Thank you so much for all of your helpful input regarding which Bible study you’d like to do next. We will be doing Forgiven to Forgive1 at a later date, but today, we’re kicking off our next study…
…..with a fun title pic contest!
What does God’s Word teach us about thinking biblically and developing Christian character? Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew starts off with a list of character traits God blesses (the Beatitudes), then fleshes out how to submit to Scripture in real life scenarios in order for the Holy Spirit to grow us in those godly character traits.
The Sermon on the Mount will be an “expositorially topical” (an expository deep dive into a short segment of Scripture) study of Matthew 5-7, similar in format to The Ten. We will examine the character traits God blesses in Christians and how God develops those traits in us as we walk with Him through the practical circumstances of life and as we develop a biblical worldview.
But before we get started studying, how about a little fun?
You’ve probably noticed that I design a title picture for each Bible study I write. Here are a few past title pics:
You can see the rest of them at the Bible Studies tab in the blue menu bar at the top of this page, if you like, to get a feel for my style and the general appearance I like my title pics to portray.
Y’all have sent in some beautiful and creative entries in our past title pic contests – indeed, the title pics for The Women of Genesis, Living Stones, and Imperishable Beauty were all designed by readers – so, once again, I wanted to get some of you involved in the design process for our new study.
Do you enjoy and have a knack for photo editing? Know someone who does? If so, I’m accepting submissions for title pictures for The Sermon on the Mount study. If your submission is chosen it will be used each week of the study, and you’ll be credited (name or website) by watermark. I’d love to be able to offer a huge cash prize, but, hey, we’re small potatoes here. This is just for fun and maybe a little publicity for your site, if you have one.
Contest Guidelines
☙You must use images that don’t require attribution. Pictures you’ve taken yourself are fine, as are images from sources such as Pixabay, Pexels, Freely, Unsplash, StockSnap, or other free stock photo web sites. Please include the image source web sites you use along with your submission. (You cannot just grab and use any old picture off the internet. Photographers own their images and usually require permission, attribution, and often a fee, for their use.)
☙Title pics should be landscape (a horizontal rectangle) with a width of 1000-2000 pixels and proportionate height. I prefer JPG images, but PNG is fine, too, if necessary.
☙Your title pic must contain the full title of the study: The Sermon on the Mount. (Be sure to double check your spelling).
☙If your submission is selected, I’ll be glad to watermark it with your website address (please submit your picture without any watermarks) if you have one, as long as your web site doesn’t conflict with my statement of faith or my beliefs outlined in the Welcome tab.
☙Deadline for submissions is 11:59 p.m. Monday, January 18, 2021.
☙ E-mail your title pic submission along with your full name, web site address (if any), and the source(s) you used for your image(s) to MichelleLesley1@yahoo.com. You are welcome to submit as many images as you like.
☙Please don’t be offended if your submission isn’t selected. If I peruse all the submissions and I’m just not “feeling it,” I may still elect to design one of my own.
☙☙☙☙☙
Feel free to share this around with friends who have an interest in photo editing. If you want to take a whack at it for fun but don’t know where to start, play around with Be Funky, PicMonkey, or Canva and see which one works best for you.
Think about – maybe even read – the Sermon on the Mount and try to capture in your image the theme of what Jesus was teaching or what it might have looked or felt like to be in the audience Jesus preached it to.
Happy designing!
1For those who were hoping for the study on forgiveness, you’ll notice that the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 does touch on that topic, so we will cover it, albeit briefly, as part of this study.
If you’ve been following the blog for a while, you know that, from time to time, I post biblically edifying, informative movies, videos, or documentaries on Tuesdays – ergo, “Movie Tuesday.”
Recently, my friend, Pastor Travis McNeely, released a six video series on Critical Race Theory featuring LSU law professor, Randy Trahan. In this series, Randy, a former proponent of CRT, describes his journey into – and out of – critical theory, explains what CRT is, and why it’s a danger to the church, particularly to Southern Baptists.
