Bøger af Bob Peters

The shortest definition of God is "I Am." Ex. 3:14 The second shortest is "God is Love." 1 Jn. 4:8 The shortest commandment is love God with all your heart. The second shortest is love your neighbor as yourself. Because "God is love" and loves all people, he wants us to love each other. He created the world and intended that people would treat each other with love and respect. There are consequences when we do not "love God with all our heart" and do not "love our neighbor as ourselves," but instead hate others, are selfish and greedy and hurt others? God is a loving righteous judge. He feels it when people ignore or hate him. He feel with people who have been sinned against. His answer to those people who think he should do something is, I will pay them back exactly what they deserve: No more! No less! He will judge people righteously. People cannot slip out the back door of life and not have to pay the consequences for their sins. God has ways to pay back evil to those who commit evil even if they seem to escape out the back door through death. Those of us who are not notorious sinners and never had the power to start a war, but in our own little circle pushed God aside and did not always love our neighbor as ourselves will also be payed back for where we sinned: No more! No less!This book shows from Scriptures that God is a holy, loving, righteous judge who is not limited by time and power to pay back people who sin. I got that phrase "Pay back" from 2 Thess. 1:6 where it says, It is a righteous thing with God to pay back sinners with trouble. The most evil powerful hate filled being is Satan. Over the 6000 years of human history he has handed out a lot of trouble. He will be paid back for all the trouble he has caused in "the lake of fire." Rev. 20:10 says, "And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever." He will be "tormented" to pay him back for all the evil he has done. God will give him what he deserves. "Forever" means a long indefinite period of time." I got that definition of forever from Jonah 2:6 where it says that Jonah was in the belly of the fish "forever." It was three days and three nights. I think a second "ever" was added to "forever" in Satan's case because it will take God a very long time to pay Satan back for all the evil he did. This book is a chronological walk through the Bible studying God's loving, righteous and just judgments. The wonderful news in all this talk of judgment is that God let someone who did everything perfect step in for us and take the punishment we deserve: Jesus Christ. His payment will be accepted by God the Father on behalf of those who really believe in Jesus.

I have been a Bible teacher all my adult life. These studies in the Gospel of John were first used in a Bible study class. Some of my students and the pastor encouraged me to publish the materials because, as they saw it, they had great value. These studies have lots of background information and windows to let in light. I have incorporated information from many other similar biblical passages to give a fuller picture of what Jesus and John were saying. Both good and bad characters and life in general are used to illustrate the truths of the passages. This book was designed with questions with the hope and prayer that they will engage you in the word of God with life transforming results. You will need an open Bible at the passage being studied. I have added pictures.

Here are thirteen Bible stories of prominent biblical characters from the Old Testament with color pictures added which God gave to inspire your life's story. Relive with me a scene from early history. We are in the Garden of Eden. It is the sixth day of creation, and God has just finished making a man out of dust. God leans down and lifts the man's head and breathes into his nostrils the breath of life, and he becomes alive. God calls him Adam. Genesis 2:7. Imagine another scene. There is Moses, David and Samuel and other O. T. authors. They are each siting at their own desk with clean parchment laid out before them. They pick up their pens and begin to write. They are inspired and write the stories of people. God wants you to know those people so God stoops down and lifts those parchments, breaths on those stories and they become alive just like Adam became alive when God breathed on him. 2 Timothy 3:16 says that all Scripture is God breathed. It is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword. It is my hope and prayer that God will breath on these stories taken from Holy Scriptures and make them alive and give added meaning to your life's story. I love stories, and the Bible contains many interesting stories. They are true to life and are given to teach us about our lives. They contain the good, the bad and the ugly, failures, victories, faith, unbelief and their results. These thirteen stories are true to the Scriptures. Color pictures and background information have been added from other stories and Scriptures to set them in context and make them life giving to people who live in the twenty first century. Some biblical references are added so you can check them out in your Bible. They are in biblical order.

This is an interactive commentary on the life and teachings of the apostle Paul. It contains many illustrations and questions to draw the reader into the story and references to other scriptures which are related. The verses are referenced so you can easily check how I came to my conclusions. It contains some pictures which are historically accurate. Some of Paul's life stories are told in reading dramas which could be used on a church stage with just one rehearsal. We will work chronologically through Paul's life and epistles by starting in Acts 7:58 where we first read of him. He was a ringleader in the persecution of the church of Jesus Christ, and was at the persecution and death of Stephen the first Christian martyr. Stephan had said to him and the Jews gathered there, "You stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears. You always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did." When Saul and those with him heard this they were cut to the heart and gnashed and ground their teeth together as a sign of their anger. They plugged their ears and threw him out of the city and stoned him to death. The witnesses laid down their clothes at Saul's feet. At Stephan's stoning he was described as a young man, so he must have been in his twenties during Jesus' earthly ministry, but there is no record of him meeting Jesus before his resurrection. At Stephan's stoning he was already a strong leader, and became the leader of a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem. The church scattered throughout Judea and Samaria except the apostles. Saul made havoc of the church and devastated it. He went from house to house and dragged men and women out and put them in prison. 8:3 His efforts did not have his desired effects because as the church scattered they preached the gospel every where they went, and the church grew. 4 Saul (His Hebrew name. Paul his Gentile name) was struck down by Jesus while traveling to Damascus to persecute disciples, and he submitted to Jesus' authority. Acts 9 He became the greatest missionary ever, and the most famous author in the New Testament. Paul suffered more persecutions than any other person. He was in prison often and flogged severely. Five times he was lashed by the Jews 39 times. He was beaten with rods three times, stoned to death once (but was resurrected or revived if not completely dead) and shipwrecked three times. He was constantly on the move and in danger from rivers, bandits, Jews, Gentiles and at sea. He went without sleep and had been hungry and thirsty many times. 2 Cor. 11:23-27 He was delivered from a lion. 2 Tim. 4:17 He was beheaded. He wrote fourteen epistles. In this book some of the epistles are woven into his missionary journeys to set them in their historical context. Later in life, when the apostle Paul looked back on that time when he persecuted the church he said that the reason he was shown mercy was so that by him, the chief of sinners, Christ Jesus might demonstrate his perfect patience as a pattern for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. I Timothy 1:15, 16 It may seem strange that Jesus used such an evil person as a pattern. Saul became a great missionary because he knew the gospel was powerful enough to save the very worst of sinners. It saved him. This book travels with Paul on his three missionary journeys and his time in captivity first in Jerusalem and then in Rome where he was under house arrest but witnessed to many who came to visit him.

