Scripture says that God created birds before He made Adam and Eve. Scripture also says that birds do not just make noise; they sing (cf. Zeph. 2:14). Although we do not need scientific research to prove that the Bible is true, articles such as this one provide confirmation of what Scripture teaches.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Various proponents of CCM have dismissed passages such as Exodus 32 from being relevant to the CCM debate for differing reasons, including because there is no mention of musical instruments in the passage. I believe that factoring the ability of humans to mimic percussion instruments vocally, as in the contemporary practice of beatboxing,1 substantively changes the discussion of Exodus 32 and many other passages in Scripture that have often been debated in discussions about musical styles and their propriety in Christian worship.
1 Wikipedia explains beatboxing as follows:
Beatboxing (also beat boxing or b-boxing) is a form of vocal percussion primarily involving the art of mimicking drum machines using one’s mouth, lips, tongue, and voice. It may also involve vocal imitation of turntablism, and other musical instruments. Beatboxing today is connected with hip-hop culture, often referred to as “the fifth element” of hip-hop, although it is not limited to hip-hop music.[1][2] The term “beatboxing” is sometimes used to refer to vocal percussion in general (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatboxing; accessed 11/28/16; 9:53 pm).
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
A wonderful testimony that honors God and proclaims a message that everyone needs to hear concerning a vital issue.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
I did not grow up in a Christian family and had little acquaintance with the things of the Bible as a child and as a teenager. I had heard the name Jesus but mostly it was when people used it as an expletive.
From watching movies like the Robe and Ben Hur in my childhood years, I did see a moving presentation of the Crucifixion of Jesus and remember being distinctly and at the time inexplicably moved by viewing those scenes, even though I was not saved until many years after seeing those movies.
It was not until I was in college that I was exposed in any continuing way to some things from the Bible. When I would regularly visit a Catholic Newman center on the campus of Western Illinois University, I did not follow much of what was said in the homilies given in those services, but I distinctly remember being strangely moved when we would sing the Model Prayer that Jesus taught His disciples to pray.
I also visited a few churches with friends during those years, but I do not remember anything about what was preached in those churches. My exposure to Bible truth in my college years also included a movie about Christianity that I saw with some Christian friends.
Having had a habit for many years of browsing in bookstores, I encountered in a Christian bookstore some books about the New Age movement that warned that some of the things that I was involved in at the time were of demonic origin. I bought those books, and God used them to speak to me although I was not a believer yet.
God continued to work in my life by directing me to the religion section of the Public Library in Cookeville. From the hundreds of books in that section, He led me to read several that gave me a good overview of the story of the Bible.
God then directed me to some apologetics books in a Christian bookstore in Cookeville. Those books presented me for the first time in my life with the objective historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
About the same time, someone put a tract on my windshield that I read the day that it was put there. Through my praying through the suggested prayers in the back of the apologetics books and at the end of the tract, God saved me!
I am confident that the person who put that tract on my windshield prayed for God to use that tract to reach someone with His truth. God answered that person’s prayers by using my reading of that tract as part of how He brought me to saving faith in His Son.
Soon after I was saved, I wanted to go to church but had no idea about what church to go to out of the dozens of church names that I saw in the phone book for Cookeville. I prayed, and God directed someone to come up to me at work and invite me to his church.
The person who did so did not know that I had been recently saved. God answered my prayer by leading me through him to the only truly independent fundamental Baptist church in Cookeville!
Many years after I was saved, I learned that I had been born in a missionary hospital run by Canadian Presbyterian missionaries in a small town in India. Those missionary doctors and nurses prayed over every baby that was born in that hospital.
Until I am with the Lord, I will not know for sure what they prayed for when I was born. It is entirely possible that they prayed for me to be saved one day, and if they did, God has answered their prayers!
Whether anyone else prayed directly for my salvation, Scripture reveals that Jesus of Nazareth, the incarnate Son of God, prayed for me to the Father (John 17:20-26). I praise our Heavenly Father for giving me to His Son in answer to His prayers and in fulfillment of His glorious promise to His Christ:
“Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession” (Ps. 2:8).
Having been saved by the Father’s fulfilling His promise to His Son, may we all be used by Him to reach many others who will also be saved in fulfillment of the Father’s glorious promise to His Son that He would give Him the heathen for His inheritance. Knowing these things, let us all be diligent to pray and share the gospel of God concerning His Son to people in the power of His promised Spirit whom His Son has given us in fulfillment of the Father’s promise (Luke 24:49; Acts 2:33).
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who is faithful to keep all His promises to His Son and to everyone and everything else, including every living creature (Gen. 9:9-17). “Even so, come, Lord Jesus (Rev. 22:20).
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Having a proper Christian mindset includes living by the glorious truth of Christ’s loving me and giving Himself for me:
Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
As important as believing that Christ loved me and gave Himself for me as an individual Christian is, having a proper Christian mindset requires that I also give full importance to a closely related truth:
Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
Paul teaches in this verse that Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it.
As an individual Christian, I am part of the Church, but I am not the totality of the Church. Ephesians 5:25, therefore, teaches me that Christ loved an entity that includes me but is far bigger than I am. It teaches me that Christ died for something that is far bigger than I am as an individual Christian.
Because Christ loves the Church and because He gave Himself for it, I must always be mindful to treat those who are His Church in light of these glorious realities.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
The Apostle John made known that Jesus was full of grace and truth:
John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
To doubt, disbelieve, or deny anything that Jesus said or taught is to hold that He was not full of truth but had some error or worse mixed with the truth that He was and taught. If Jesus was not full of truth, then it is impossible to know for sure that He is full of grace and full confidence in His ability to save is made impossible.