So, for the next six weeks, every Tuesday will be Movie Tuesday as we make our way through this video series. I would urge you to carefully watch each episode – especially if you’re Southern Baptist (if we actually have an SBC annual meeting this year, this issue is sure to come up) – so you’ll be informed and able to develop a biblical position on this egregious false teaching that is quickly spreading through the church.
Travis has developed a discussion guide to go with the videos, so as you watch, consider whether this might be a good series for your pastor to guide your church through, and pass it along to him.
Have I told you lately that I love you? (Some of us are old enough to remember that song! :0) I really do love all of you readers and followers. It is an honor and a joy to serve you in Christ.
Sometimes in an article I’ll say something like, “If you’ve been around the blog for a while, you probably know that…yada, yada, yada.” Well, some of y’all haven’t been around the blog for a while, and to that, I say welcome! It’s always great to have more of the fam gathered ’round.
But because some of y’all are new, you aren’t yet aware of all of the resources here to help you. Let’s remedy that!
Second, be sure to familiarize yourself with all of the tabs in the blue menu bar at the top of the page. That’s where I keep the info I’m most frequently asked about.
Third, there’s a search bar at the bottom of every page (and one in the blue menu bar at the top of every page) which might help you find what you need.
And finally, let me get you newbies some answers to the questions several of you have asked recently. Some of you long time friends may have missed these along the way, so I hope they’ll be helpful to you, too!
Are there any sound Christian musicians anymore?
Yes, they’re just few and far between, and not as well known as the unsound ones. Check out this article which contains both artists to avoid and doctrinally sound artists, plus other helpful resources:
My sister just got ordained by her church as a minister, also she is involved in deliverance ministries. She believes that God speaks outside of Scripture and promotes many false teachers. I’ve been praying for wisdom and compassion and the right opportunity to share. Any suggestions you may have would be greatly appreciated.
It is heartbreaking when a loved one forsakes sound doctrine and does a swan dive into the cesspool of rebellion and false teaching. If you need to approach a loved one in a situation like this, here’s some help:
I think the two best English translations out there right now are the English Standard Version (ESV) and the New American Standard (NASB). I also highly recommend the MacArthur Study Bible. Check out more info on Bible translations, some to avoid, and more great resources here:
Are you on any other social media that is in favor of free speech? I have deleted Twitter and am attempting to get off Facebook but I would still like to follow you.
This is an important one with all the censorship that’s taking place on the major platforms right now. I am currently on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, MeWe, Parler, and Gab. (I also have a YouTube channel, but I’m not really using it at the moment.) My plan is to remain on Facebook and Twitter (and probably Instagram since it’s owned by Facebook) until I’m banned, then utilize my remaining platforms. You can always find the direct links to all of my social media accounts in the Contact and Social Media tab in the blue menu bar at the top of this page.
I have tried without success to find the answer to: As a woman is it violating 1 Timothy 2:11-12 for me to present the gospel to a man?
There’s a lot of confusion about what it means to “present the gospel” or “share the gospel” or “evangelize”. Some people use those as catchall terms for everything from a woman pastoring a church, to a mom reading a Bible story to her 2 year old, to posting a Bible verse on Facebook. If what you mean is a one on one conversation with a man in which you explain to him that he is a sinner, and how he can be saved (which is the actual defintion of the aforementioned terms), then the answer to your question is no. It is not a violation of Scripture for a woman to do that. See #11 here.
Got questions about the role of women in the church? Check out these resources:
Rock Your Role: A series of articles examining the Scriptures which pertain to the role of women in the church
Rock Your Role FAQs: Frequently asked questions about real life roles and activities in the church and whether or not women may biblically participate in them
Is X teacher, pastor, or author doctrinally sound?
If you don’t find the person you’re looking for there, find the search bar and type in the person’s name. (Make sure you spell it exactly right.) I may have mentioned the person you’re looking for in an article about someone or something else.
