Important Topics

From AD 100, the end of the apostolic period, to about AD 600. what happened in that period was incredible because Christianity explodes into the world. In 100 A.D. they had no idea of a canon of Scripture. The New Testament had been written, it just had not been completely circulated and brought together in a canon. The word “canon” means a rule or a standard. The canon was developed over a period of years. It took about 200 years before the New Testament was really brought together and recognized as the 27 books of the New Testament that we have today. By AD 600 there was the 27-book canon and it had also been translated into other languages besides Greek. In AD 100 there was no hierarchy, there was only a very informal church structure in the groups that were scattered throughout the empire. By AD 600 there is a formal structure and a hierarchy who looked to the bishop in Rome or the patriarch in Constantinople as the final authority. In AD 100 there are no creedal/doctrinal statements, no technical theological vocabulary outside that which was in the New Testament. They had no word for Trinity, no word for the hypostatic union, no concepts for describing certain theological and doctrinal concepts other than just those words that are used in the New Testament. By AD 600 there are several formal creeds and a technical theological vocabulary. In AD 100 they believed in a literal interpretation of the Scriptures and they were pre-Millennial. By AD 600 they no longer believed in a pre-Millennial return of Christ and they no longer believed in a literal 1000-year reign of Christ; they based that on an allegorical method of interpretation. So we can see that there were a lot of changes in that 500-year period. What took place to bring about those changes and in many way a decline in Christianity away from the truth of the New Testament?

To listen to this series as a podcast, copy and paste the following URL into your podcast software. www.deanbibleministries.org/podcasts/1991HistoryofChristianity.xml

Prayer is the most powerful asset that the believer has in his spiritual life. Prayer is an awesome privilege that brings every believer immediately into the throne room of God, into the presence of the Creator of Heaven and earth and all that is in them. Prayer is the believer’s vital communication link to his heavenly Father. Yet, for all that, very few believers are engaged in real biblical praying. Prayer is one of the most misunderstood and often most abused aspect of the Christian life. On the one hand we find that many believers either neglect prayer or it is trivialized as a tool used to manipulate God, to somehow enter into a contract with God, to bargain with God, to try to get God to somehow conform His will to our will. The tragic result of this flawed approach to prayer is that most believers have superficial prayer lives at best and they aren’t really sure that prayer does any good. And because of their ignorance that is probably correct. Their prayers often don’t get any higher than the ceiling. 

As we approach this study there are some goals and objectives that we hope to be accomplished.

First of all we are going to delineate exactly what the Bible says about prayer. In the process we are going to separate the sense from the nonsense about prayer.

A second thing we want to accomplish is a realization of the incredible power of prayer. We have lost sight of the fact today that when we go to the throne of grace that it is a tremendous tool that God has given us. It gives us awesome power in our spiritual lives.

The third thing we will accomplish is to realize that prayer truly does change things. The Scriptures are clear that we have not because we ask not, that there are a multitude of blessings that God has in store for every believer that are contingent upon whether or not we come to God in prayer. Because we don’t, because we neglect prayer, and we are not sure that God answers prayer, the result is that we do not experience those blessings that God has for us.

To listen to this series as a podcast, copy and paste the following URL into your podcast software. www.deanbibleministries.org/podcasts/1997prayer.xml

Why is the resurrection of Jesus Christ important? What is its significance? Is it just some historical event? Was it not even a historical physical event, was it just some sort of event that was imagined by the disciples, or some sort of spiritual resurrection? If it was a physical resurrection, why was that so important?

This Special began Easter Sunday morning 2009. This multiple lesson special, further explains the significance of the Resurrection for our Spiritual life.

Video DVDs of these lessons can be ordered here.

To view all video Bible studies in the Resurrection and the Gospel series, click here.

To listen to this series as a podcast, copy and paste the following URL into your podcast software. www.deanbibleministries.org/podcasts/2009resurrectiongospel.xml

This is a study of the Spiritual Life from Romans 6 - 8. Dr. Dean taught this series in 2000 at Preston City Bible Church.

Also see the mini-series entitled Spiritual Life: How Does a Christian Grow?

To listen to this series as a podcast, copy and paste the following URL into your podcast software. www.deanbibleministries.org/podcasts/2000spirituallife.xml