Do you have Bible verses to comfort family and friends of a man who died last week?
How can we answer questions about death they will pose at his ‘viewing‘ or funeral service?
What Scripture about Death and Resurrection comforts you most?
Please comment. RH
IN THE BEGINNING
God created the heavens and the earth.
IN THE BEGINNING
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;
in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’
Gospel of Mark 7:6b-7a RSV
Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding.
For I give you good doctrine, forsake ye not my law.
Proverbs 4:1-2 King James Version
From a chief of sinners zealous for the Word of Scripture:
To my beloved fellow believers of our Lord Jesus Christ:
In the scriptures of the New Testament the Apostle Paul encourages the Romans of the church, so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
“Now why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?
Gospel of Luke 6:46 Legacy Standard Bible – Question of Jesus Christ to his followers
And I might add from the Apostle’s letter to the church at Corinth quoted in this previous post:
Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise.
1 Corinthians 3:18
In Paul’s letter to Timothy about preaching the Apostle says:
.. you have known the sacred writings which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
2 Timothy 3:15b Legacy Standard Bible
All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness
[Therefore, I ask, what justification can any shepherd of the church offer for correcting God’s word while preaching ‘the bible says..?’]
But the BIBLE says what God says; nothing more, nothing less and certainly not anything other than the Scripture you may read for yourself.
Whenever the written word of God points to the church the godly must humbly obey. But of course you must know your Bible in order to apply God’s inspired word appropriately.
(Don't just take some preacher's word for it that 'the Bible says' what he says.)
Scripture of Christ by the hand of His Apostle John:
from The Apocalypse of John from Jesus Christ writing to seven churches:
Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come..
Scripture of Christ by the hand of His Apostle Paul:
Instead, we have renounced secret and shameful things,
not acting deceitfully or distorting the word of God, but commending ourselves before God to everyone’s conscience by an open display of the truth.
But if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case, the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
For we are not proclaiming ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’s sake.
Second letter from the Apostle Paul to the Church at Corinth 4:2-5 Christian Standard Bible
.. the Bible possesses reproving power to correct all error unaligned with its teaching.
The Bible Convictions of John Wycliff
MORE about the Bible translator John Wycliff
No human leader–not even the Pontiff of Rome–can claim to be head of the church on earth. Sovereign headship belongs to Christ alone. “The greater part of the clergy is heretical and the highest are the worst.”
John Wycliff , who hand-copied the first version of the Wycliff English Bible in the year of our Lord, 1382 – source
For Yahweh of hosts will have a day of reckoning Against everyone who is proud and high And against everyone who is lifted up, That he may be made low. - Isaiah 2:12 LSB
Once more I will defer to the theological trumpet of John Stott from THE RADICAL DISCIPLE
But fundamental to Christian behavior is the lordship of Jesus Christ. “Jesus is Lord” remains the basis of our life.
.. Is the church the lord of Jesus Christ so that it has liberty to edit and manipulate, accepting what it likes and rejecting what it dislikes?
The Radical Disciple on the challenge of ethical relativism
“He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.”
Gospel of John 14:21
And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. – Acts of the Apostles 11:26
Search the Scriptures and you will find this the only place followers of the way of Jesus Christ, disciples of His teaching and doctrine are called ‘Christians.’
ἐκκλησία – ekklēsia or church is used 114 times in the New Testament.
What must we do?
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
And He said to him,
“‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’
And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said,
“Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.”
Gospel of Matthew 12:49-50 LSB
“Now if your brother sins against you,
go and show him his fault, between you and him alone; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.
“But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that BY THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES EVERY FACT MAY BE CONFIRMED.
“And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church;
and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as the Gentile and the tax collector.
Of course this analogy of Jesus spoke to times before the risen Christ baptized gentiles into the Church. The charge of Jesus is to throw him out and have nothing to do with this unrepentant sinner who would lightly claim to be a christian.
“Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?”
Gospel of Matthew 19:16
Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” .. he went away grieving; for he was one who owned much property.
And He is the head of the body, the church; Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.
For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
And through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross—through Him—whether things on earth or things in heaven.
Colossians 1:18-20
The Doctrine of the Church is a LIFE and DEATH issue. And also at issue is not only death, but JUDGMENT.
We are NOT SAVED simply by calling ourselves ‘christian,’ clinging to grace yet hiding from God.
“You are My friends if you do what I command you.
Gospel of John 15:14,17
“This I command you, that you love one another.
God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.
Once upon a time…
An illustration of times in life beyond the bounds of time and place.
We learned (with our eyes closed) that sometimes the only way for the blind to see beyond the ends of the infinite line of time is to listen to our Guide rather than than embrace the false vision of a fallen world.
Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and tend it.
Genesis 2:15 NASB20
Now Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a cultivator of the ground.
Genesis 4;2b NASB20
He has sown the seeds of envy and will harvest the thistles of thanklessness.
Insight of the Guide about the Gardener, Cahyin
“Not only is this tragic death of their son Abel new to them,” my guide pointed out to me, “the impact of DEATH itself has just gripped Adam and Eve — two parents who the LORD had told many years before,
‘You shall surely die.’”
Genesis 2:17 וּמֵעֵץ הַדַּעַת טוֹב וָרָע לֹא תֹאכַל מִמֶּנּוּ כִּי בְּיוֹם אֲכָלְךָ מִמֶּנּוּ מוֹת תָּמֽוּת׃
You open your eyes in a place of darkness. And darkness and deception are the place where the hunter hides.
If you look closely you will find the hunter wherever there is disobedience to God.
Now the serpent was more cunning than any animal of the field which the LORD God had made.
Genesis 3:1a NASB20
COMMENTARY: Adam did not create Eve. Some Bibles translate 'Adam' as 'man' because Scripture commonly uses the word to mean (literally) mankind (by contrast to creatures of God not in His image).
Then the man said,
“At last this is bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called ‘woman,’
Because she was taken out of man.”
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife H802; and they shall become one flesh.
Genesis 2:24 NASB20
COMMENTARY: Note that WIFE and WOMAN are the same word: אִשָּׁה 'iššâ
Once upon a time…
… there was a woman. She was wife of the man. They both sinned. And almost immediately their own children (even as grown men) also sinned.
It was only then that Eve would have wailed wantonly with tears of remorse.
For by their sin, she and her husband would first witness death — as the LORD God had warned — DEATH of their son by the blood-stained hands of the first son of the first adam who disobeyed God.
They had ALL been deceived by the constant, cunning questioning by the hissing hater of God.
Did God really say..?
To be continued..
God willing…