If you do both of these and you don’t get any hits, you can be confident that I haven’t written anything on the person you’re looking for. You’re welcome to email me asking about that teacher, but as you know (having read the “Blog Orientation” article linked above) I most likely won’t be able to answer. That brings us to our final resource here at the blog for researching and vetting teachers:
Who are some pastors, teachers, and authors you recommend?
You’ll find a list of several dozen at the Recommended Bible Teachers tab in the blue menu bar at the top of this page.
I live in X area. Can you help me find a doctrinally sound church?
The Searching for a new church? tab in the blue menu bar at the top of this page has multiple church search engines, churches recommended by my readers, information on church planting, what to look for in a doctrinally sound church, and how to biblically leave your current church. Just click and start searching!
Just a couple of notes:
You’ll have to do the legwork of searching and vetting the churches for yourself. I can’t do that for you.
If you’ve thoroughly searched every single search engine and can’t find an established church within achievable driving distance of your home, you may need to check around with local friends or denominational agencies, move, or start utilizing the church planting resources. You can email me, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to help. As I once joked with a friend, “I’m not Walmart. I don’t have any churches in the back stock room. Everything I have is out on the shelves.” :0)
Can you recommend a good women’s Bible study?
Yes, mine. You can find all of them – all free and all suitable for individual or group study, along with my philosophy of Bible study – at the Bible Studies tab in the blue menu bar at the top of this page.
No, I mean, can you recommend a pre-packaged book, DVD, etc., study by a well known Christian author?
No, because I recommend that women study straight from the text of Scripture itself (which is what my studies are designed to teach women how to do).
If you have a question about: a Bible passage, an aspect of theology, a current issue in Christianity, or how to biblically handle a family, life, or church situation, comment below (I’ll hold all questions in queue {unpublished} for a future edition of The Mailbag) or send me an e-mail or private message. If your question is chosen for publication, your anonymity will be protected.
If you are considering commenting or sending me an e-mail objecting to the fact that I warn against certain teachers, please click here and read this article first. Your objection is most likely answered here. I won’t be publishing comments or answering emails that are answered by this article.
This article is kept continuously updated as needed.
I get lots of questions about particular authors, pastors, and Bible teachers, and whether or not I recommend them. Some of the best known can be found above at my Popular False Teachers tab. The teacher below is someone I’ve been asked about recently, so I’ve done a quick check (this is brief research, not exhaustive) on her.
Generally speaking, in order for me to recommend a teacher, speaker, or author, he or she has to meet three criteria:
a) A female teacher cannot currently and unrepentantly preach to or teach men in violation of 1 Timothy 2:12. A male teacher or pastor cannot allow women to carry out this violation of Scripture in his ministry. The pastor or teacher cannot currently and unrepentantly be living in any other sin (for example, cohabiting with her boyfriend or living as a homosexual).
b) The pastor or teacher cannot currently and unrepentantly be partnering with or frequently appearing with false teachers. This is a violation of Scripture.
c) The pastor or teacher cannot currently and unrepentantly be teaching false doctrine.
I am not very familiar with most of the teachers I’m asked about (there are so many out there!) and have not had the opportunity to examine their writings or hear them speak, so most of the “quick checking” I do involves items a and b (although in order to partner with false teachers (b) it is reasonable to assume their doctrine is acceptable to the false teacher and that they are not teaching anything that would conflict with the false teacher’s doctrine). Partnering with false teachers and women preaching to men are each sufficient biblical reasons not to follow a pastor, teacher, or author, or use his/her materials.
Just to be clear, “not recommended” is a spectrum. On one end of this spectrum are people like Nancy Leigh DeMoss Wolgemuth and Kay Arthur. These are people I would not label as false teachers because their doctrine is generally sound, but because of some red flags I’m seeing with them, you won’t find me proactively endorsing them or suggesting them as a good resource, either. There are better people you could be listening to. On the other end of the spectrum are people like Joyce Meyer and Rachel Held Evans- complete heretics whose teachings, if believed, might lead you to an eternity in Hell. Most of the teachers I review fall somewhere in the middle of this spectrum (leaning toward the latter).
