Bible Study Library

Dear Disciples:
The world as we know it will someday end. Would you like to understand what God has said about it?
Evil is running rampant in this world we live in. Could you use some encouragement?
Welcome to this new lesson series is on the book of Revelation.
The message of Revelation is not only a warning to [...]

Dear Disciples:
The following study is not directly in the book of Revelation, but it is designed to helped turn our minds toward the study of biblical prophecy. We’ll be looking into a topic that is important to understand as we learn more about the Christ-Messiah establishing His kingdom and judging the world.
The short message of [...]

Dear Disciples:
Sunday we kicked off our study of the book of Revelation. We used our first meeting to discuss introductory matters for studying Revelation — namely authorship, date, and common methods of interpreting it.
I don’t want us to get bogged down in this sort of thing and distracted from the message God wants us to [...]

Dear Disciples:
In this lesson we begin our actual study of the text of Revelation. If you haven’t read the introductory material yet, I would recommend starting there.
Summary
 The Book of Revelation is a personal letter, written by John from Jesus to seven churches in Asia – churches that John knew personally.
Why did Jesus give this letter? So [...]

Dear Disciples:
In Brief

The main message of this letter is that doctrinal purity and steadfast commitment are worthless without love. The Ephesians would not allow false teaching into their church. Not only that, they faced tremendous persecution and would not back down.
“That’s great,” said Jesus, “but if you do not regain the love you had at [...]

Dear Disciples:
Praise God!! You may have expected me to make some big announcement following “Praise God,” but why? Does He have to do the things we want or ask Him to do for us to praise Him with excitement?
Before we delve into this study, take a moment right now to offer Him up some praise [...]

Dear Disciples:
The personality of a church is influenced by the slice of the world immediately surrounding it. Having lived in major cities, suburbs, and small towns, I can tell you that there is a vast difference between churches in each place.
For example, though we support a homeless ministry an hour north in Cleveland and a [...]

Dear Disciples:
Jesus’ letter to Sardis was written to a church that looked great on the outside but lacked spiritual life on the inside. A few people were alive, but the rest were zombies - looking alive, but really dead.
Jesus gives them a 3-step approach to regaining life. If they take it, He’ll pronounce them innocent. [...]

Dear Disciples:
In this letter, Jesus gives hope to the faithful church at Philadelphia. They will be rewarded for withstanding their current persecution. Some day the entire church will experience an even greater period of tribulation - worse than anything it will have experienced before - and Jesus will preserve it through that time, too.
We recognize [...]

Dear Disciples:
Laodicea may not be familiar to you or me, but in the first century it was an important and wealthy city.

Paul wrote a letter to the church there which, unfortunately, has not been preserved (see mention of it in Col. 4:16).
As for wealth, the economy of the city was so strong that when it [...]

This Focus Study provides an overview of the relationship between the church and Israel and how that relationship affects our understanding of the kindgom of God.

Dear Disciples:
Remember back in 1:19, Jesus gave John the basic outline for the Book of Revelation when He told John to write in three sections:

“What you have seen” (the description of John’s vision - chapter 1)
“What is now” (the letters describing the current state of the churches - chapters 2-3)
“What will take place later” (what the [...]

Dear Disciples:
We return to John’s description of the indescribable — Heaven and God’s throne. The Holy Spirit is there,  represented by seven blazing torches (or lamps) and is described as “the seven spirits of God” (4:5).
We’ll come across the number seven again in Revelation. As we’ve pointed out before, the Antichrist in 13:1 has seven heads and [...]

Dear Disciples:
OK, we have a scroll — a Last Will and Testament that describes all that will happen as God once-and-for-all eradicates evil and gives His bride her inheritance. We, His bride, are sitting at the edge of our collective seat, waiting to know what’s in there. So are the hosts of Heaven (the four [...]

Dear Disciples:
Finally, the seals of the scroll will be opened. This is exciting stuff!
In this lesson, we’ll look at the breaking of the first four seals, the four horsemen of the apocalypse. First I think it will help to review briefly what we’ve studied so far.

John was on an island called Patmos, off the coast [...]

Dear Disciples:
When each of the first four seals of the scroll (Jesus’ Last Will and Testament) were broken, a colored horse rode forth. The first horse was white and seemed to represent the effective proclaiming of the gospel. The second was red and symbolized war and bloodshed. The third horse was black and symbolized scarcity [...]

Dear Disciples:
One of the major reasons many Christians are reluctant to study the book of Revelation, and end-times prophecy in general, is that there are so many different ways people have interpreted some of the issues. There is a great deal about the end times that Christians agree on. But some of the topics are [...]

Dear Disciples:
The lesson below will appear to be extremely long, but please don’t get discouraged. It’s not as long as it seems. I’ve included extended passages from the Bible, as I’ll explain in a moment.
This week we continued the Focus Study we began last week on the timing of the rapture. At the end of [...]

Dear Disciples:
Last Sunday we continued and completed our Focus Study on the timing of the rapture. We will jump back into studying the text of Revelation next time.
This class became a question and answer session — with a whole lot of discussion! Our class represents a wonderful mix of viewpoints on this topic. Many questions [...]

We just completed a 3-part detour as we studied the timing of the rapture and the tribulation. We now return to studying the text of Revelation.

The sixth trumpet has been sounded. The seventh and last trumpet is about to be sounded. But God sees fit to first emphasize the bitter-sweet (or sweet and sour) nature of what we call the Good News.

The Good News that we all are called to preach requires suffering and judgment in order to destroy evil for our salvation!

Dear Disciples:
We’ll only cover two verses in this lesson, but chances are at the end of it your head will be swarming so much you’ll beg for a break.
You see, chapter 11 is often considered the most difficult chapter of the book of Revelation. It is loaded with symbolism, requires some exploration of Greek words, [...]

Dear Disciples:
In the last lesson we grappled with the imagery in Rev 11:1-2 of John measuring the temple. The temple symbolizes Christ and His body, the church. The sanctuary is Jesus Himself, the Inner Court is Christians who are no longer on earth, and the Outer Court is Christians who are still on earth. The [...]

Dear Disciples:
This will be a short lesson. Members of the missions committee used the first half of our class period to update us on the various missionaries we support as a congregation, and to allow us to sign cards of encouragement for them. It was a wonderful time!
In this lesson, we’ll finish studying Revelation 11. [...]

Dear Disciples:
The events of Revelation 12 are pivotal to the rest of the book, and it’s important to understand them now before moving on.
The story told here has 4 main characters. To understand the story, we must know who the characters represent.
The characters are:

The Mother
Her Male Child
Her Other Offspring
The Dragon

Of these four, only the Mother’s [...]

Dear Disciples:
In the last lesson we identified the key characters in the story of Revelation 12.
Here they are again, briefly:

The Dragon: Satan
The Mother: “The Jerusalem that is above,” as Paul words it in Gal. 4:26.  This represents Salvation By Grace, everyone who is saved by grace and experiences the freedom in Christ. For the purpose [...]