Category: Biblical Support

MANual Lessons: Paul’s Letters to the Corinthians

My year-long journey through The MANual, my NIV Bible for Men, continues in Paul’s letters to the churches visited during his journeys to spread the news of Jesus. Last week’s post with MANual Lessons in Romans, stated the Apostle Paul wrote to a gathering of believers in Rome while still in Corinth, Greece. This post covers Paul’s letters to the people in Corinth, which became the seventh and eighth books of the New Testament. About Corinth The ancient city of Corinth resides on an isthmus (narrow strip of land) that connects Peloponnesus, a geographic southern region to the rest of Greece. Corinth’s location made east-west trade common since ships traveled from the Adriatic Sea to the Aegean Sea to save hundreds of miles of dangerous sea travel. During ancient times, crossing the isthmus involved putting the ships on rollers and transporting them across the four-mile stretch that connected the two

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MANual Lessons: The Book of Romans

My year-long journey through The MANual, an NIV Bible for Men, continues with the book of Romans, the sixth book in the New Testament, which follows the Acts of the Apostles. You will recall in my post on the MANual Lessons: The Acts of The Apostles, Paul was originally named Saul as a persecutor of believers in “The Way” of Jesus. After his encounter with the risen Jesus on the Road to Damascus, Paul goes on to lead three missionary journeys throughout the regions around the Mediterranean Sea. Paul writes thirteen letters –or what some call “epistles” (from the Greek word epistole meaning “letter” or “message”) to churches he visits, which make up the majority of the rest of the New Testament.  About Romans Appropriately titled Romans, the sixteen chapters are directed to the new Christians in Rome. Written in approximately 57 A.D., Romans is the longest and doctrinally most

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MANual Lessons in the Gospel of John

For my post on the Introduction to The Gospels, I used a photo of one green apple and three red apples as a metaphor for how the Gospel of John is different from the other Gospels.  In this next post on lessons from The MANual, my NIV Bible for Men, I explain how the fourth Gospel is unlike the other three. A Different Gospel  The Gospel of John is a different genre altogether in structure, content, and audience, but mostly in vocabulary from the Synoptic (similar) Gospels from Matthew, Mark, and Luke of my earlier posts.  Structurally, John is different since the stories of Jesus’ ministry are not connected chronologically or by geography. In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus goes to Jerusalem at the end of His life. John portrays most of Jesus’ early ministry occurring around Jerusalem and Judea. Also, the Temple cleansing takes place at the beginning of Jesus’

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