a friend, tweeted it, blogged it, etc? What would the affects of those words have been?

The things we say about people have the power to do good...and the power to do bad. What do you choose to do with your words? 

 "Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, 2 to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and always to be gentle toward everyone." -Titus 3:1-2

 The King James Version is very clear...
"...To speak evil of no man (person)..."

 I challenge you, take a 7 day period of time, and don't say one bad thing about any person. Its gonna be more difficult than you think, but guess what? 

 That's what God wants from us 24/7-365

Be blessed!