Josh Hunt's Blog, page 272

Does the effectiveness of teaching affect salvation?

At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed. Acts 14:1 (NIV2011) How was it that the people in Iconium were saved? Well, we know from the broader context of Scripture they were saved because God saved them. […]

Small Groups are Weird

Let’s go ahead and get this out of the way from the beginning: to the normal church outsider, small groups are weird. Those of us who are tasked with convincing people in our churches that joining a small group is something they should do have an uphill battle. Here are just a few of the […]

Give your teachers the gift of Good Questions

Give your teachers the gift of Good Questions Have Groups talking. Give your teachers access to nearly 2,000 Bible lessons with four new lesson added each week. New lessons correspond with three Lifeway Series as well as the International Standard Series. With one subscription, you get access to ALL of the lessons. It is like […]

Loving ISIS — A Small Group Bible Study

Loving Isis Good Questions Have Groups Talking Check our more Bible Lessons at www.mybiblestudylessons.com What does it mean to love our enemy in a world where our enemy cuts off the heads of people just because they are Christians? In this thought-provoking lesson, you will be challenged to think in new way about what you […]

Redefining evangelism

For pre-evangelism to be fruitful, at least two things need to be done. First, we need to redefine what we mean by evangelism. Most of us have been taught that evangelism is “proclaiming the Good News and inviting others to trust Christ.” Yet, a valuable element is missing in that definition. The missing element is […]

What is pre-evangelism?

What is pre-evangelism? If evangelism is planting seeds of the Gospel, then pre-evangelism is tilling the soil of people’s minds and hearts to help them be more willing to listen to the truth (1 Corinthians 3:6). Tilling the soil is important because sometimes the ground is too hard, making it more difficult to plant the […]

Love the alien

Everyone knows the celebrated teaching of Jesus in the Gospels: “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 19:19; 22:39; Mark 12:31). But as readers of the Torah or the Old Testament law know, it did not originate with him in the first century A.D. Rather, the New Testament citations are actually found in Leviticus, and Jesus […]

New models for evangelism

The second reason we need to develop a new model of evangelism is that the world we live in has changed in ways that often create barriers to the Gospel. The world today can be characterized by a rejection of moral absolutes, a deep religious skepticism, and an indifference or outright rejection of objective truth. […]

Immigration–a biblical word study

The Hebrew word usually translated “stranger,” “alien,” or “sojourner” derives from the verb gwr, which occurs eighty-one times in the Old Testament. It means “to sojourn” or “to dwell as a stranger, become a refugee.” As a noun, ger is found eighty-two times in Hebrew. More than 160 occurrences of these words indicate just how […]

How Evangelism is Changing

First, there is less and less interest in the Gospel message itself. Consequently, Christians today find their traditional approaches to evangelism somewhat limiting. It was common 30 to 40 years ago to use a simple tract to share the Gospel with others, especially on college campuses. Many baby boomers were won to Christ back in […]