Author: Rich Gorecki

My year-long journey through The MANual, my NIV Bible for Men, has reached the end of the Christian New Testament. The book of Revelation is one of hope about the victorious Savior’s return to rescue His people and settle accounts with those who deny Him. But it’s also a warning for believers about the final judgment about their commitment to following Jesus Christ.   In the End, God Wins! The book of Revelation (not Revelations with an ‘s’) is apocalyptic literature. This is a type of Jewish literature about the cataclysmic events that will transpire at the end of the world. The imagery and puzzling symbols make it one of the most difficult of the entire Bible. Even today, interpreters have drawn widely different conclusions about whether historical or current events are revealing the end times foretold in the book. Regardless of these debates, the fundamental message is clear though:

With apologies to the Beatles for my misuse of their 1968 hit song title for this post, this lesson from The MANual is not from Paul McCartney. As we near the end of this “long and winding road” in my year-long journey through my NIV Bible for Men, we stop at the last of the personal letters (epistles), which comes from the half-brother of Jesus. In the second to last book of the New Testament, Jude reminds us to keep strong in the faith and oppose the heresy spoken by false teachers in the world. It’s kind of like dismissing the theory you can play a Beatles’ song backward for a hidden message (OK, I will stop with the Beatles references!). Heresy Defined  According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, the basic definition of heresy is “adherence to a religious opinion contrary to church dogma.” Wikipedia defines Dogma as a “set of beliefs accepted

My year-long journey through my NIV Bible for Men now brings us to letters titled 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John, which are the 23rd, 24th, and 25th books of the Christian New Testament. The MANual, the basis for all of my posts this year, calls these letters “love notes” since the writer is knowing Jesus is knowing the God of love.  Who is the Author? While the author never identifies himself by name, many believed these three epistles were written by John, the Apostle, son of Zebedee who became a disciple of Jesus.  The author clearly places himself as part of a group of eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus in 1 John, noting that “what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also” (1 John 1:3). In the second and third letters, the author simply calls himself “presbyter” (elder). The three “Johannian” (meaning related to