Author Archive: Pastor Mark

Proverbs Introduction

Proverbs: An introduction & overview

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Tonight we begin the book of Proverbs and as we have customarily do, we will kick it off with an overview of the book.

The word Proverbs means an object lesson based on or using a comparison or an analogy. So it’s similar in function and purpose to a parable, but in many ways they differ.

Proverbs is a poetic work. This would be easy to miss since Hebrew poetry does not rely upon rhyme & Meter as it does in most languages. Furthermore, being a translation into English all of that would have been lost anyway, which may be one of the contributing reasons why God had the Old Testament largely written in Hebrew. In the end, nothing is lost in translation!

Hebrew poetry relies heavily upon a thing called Parallelism which takes several forms which we introduced tonight.

Other facts we covered include:
• Proverbs is a compiled work of poetic, wisdom literature.
• It was pieced together over at very least 300 years.
• It has at very least 2 contributing authors, though likely considerably more.
• It is divided into 3 to 7 sections, only 4 of which we will recognize.
• It contains seven major forms – short potent statements for contemplation and meditation, stories, sayings, parental advice, moral discourses, concept personifications and an oracle.

I hope you will get something out of this introduction to Proverbs which will help you in your future studies and enjoyment of the book. Also, we hope that you will join us as we traverse Proverbs over the course of the next several months.

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Faith Good Works

Faith & Good Works Pt. 1

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Well if you have been following this series of “Maturity & Ministry” you know that we have been investigating what the New Birth looks like in terms of our ongoing responsibilities and stewardships in the Kingdom.

These include, but are not necessarily limited to:
• Love and respect for God
• Being proactive about the Word of God abiding in us
• Pursuing love of the brethren
• Desiring and being good stewards over the spiritual gift(-s) given to us
• Being faithful stewards over the ministry to which Jesus, the Lord of the Body, appointed us.
• Producing good works

Over the past 4 weeks we have taken a journey through the New Testament identifying specific things God calls “good works”.

This week we are beginning to look at the role faith plays in our pursuit of good works and our responsibility to encourage it in our fellow believers.

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Everything that has breath, Praise the Lord!

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Well tonight we wrap up the book of Psalms. It’s been one of the most educational and informative books we’ve studied yet.

In it we…
• Identifying the Psalms various authors and time periods
• Got to know how the greater book of Psalms was compiled from all of the individual psalms
• We came to understand the 5 book divisions
• We learned more about Hebrew poetry

These final 5 chapters are the ending doxology to the entire book of Psalms.

As I said last week these are a type of doxology – a composition praising God. However, strictly speaking ‘Doxologies’ “should be” a composition praising the glory of God specifically.

The word Doxa is the Greek word for “glory” and God’s glory in particular.

Since it is from this Greek word that we get the English word ‘Doxology’, a true doxology would not simply express praise to God in general, but particularly capitalize on His transcendent glory. These last 5 Psalms largely stick to this more precise definition!

The word ‘Glory’ means dignity, honor, majesty, splendor & even wealth. Ultimately these points to one’s character and impressive, sometimes weighty presence.

All that having been said, these Psalms do not require much in the way of explanation or deeper teaching – they are what they are – simple praises to God’s grandeur and glory… so Enjoy!

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Good Works Widow

Good Works & the Widow List

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:28:11 — 92.6MB)Subscribe: Spotify | RSS   Sunday 06/15/25 Title: Good Works & the Widow List Click for Message Video Message Audio Player: ***Video is HERE*** Good Works & the Widow List Well its Father’s day and while I almost never allow a date celebrated on the calendar to dictate what I teach, this one was pretty easy. God created humans so that many aspects of His relationship with us were baked into our instincts for parenting. As such, it is no wonder that there are so many similarities between what most fathers desire (and sometimes demand) […]

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Awaken Lovingkindness

Awaken me with word of Your Lovingkindness

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Well tonight is a David night. All five psalms I am intending to cover were composed by him. They are also the last Psalms known to be composed by David in the greater book of Psalms.

Most of these are an appeal to God for deliverance from various enemies during David’s life. most noteably among them is Saul when David hid in the cave in Adullam which means refuge. It was a cogent lesson in that the very place we often run to for refuge, is what places us in mortal danger. It was there that David learned, in new and deeper way to make God alone his refuge.

Though all these psalms are excellent there are two more worthy of special mention.

One is 144 and 145.

144 presents us with what has to be one of the most unique considerations of God’s tenderness in all of scripture. David was once more facing danger on all sides and was crying out to God to “train his hands for war and his fingers for battle”. notihing new here, but what is unique is that David did this with his mind’s eye on the lovingkindess of God. Two subjects which at least on the surface seem distant from each other. Its another beautiful and palepable example of God’s tender involvement in all arenas of our lives and that nothing escapes His attention, mercy or the touch of His hand.

Then in Psalm 145 is the second acrostic poem in the book of Psalms. Unlike Psalm 119 which has each letter of the hebrew alphabet representing in sets of 8 verses from beginning to end, this Psalm commits a single verse to each letter in succession. That is except for the 14th letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

It is suggested by some that this was done to avoid putting a negative note of human failing in the midst of a psalm dedicated to God’s power and glory. So it appears David transposed the 15th letter with the 14th mentioning them both in a single verse. He did this so that the letter NUN could be mentioned as representing human tendancies to fall AFTER preculding that thought with God’s support for His Own in a word which begins with the 15th letter.

In any case, these like all psalms, are ultimately about the greatness of God and His mercy to all and His faithfulness to His Own.

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