Introduction & Welcome
JustBibleTruth.com exists to share Bible truth.
Show large size of Bible and then its 3 Sections. - Share something very important! Forever Change!
Knowing the Bible is divided into 3 Sections can help us understand it. Lets begin with considering what Paul told the Galatians in chapter 3 verses 23-24 from the ALT But before faith came, we were being guarded [or, being kept in protective custody] under [the] Law, having been confined to the faith about to be revealed. (24) Therefore, the Law has became our tutor [to lead us] to Christ, so that by faith we should be justified [or, declared righteous].
Mat 17:5 ALT While he is still speaking, look!, a bright cloud overshadowed them. And listen! A voice out of the cloud, saying, "This is My Son—the Beloved—in whom I am well-pleased! Be paying attention to Him!" - Listen to him.
Show Bible Sections: Gospel teachings of Christ (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) are only about 200 pages long in most English Bible translations. That's only about 50 pages per Gospel book.
Joh 6:53-59 ESV So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. (54) Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. (55) For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. (56) Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. (57) As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. (58) This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread [the manna] the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever." (59) Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.
Joh 6:60-63 LITV Then many of His disciples having heard, they said, This Word is hard; who is able to hear it? (61) But knowing in Himself that His disciples were murmuring about this, Jesus said to them, Does this offend you? (62) Then what if you see the Son of Man going up where He was at first? (63) It is the Spirit that gives life. The flesh does not profit, nothing! The Words which I speak to you are spirit and are life.
In the Bible verses we just considered, Jesus Father said: “This is my son, listen to him.” Then, Jesus told us we need to eat his flesh and drink his blood. Then he said: “The words I am speaking to you are spirit and are life.”
Expanding on this teaching of our need to consume Jesus’s flesh and drink his blood, the Christ told a woman he met at a well she needed to accept life giving waters from him. As I read this account, please imagine you are there, actually able to listen to Christ:
Joh 4:7-29 ESV A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." (8) (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) (9) The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?" (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) (10) Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." (11) The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? (12) Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock."
The woman is talking about some of that history from the first large section of the Bible we today know as the Old Testament, when she mentions the history of Jacob and the Jewish forefathers of Jesus’s mother Mary and his earthly step-father Joseph – the Old Testament recounts how Jacob was a forefather of Christ. If their forefather Jacob couldn’t give them “living water,” she wanted to know, how could Jesus think to do so?
Jesus goes on in verse 13 to say to her: "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, (14) but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (15) The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water."
Jesus now has the woman’s interest and attention, but he is about to tell her something that is life changing. She will need good reason to put faith in what he says. So… Jesus continues in verse
(16) Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." (17) The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; (18) for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true."
In providing the woman knowledge no normal human could have, Jesus helps her know he is from God. The first thing she does with that knowledge is ask him about the proper way to worship God:
(19) The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. (20) Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship." (21) Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. (22) You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. (23) But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. (24) God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." (25) The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things." (26) Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am he." (27) Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you seek?" or, "Why are you talking with her?" (28) So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, (29) "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?"
Note in verse 25 the woman said: "I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things (openly as another translation puts it)." Jesus told her that he was indeed the Messiah. The woman then correctly understood the life giving water Christ was talking about giving her was his teachings.
We find in Revelation 19:13, Jesus is referred to as “the word of God.”
(Revelation 19:11-13) 11 And I saw the heaven opened, and, look! a white horse. And the one seated upon it is called Faithful and True, and he judges and carries on war in righteousness. 12 His eyes are a fiery flame, and upon his head are many diadems. He has a name written that no one knows but he himself, 13 and he is arrayed with an outer garment sprinkled with blood, and the name he is called is The Word of God.
So, then, all the Bible references to Jesus being the bread of life, our need to eat his flesh and drink his blood, as well as our need to accept life giving waters from him, they all mean to take in the words he was sent from his Father to bring. The scriptures we have considered also tell us listening to the words of Christ is the act of taking in the spirit of truth and life from his Father.
Do you see why the four parallel Gospel accounts of the life and teachings of Christ in the 200 pages making up the center of the Bible are so important. It’s important to understand why the sections of the Bible were recorded. All the Bible is inspired by God, but only the Gospels contain the words of Christ. Everything outside the Gospels were inspired by God to help us have faith in the teachings of his son, as recorded in those Gospels. Everything before the Gospels is the inspired record of how God went about producing the Messiah, including some prophecy and the history of the Jewish nation God used to produce his son. Jesus was born a Jew. Everything after the Gospels is the inspired record of how Christ’s early followers tried to implement his teachings in their lives. What Jesus actually came to teach us, however, is contained in the small center section containing Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Now, if you are like me, you are shocked to realize how very simple this all is. More accurately, you are shocked you have not heard that simple truth before. To summarize, God told us to listen to his son and Jesus told us we become his family by doing just that:
Mar 3:31-35 GW Then his mother and his brothers arrived. They stood outside and sent someone to ask him to come out. (32) The crowd sitting around Jesus told him, "Your mother and your brothers are outside looking for you." (33) He replied to them, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" (34) Then looking at those who sat in a circle around him, he said, "Look, here are my mother and my brothers. (35) Whoever does what God wants is my brother and sister and mother."