If you’d like to check out some pastors and teachers I heartily recommend, click the Recommended Bible Teachers tab at the top of this page.
Anne Graham Lotz Not Recommended
Perhaps best known for being Billy Graham’s daughter, Anne Graham Lotz “speaks around the globe…Her Just Give Me Jesus revivals have been held in more than 30 cities in 12 different countries, to hundreds of thousands of attendees.” She is the founder and president of AnGeL Ministries, her speaking, publishing, events, etc., organization.
While the core of Anne Graham Lotz’s teaching historically hasn’t been radically off base, biblically, (i.e. she’s not blatantly teaching Word of Faith, NAR, or other heretical doctrine), she handles Scripture poorly, and there are too many red flags about her teaching and behavior to regard her as a trustworthy teacher of God’s word.
“Called ‘the best preacher in the family’ by her father, Billy Graham…” This opening sentence of her website is how Anne Graham Lotz has chosen to introduce herself to the world: as a female “preacher.” We could take this as a cute, antiquated father-daughter endearment if Anne did not, in fact, preach to men. However, she has no qualms about doing so herself and encouraging other women to do so, habitually violating this prohibition of Scripture. Just a few brief examples of the myriad available:
I Saw the Lord (Men clearly present in the audience at 7:29)
Preaching the Sunday sermon at Maranatha Chapel, 2/9/20. At 1:04, Anne says, “I’m very grateful for Pastor Ray giving me this opportunity…and for a pastor to give up his pulpit…I want to say thank you to him for that, and also for the statement that he makes concerning women in ministry…the fact that he would allow me to stand in his pulpit on a Sunday morning and speak to his congregation…so if you’re a woman in ministry, be encouraged.”
Preaching the Sunday sermon at Bridgeway Community Church, 2/16/20. At 0:40, Anne says: “I want to thank Pastor Anderson for his affirmation, his support, his encouragement, of women in ministry…To be in a church, on a Sunday morning, and for a pastor to give up his pulpit to me is a rare privilege.”. Two Sundays in a row. A nearly verbatim spiel. Not that “rare,” apparently.
Anne also participated in The Return, a September 2020 prayer and revival event organized by Cahn. Additionally, Anne sits on the board of advisors of The Return with Cahn and false teachers Pat Robertson, “Bishop” Harry Jackson, Robert Morris, Marcus Lamb, and John Kilpatrick, as well as Steve Strang– publisher/founder of Charisma Magazine, and Gordon Robertson- CEO of CBN.
Also participating in The Return1 were Che Ahn and Cindy Jacobs – “apostles” and major players in the New Apostolic Reformation, and Michael Brown, who often functions as an apologist for NAR (and other) false teachers on his radio program.
Again, Anne sits on the board of advisors for this event / organization. She cannot be ignorant as to who these people are and what they teach.
The following year, as chair of the 2017 National Day of Prayer Task Force, Anne mishandled the same passage the same way, combined it with a mishandling of Daniel’s prayer in Daniel 9, and claimed that these passages are God’s promise to “heal” America’s moral ills if we will just pray hard enough. Neither of these passages are about, nor apply to the secular nation of America. They both pertain to God’s covenant people, Old Testament Israel, at a very specific point in history.
This is indicative of Anne’s general hermeneutic when it comes to anything having to do with politics, America, social issues, foreign relations, etc. Her standard practice is to eisegete all of those things into Old Testament Scripture, taking God’s warnings to Israel as though they were literal warnings to America, and claiming God’s promises to Israel as literal promises to America. This is not rightly handling God’s Word.
…she correctly emphasizes that God speaks through His Word, yet in this same video (and other venues such as this article at Decision Magazine, How to Know God’s Voice) she also seems to teach extra-biblical revelation by saying we can mistake other people’s voices for the voice of God, that some people aren’t hearing God speak, and continually using phrases like “listening for God’s voice.”