This book grows out of a struggle in my mind to reconcile the love and wrath of God. I believe other people have similar struggles, so I have written down my conclusions and given many biblical references and illustration which satisfy my mind. I have tried to reflect absolute loyalty to God's word. As you read you will notice many references. I have sought to tie what I say to Scripture, and give you easy access to where I came up with such a thought. I grew up with the idea that forever means there is no end. To me forever was not an indefinite long period of time. I heard people say things like, "They have lived there forever." I thought they do not understand forever. They had not lived there forever. They were not even a hundred years old. I looked up forever in a dictionary and was somewhat surprised that most of the dictionary's definition was, "A long indefinite period of time." It hardly mentioned that "forever" goes on and on and never stops. But the dictionary is not the final authority on what forever is. Scripture is. As I understood hell, people who went there were stuck there forever and ever and ever and would never get out. That concept of eternal conscience torment was a powerful force that caused me to kneel down in a farm truck at age 12 and pray and ask Jesus to forgive my sins, but over the years I have been bothered by the fact that a loving God would send a 12 year old girl from Bangladesh to be tormented in the fires of hell forever. Eternal conscience torment seemed so harsh. She did not believe in Jesus because she had never heard of him. No Christians ever told her. She did not know that Jesus died to make atonement for her sin. She would have to pay for her own sins. She would never get out. She would never be burned up and loose consciousness and cease to exist. How could a loving, righteous God do such a thing? Something was wrong with God or my thinking. You can probably guess where the wrong was, but that did not solve the problem. How can an all loving God both love and punish sinners. I have satisfied my own mind that the love and wrath of God can be reconciled, but in the process I had to discard some erroneous teaching with which I grew up. This book contains many stories, comparisons, illustrations and references to many other similar teaching from Scripture. There are a number of biblical pictures that are true to the situations. They are in color in the e book but black and white in the paper edition. It has 106 pages. The table of contents will help you know how I approached the subject.

In the magazine Christianity Today (April 2019) I saw charts that gave the percentage of Christians who believe in some form of evolution. I was surprised. I wrote this book to answer questions that I think Christians should ask. The book's title is Christians and Evolution. The subtitle is: Most Christians Think Evolution and Christianity are Compatible. What Did Jesus, Paul, Peter and John Say? What Does the Fine-tuning of the Universe Say? I used the word "most" because 75% of Christians in the US believe in evolution. 58% said God had a role in the evolution and 17% said God had no role. I projected the US statistic world wide. What did Jesus say and believe? We know Jesus believed in the Genesis' account of creation because when he was asked about divorce, he went to the creation story. He quoted from Genesis 1:27 and said, Haven't you read, that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female. Then he said, For this reason a man will leave his father and mother, and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. . .Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate. Matthew 19:4-6 He was quoting from Genesis 2:24. He used that first marriage which was between Adam and Eve as the example that sets precedence for all other marriages. It is obvious that Jesus believed in creation. He never said anything about evolutionist. We also know Jesus believed in the Genesis' account of creation because he spoke about Abel. Abel was Adam and Eve's second son. Jesus mentioned Abel because he was the first martyr. He was killed by his older brother Cain. So Jesus believed that the first biblical family was made up of Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel. Later more children were born to them. Jesus never said, Adam was the first person in the long line of evolution that looked more like a man than a gorilla. Is it obvious that people who believe in evolution and call themselves Christians are not paying attention to what Jesus thought and taught? I would hate to stand before Jesus at the judgment day and have him accuse me and say, Bob, you unwittingly called me an ignorant liar by saying things that are opposite to what I said. What did Paul say? Paul said in Romans 5:12 that sin and death entered the world through one man. He named Adam twice as that one man. He said, One man, Adam, brought condemnation. One man, Jesus Christ, brought justification. 5:16 It is obvious that the Apostle Paul believed the Genesis account of creation and the fall of mankind through the sin of Adam and the salvation of mankind through Jesus Christ. What did Peter say? In 1 Peter 1:19, 20 he said, Christ was chosen before the creation of the world to redeem us with his precious blood. John starts his Gospel with "In the beginning." just like Genesis 1:1 starts the Bible. He said about Jesus Christ, "Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made." 1:3 So John believes in creation. He believes Jesus Christ was the creator. Does he say anything about evolution? I think evolution would have been a very strange concept to him. Nowhere in the Bible is evolution mentioned. Evolutionist make wild guesses using millions and billions of years. Creationist have the Bible. It has genealogies going back to Adam so we know where we came from. Genesis 5 gives the names of the fathers and how old the fathers were when the sons were born. If we add up those dates we know that it was 1,658 years from the creation of Adam to the flood in Noah's time. In Genesis 11 we have another genealogy with dates. If we add those dates we get 260 years. The total years from the creation of Adam to the birth of Abraham is 1,918 years. We have a written account of where and when we started. I think you should read this book because our foundation is being stolen from under us. Don't be among the 75% who disagree with Jesus, Paul, Peter, John and Jude.