Holy Spirit

Q: Does speaking in tongues signify salvation? My family’s church teaches this but I don’t agree with this belief.

Q: How do you know Christ is in you? I look back on my words and don’t see a very nice person. I have asked Him to change me, and I keep repeating the same things.

Q: If the Great Commission is incumbent upon all believers in every local church – why didn’t Paul and the other writers clearly command us?

Q: I don’t see anywhere in the Bible where after the description of Jesus sharing bread and wine during the Passover meals that it says that this should become a ritual… As in something that you do in church or at a gathering. I’ve often wondered why we don’t just do this at home every day. It’s like when we break bread at suppertime and have our drink why don’t we just say it and remember that Christ died for us broke his body and shed his blood for us. Does it have to be something that we do in church? When did communion and church become a thing? And how do the Scriptures support what we do?

Q: You always say we must take the word at its word. We don’t add or take away. You say not to worry about what we “think” it means, but what it does mean. A few weeks ago you mentioned that the Proverbs 31 woman was not really about what a woman should want to be but was about wisdom. This was a little surprising to me because since I’ve read it as a little girl it seems very cut and dry. It’s a lot less ambiguous than some of the verses and books of the Bible. I never looked at this passage as a burden. I always loved the fact that God took time to show us this amazing reflection of what I believe so many women do and are.

Q: What do you think of Christians using pronouns for themselves and others who demand we address them with their preferred pronouns? I feel like by using pronouns for myself and others; I’m conforming to the culture and, in turn, humoring those individuals that identify as they/them and other opposing pronouns that don’t line up with their biological sex. I don’t want to make them feel disrespected, but at the same time, I don’t want to conform to their false truth. I want to tell them the truth in love.

Q: Human beings seem to inherently be sexual beings. Was sexual desire present before the Fall? Or, put another way, did God create us to be sexual beings, or is it part of our fallen nature?

Q: If everything happens for a reason, and things are predestined to happen, then why do we pray? How does prayer change things? I struggle with this area in my Christian life, and I think partly because I don’t understand and don’t know if my prayer makes a difference.

Q: How Do I Know If I Am Actually Growing? If we’re not in God’s word, submitting to the control of God’s Holy Spirit and around God’s people, we can not grow. Nobody can continually grow on what they studied in the past if they are no longer in the Word. Are you asking God’s Spirit to control you?

Dr. Mark Chavalas, Dr. Wendy Widder, and Dr. Kevin Zuber join Michael to wrap up The Big Book—Cover to Cover with a discussion about the value of studying and understanding scripture as a whole, from Genesis to Revelation.