In her article, Preprayer 2016 Anne explains and endorses unbiblical “circle-making” prayer. Similar to Mark Batterson’s book, The Circle Maker, Anne re-tells the story of Honi the circle-maker, then says:
As I look ahead into 2016, I feel compelled to draw a circle around this city, this state, this nation… and pray! Until God answers. Do the same. Please. On this first day of the New Year, draw your own circle. Then pray for everything that’s inside of it.
As we might expect, with her numerous ties to false prophets and New Apostolic Reformation heretics, Ann has begun to dabble in NAR-esque prophesying.
In his July 7, 2014 episode of Fighting for the Faith, Chris Rosebrough deftly analyzes a message Anne says God gave her for the United States.
In the Charisma News article Anne Graham Lotz Gives Prophetic Warning About 2016, Anne predicts “As I look ahead into 2016, I believe our national and global situation will get worse,” and “I have been repeatedly warned in my spirit that the enemy is advancing. It’s something that I know.”
Anne seems to be a lovely and caring person, not to mention very patriotic. I know she’s a sentimental favorite to many because of her father. Those are all endearing qualities. But we must put feelings and nostalgia aside when we evaluate whether or not someone is qualified to teach. James 3:1 is clear that teachers will be judged more strictly, not given a pass because they’re nice people or related to a beloved spiritual figure. Anne consistently mishandles Scripture, yokes in ministry with heretics and false teachers, and preaches to men, encouraging other women to do the same. She is not a trustworthy teacher, and I recommend that you not follow or receive teaching from her.
Wednesday is Bible study day here on the blog. Over the years, we’ve made our way through five Old Testament books, seven New Testament books, three topical studies, and various miscellaneous studies and lessons. (As always, all of my studies are suitable for individuals and groups, they’re available to you for free at the Bible Studies tab in the blue menu bar at the top of this page, and you’re welcome to print them out.)
My plan is to get our next Bible study kicked off before the end of January, but I’m having a tough time deciding which one of the two studies I’ve been considering would be the right one for right now.
That’s where you come in. I would greatly appreciate your input as I make this decision. So let me tell you a little bit about the two studies I have in mind, and then you can let me know what you think. Whichever one of these studies we don’t do at this time, we will most likely do at some point in the future.
Countless women have been deeply hurt by the church…a loved one…an abuser. Sadly, culture, and even most contemporary “Bible” studies, teach women to rehearse their hurts and wallow in a state of perpetual victimhood and bitterness rather than to pursue the ability to extend biblical forgiveness, and, consequently, true healing and freedom.
Forgiven to Forgive would be a topical study on forgiveness, similar in format to Imperishable Beauty and Sweet Hour of Prayer. We would examine the forgiveness we receive in Christ and how His forgiveness should fuel our zeal to forgive others who have hurt us. We’ll study both Old and New Testament stories of forgiveness and didactic passages on forgiveness. I anticipate that this study would be roughly 10-15 lessons in length.
What does God’s Word teach us about thinking biblically and developing Christian character? Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew starts off with a list of character traits God blesses (the Beatitudes), then fleshes out how to submit to Scripture in real life scenarios in order for the Holy Spirit to grow us in those godly character traits.
The Sermon on the Mount would be an “expositorially topical” (an expository deep dive into a short segment of Scripture) study of Matthew 5-7, similar in format to The Ten. We would examine the character traits God blesses in Christians and how God develops those traits in us as we walk with Him through the practical circumstances of life and as we develop a biblical worldview. I’m hoping to rein this study in to about 12-16 lessons.
So, how about it? Prayerfully consider how God is shaping you (or the ladies in your class) right now, and which of these studies might be of greater help to you in that regard. Comment below or on social media and let me know what you think. I’ll be praying about it and giving it lots of thought, too, and I’ll let you know when I’ve reached a decision.
You can see the rest of them at the Bible Studies tab in the blue menu bar at the top of this page, if you like, to get a feel for my style and the general appearance I like my title pics to portray.