“Whoever does what God wants!” Jesus said God wants us to listen to his son. He indicated we become members of his family, and sons and daughters of God, by simply listening to Christ. The only way you can do that is by reading that small center section of the Bible: Read the Gospels over and over and over...
So… “Why haven’t” you heard this before? Since it is so simple, you should certainly be asking that question. It is because you haven’t been listening to Christ’s warnings about being misled:
Mat 7:15-20 GNB "Be on your guard against false prophets; they come to you looking like sheep on the outside, but on the inside they are really like wild wolves. (16) You will know them by what they do. Thorn bushes do not bear grapes, and briers do not bear figs. (17) A healthy tree bears good fruit, but a poor tree bears bad fruit. (18) A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a poor tree cannot bear good fruit. (19) And any tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown in the fire. (20) So then, you will know the false prophets by what they do.
What is bad fruit and what is good fruit? Simple! Now that you realize the words of Christ are what you should listen to and learn, good fruitage is being produced by those people who are telling you need to listen to and hear Christ for yourself. Bad fruitage is anything besides that. If people tell you you need to join their sect and follow their doctrine, and that will make you a Christian, they are producing bad fruitage. You need to listen to and follow Christ and him alone. You need to join the group he started gathering almost 2000 years ago.
You haven’t heard the truth before because sectarian religions, many of whom are probably sincere, are seeking their own glory. They want you to feel you need them and a membership their sectarian group to become pleasing to God. If they let you learn that you need only to read the Gospels and learn for yourself what Christ taught, it takes away their power over you. They don’t want to teach you to fish for yourself because they want to keep selling you fish. When you give them your contributions, you are buying their fish. Fact is, it’s important to them you never learn the truth. The truth doesn’t sell, it is free. That is the simple and sad reason no church is teaching you of your need to listen to the son of God and to be certain you are learning what is truth. Learning the truth will set you free of their control over you. Another simple way you can spot religious people as opposed to true Christians is if they call themselves anything but “Christian.” It appears to me, in light of Bible teaching, any group that has adopted any name beyond or instead of Christian, is producing bad fruitage.
Acts 11:26 YLT and having found him, he brought him to Antioch, and it came to pass that they a whole year did assemble together in the assembly, and taught a great multitude, the disciples also were divinely called first in Antioch Christians.
There is just a terrible common problem among mankind. We are all ignorant and, a part of that ignorance is, we don’t know what we don’t yet know. You can’t listen to me and depend on me to tell you the truth. That’s what I try and do but I’m still learning just like every other person. That’s the same reason you can’t listen to any religious sect. The second they start to develop their own doctrine to explain and defend and define their faith, they are lost. The teachings of Christ must be the only doctrine for the followers of Jesus. It just has to be that way! We all want other people to like us and our imperfection can lead us astray. Christ is not like that. He is the perfect son of God and everything he said is precisely what we need to know to have faith and gain life. That is why God told you to listen to his son and is why Jesus told us to consume him. He said in the end days his followers would be gathered around feeding on his remains or body. His teachings as recorded in the Gospels are his remains or his body.
If you are sick at heart about all the terrible things you see happening in this world, as people are killed and harmed on every side in every imaginable way, while even the rulers of our world don’t care, you can know God foreknew it would be like this. Mankind has chosen to live apart from God’s guidance and direction, and God knew that would bring only folly. He foretold about 2500 years ago mankind would produce rulers to bring only chaos:
Dan 8:23-26 GNB "When the end of those kingdoms is near and they have become so wicked that they must be punished, there will be a stubborn, vicious, and deceitful king. (24) He will grow strong---but not by his own power. He will cause terrible destruction and be successful in everything he does. He will bring destruction on powerful men and on God's own people. (25) Because he is cunning, he will succeed in his deceitful ways. He will be proud of himself and destroy many people without warning. He will even defy the greatest King of all, but he will be destroyed without the use of any human power. (26) This vision about the evening and morning sacrifices which has been explained to you will come true. But keep it secret now, because it will be a long time before it does come true."
That is one of many prophecies about what Jesus called “the last days.” It is not a bad thing but the last days of the wicked who refuse to submit to the counsel of Christ. They are being judged by rejecting the son of God. Jesus said the last days, which the Bible seems to indicate is our day in time, would be similar to the days of Noah, where only Noah and his family were spared in the ark they built. The ark of salvation for our day in time is our faith in Christ Jesus as the son of God. You should ask yourself if you can really have faith in Christ if you don’t first know him. Then, in light of Jesus’s and his disciples warnings, ask yourself is it is safe to put faith in what men tell you Jesus said.
Act 20:29-30 GNB I know that after I leave, fierce wolves will come among you, and they will not spare the flock. (30) The time will come when some men from your own group will tell lies to lead the believers away after them.
So… I say again: The one and only way you can know for certain you are building faith in what Jesus taught is by reading Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. You don’t have to imagine you can hear Christ. God inspired what he said recorded so you can sit in his presence among his true family any time you are free to read his words. I pray our loving Creator and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ will continue to watch over and keep those drawing to him through what He sent his son to teach.
May you and all you care about have peace through faith in Christ Jesus.
Use browser "Back Arrow" or "Alt+Left_Arrow" keys to previous page. | Home Page