When asked a question concerning the subject of divorce, Jesus responded with statements that have profound relevance for our day:
Mat 19:4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
In this teaching, Jesus affirmed that God created mankind as male and female at the beginning. He added that biblical marriage consisting of a man marrying a woman flows directly out of what God did in creating man the way that He did.
Jesus declared that when a man and a woman marry, they become one flesh because God has joined them together as husband and wife. Because God has done so, man is not to separate the couple that God has joined.
A believer who denies that God created mankind as male and female from the beginning has to hold that Jesus was wrong when He said these words. A belief in evolution thus makes impossible the belief that Jesus was full of truth.
If Jesus was wrong when He gave this teaching, He also is not full of grace and trusting in Him for the grace needed to save us is a hopelessly vain endeavor. We must reject any teaching that denies that God created mankind as male and female at the beginning.
Do you believe that Jesus was full of truth?
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
I recently found two excellent hymns to use for engaging in gospel self-talk through believer’s baptism: Baptismal Hymn and O Lord, While We Confess the Worth. Written by Mary B. Peters, O Lord While We Confess the Worth sets forth truths that are worth meditating on individually and ministering to one another corporately!
O Lord, While We Confess the Worth
O Lord, while we confess the worth
Of this, the outward seal,
Do Thou, the truths here-in set forth,
To ev-‘ry heart reveal.
Death to the world we here avow,
Death to each fleshly lust;
Newness of life our calling now,
A risen Lord our trust.
And we, O Lord, who now partake
Of resurrection life,
With ev-‘ry sin, for Thy dear sake,
Would be at constant strife.
Baptized into the Father’s name,
We’d walk as sons of God;
Baptized in Thine, we own Thy claim,
As ransomed by Thy blood.
Baptized into the Holy Ghost,
We’d keep His temple pure;
And make Thy grace our only boast,
And by Thy strength endure.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
While preparing for my Sunday school class that I am scheduled to teach tomorrow, I found an excellent hymn for engaging in gospel self-talk through believer’s baptism, which is the topic for my lesson tomorrow. This hymn was written anonymously and can be sung to the tune Hursley, which is used for the song Sun of My Soul.
Baptismal Hymn (#455 in Hymns of Grace and Glory)
Is it Thy will that I should be
Buried, in symbol, Lord, with Thee;
Owning Thee by this solemn sign,
Telling the world that I am Thine?
Gladly I yield obedience now;
In all things to Thy will I’d bow;
I’ll follow where my Saviour led,
And humbly in His footsteps tread.
This emblematic, wat’ry grave
Shows forth His love—Who came to save;
And as I enter it, I see
The price my Saviour paid for me.
Forth from Thy burial, Lord, I come,
For Thou hast triumphed o’er the tomb;
Thy resurrection life I share—
My portion is no longer here.
Oh, may I count myself to be
Dead to the sins that wounded Thee,
Dead to the pleasures of this earth,
Unworthy of my heav’nly birth.
Lord Jesus, when I gaze on Thee,
And all Thy radiant glory see,
That joy will far exceed the shame
I bear on earth for Thy loved name.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Un cristiano no es sólo una persona que ha creído en Cristo para no ir al infierno, sino al cielo. Un cristiano es alguien que sabe que se ha desposado a Cristo como una virgen santa que se prepara para la cena de las bodas del Cordero.
Así como una virgen que se prepara para casarse está completamente absorta en los preparativos de la boda, el cristiano debe estar siempre preparándose para la cena de las bodas del Cordero. Dios ha concedido a cada cristiano (como parte de la novia de Cristo, que se viste de lino fino, limpio y resplandeciente) vestirse a sí mismo de ese lino fino que son sus propias acciones justas.
Los creyentes que ponen demasiado énfasis en el hecho que Dios se complace perfectamente en ellos por estar en Cristo y, por tanto, concluyen que la forma en que viven no le importa a Dios, se han privado a sí mismos de la gloria que Dios les ha dado al permitirles vestirse del lino fino de sus propias acciones justas. ¡Como alguien que está desposado con Cristo como una virgen santa, preparémonos, todos los que esperamos con entusiasmo la cena de las bodas del Cordero, para nuestra gloriosa boda con Él, viviendo justamente en el poder del Espíritu para la gloria de Dios!
(Trasladado con la ayuda de Reinaldo Useche y Google Translate.)
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
A Christian is not just a person who has believed in Christ so that he will not go to hell but will instead go to heaven. A Christian is a person who believes that he has been espoused to Christ as a holy virgin who is preparing for the marriage supper of the Lamb.
Just as a virgin who is preparing to be married is completely absorbed in her wedding preparations, a Christian is to be ever making himself ready for the marriage supper of the Lamb. God has given to every Christian—as one who is part of the bride of Christ who clothes herself in fine linen, bright and clean—to clothe himself in that fine linen that is his own righteous acts.
Believers who have so overemphasized the truth that God is perfectly complacent with them because they are in Christ and therefore have concluded that how they live does not matter to God have robbed themselves of the glory that God has given to them to clothe themselves in the fine linen that is their own righteous acts. As one who is espoused to Christ as a holy virgin, let us who eagerly await the marriage supper of the Lamb prepare ourselves for our glorious wedding to Him by living righteously in the power of the Spirit for the glory of God!
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Rajesh Gandhi holds a Ph.D. in New Testament Interpretation from Bob Jones Seminary; he's a long-time member of Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Greenville, SC.
