Bible – Page 2 – Pathway Journey

July 24, 2025July 24, 2025

Central Message of Christ, Crucified and Resurrected

When God called me to preach, he called me to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He did not call me to be a motivational speaker, telling folks to be a “Better You.” Yet, in the process of discipleship, we often guide our disciples in necessary life skills. But our overwhelming call is to tell the story of God’s love in the gift of HIs Son. This love is demonstrated in the sending and dying of His Son Jesus on the cross for our redemption. The resurrection of Jesus is a confirmation of His deity.

The main theme of our preaching needs to be Christ, crucified and resurrected.

May 27, 2025May 26, 2025

How to Live; How to Die

There are thousands of self-help books promising how to be successful or how to be effective. The Bible, by far, is the most powerful book and instructive book ever written. It tells us how to live. It also shows us how to die.

I have made the Word of God a part of my daily life for many decades. It is one of the most important things I have ever done. The Word of God was delivered into our hands by His servants who penned them thousands of years ago. It is an ancient book that speaks strongly to us today. There are none like it nor shall there ever be.

Learn with me from a few verses from the Apostle Paul to his spiritual son Timothy.

May 9, 2025May 8, 2025

Understanding God: Insights from a Lifelong Journey

I will soon cross over into my seventh decade of life. There are a few things I know now. I did not know them when my hair was brown and my energy was like the battery bunny. The main morsel of knowledge I now realize is how much I do not know. The body of knowledge seems to be as vast as the ocean and I am in a row boat.

I have read the entire Bible each year for close to thirty years. I understand many truths of the Bible but I still scratch my head about some things. It is the Word of God. How can a mere mortal like me understand the vastness and the depth of it? The short answer, I cannot. Yet, I keep studying and praying for more understanding of the Word of Life.

February 20, 2025February 25, 2025

The Bible in a Capsule: God’s Plan of Redemption

The story began long before Jesus was born in Bethlehem. It begins even before the events of the book of Genesis. The Bible tells us that the Son of God is eternal, not only in the future but also in the past.

The Word of God proclaims, “He [Jesus] indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you” (1 Pet. 1:20 (NKJV). God the Father designated God the Son to be the one and only sacrifice for sin from before the beginning of time.

November 14, 2024November 13, 2024

Fake Fruit on Dead Trees

“Fake fruit on a dead tree”, is a phrase my pastor, Bro. Bradley Petrey, recently used in a sermon. It describes the look some folks try to portray in Christian circles. I told him, “I do not like the condition it describes but I loved the phraseology.”

Jesus used something similar when He said, “Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. / A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit” (Matt. 7:17-18 NKJV).

The fruit depends on the tree. Said another way, the tree determines the fruit.

November 6, 2024November 5, 2024

Saltiness of Christianity

Jesus used salt as an analogy to show the importance of being a true disciple. Salt performs two basic functions; it enhances taste, and it preserves. As Christians we bring flavor and meaning to a hopeless world. We also preserve society and order to a fallen world. How do we lose our salt factor?

Salt does not in itself deteriorate. Salt without its saltiness is contaminated salt. Salt is derived from the sea or from salt deposits in the earth. The substance we buy today is consistent and mostly free from contamination.

In the time of the New Testament it was not so pure. The water from the sea was evaporated leaving a residue of salt but the residue was not pure. It was often contaminated with other minerals and substances of the sea. If it became too contaminated, it lost its flavor or saltiness.

May 14, 2024May 13, 2024

Benchmark of Life

Recently, I needed to determine the approximate elevation of a hill on our little homestead. My son and I used a process called differential leveling that I learned in an agricultural technology class. The point of the beginning was an established point set at 100 feet of elevation. It is called a benchmark—the initial point of reference. The final reading at the top of the hill was 138 feet, so the hill was 38 feet tall (138 minus 100=38).

I’m sure most of you care nothing about differential leveling, but I wanted you to know where I came about with this concept of a benchmark.

A benchmark is a reference point established as a constant and everything is referenced back and evaluated from that point. In life we need a benchmark to reference all the information that comes to us. If you do not have a reference point, everything else is just a garbled mess.

In the culture of the world, the secular mindset says there is no absolute truth–that there are no benchmarks. (It is funny, that they absolutely state that there are no absolute truths.)

If there is no absolute truth, then every known concept is a falsehood and there is no reliable reference point to anything. It is by this viewpoint of fluctuating ‘facts’ that people are redefining words and concepts that have stood for over 5,000 years of recorded history with little challenge during those five millennia.

May 6, 2024May 31, 2024

Invisible Forces

Sounds spooky, doesn’t it? Well, it is something to be concerned about. Just as a kid who is afraid of the dark, he may feel more comfortable with his head covered by a pillow, but it adds no protection. We too, prefer to put these invisible forces out of our minds, but that does nothing to protect us. There are real unseen forces of evil set on destruction and chaos.

One of the most revealing scriptures that paints a picture of these invisible forces is found in the Bible, in the Book of Daniel.

March 20, 2024March 19, 2024

What Voice Do I Trust?

The easy answer that even an eight-year-old Sunday school student would blurt out is “God.” Yes, that is true but how do you know if it is God or not? Even seasoned Christians struggle with this. I have heard the voice of God in my spirit so clear that it might as well have been audible. There are other times I question, “Is that God’s voice, my thoughts, or even the enemy’s voice trying to trick me?”

Listen to what the Bible says, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1 NKJV).

A partial definition of discernment from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is: “comprehend what is obscure.” In the spiritual sense, it is not a revelation of specific knowledge but a discrimination between two opposing points such as good versus bad, righteous versus evil, or right versus wrong. The testing of spirits is discerning if they are to be trusted or not.

Discernment only reveals if it is good or bad. It does elaborate on the why. This makes discernment bewildering because we want to know why. It is like a mother telling her daughter to stay away from a certain boy and the daughter asks “Why?”. The mother counters with, “I just a have a feeling about him.” You can imagine the smirk on the daughter’s face at this point. By the way, mature women seem to have more discernment than men, so sons and daughters trust your mom and husbands trust your wife!

March 13, 2024March 13, 2024

Stable Stool in a Wobbly World

I know you have eaten in a diner where the table was wobbly because one leg was a little short (and you probably put a wad of a napkin under it.) Do you know that a three-legged stool will never wobble? A carpenter puts a diagonal brace in a structure because he transforms a rectangular object into two triangles thus stabilizing the structure.

When rock climbing or climbing a ladder, the safest way is to always have three points of contact—move only one foot or hand at a time.

You see where I am going with this, right? Something of “threes” brings stability. A three-legged stool never wobbles.

“Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12 NKJV).

In the wobbly world we live in, let’s look at the three legs of stability. In a stable society, we need three points of contact to stay secure. We need faith, family, and community.