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The Twelve – Thomas

Brian Hopkins

March 23, 2025

Thomas gets a bad rap and the common nickname "Doubting Thomas" due to the well-known stories from the gospel of John in which Thomas first refused to believe the other apostles' report about the resurrected Jesus appearing to them, and then a week later Jesus' mild rebuke of Thomas saying, "Be not unbelieving, but believing." But does Thomas really deserve our scorn and ridicule. After all, the other apostles refused to believe the report from the women to whom Jesus appeared at the empty tomb until He appeared to them later. Furthermore, once Thomas touched and saw the resurrected Jesus for himself, his faith in the Gospel was fulfilled as he fell down in worship declaring, "My LORD and my God!"

Will You Go?

Brian Hopkins

March 23, 2025

On the evening He was betrayed, Jesus gave a new commandment to His disciples - that we are to love one another, saying that all people will know that we disciples of Jesus by the love we show toward one another. Later in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed for all of those who would come to believe in His Gospel through the words of His disciples. We who are followers of Jesus have a sacred calling from our LORD to go forth and share the Good News of salvation in Him with the lost and dying world all around us who desperately need to hear. Therefore, Pastor Brian asks simple yet critical question. In response to our call from Jesus, Will you go?

The Twelve – Nathanael Bartholomew

Brian Hopkins

March 9, 2025

The name Nathanael isn't found in the Biblical listings of Jesus' twelve chosen apostles. Most likely, Nathanael was the given name of Bartholomew - son (Aramaic "bar") of Tolmai. From the story of his calling we find in John 1:43-51, we can safely infer that Nathanael was a close friend of Philip. From that story, we also learn that Nathanael was from Cana in Galilee where Jesus transformed the water into wine - the first miracle Jesus performed during His earthly ministry. Nathanael was also present with six other disciples of Jesus at the Sea of Galilee on the day Jesus took Peter aside to restore him after his denial on the night Jesus was betrayed.

God is Relentless in His Compassion – Jonah 4

Brian Hopkins

March 9, 2025

Recall from our previous study that the people of Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah, and that God therefore relented from the destruction of the city that Jonah had foretold in his brief prophetic message. Here in Jonah 4 we see that Jonah was highly displeased with the compassion God showed toward the Ninevites, forgetting the compassion God had shown to Jonah himself by rescuing him out of death through His sovereign provision of the great fish that swallowed and preserved him. God's mercy upon Nineveh is not at all what Jonah expected, and he didn't hesitate to tell God exactly how he felt about it.

The Twelve – Philip

Brian Hopkins

March 2, 2025

Our information from scripture about Philip is limited, so we need to infer what we can about Philip from these few mentions of him taking care not to read anything into the scripture. We see that Philip was called directly and individually by Jesus to be one of His apostles. We also see in the story of the feeding of the 5,000 that Philip was somewhat pedantic and literal in his understanding of the lessons Jesus taught him. When he was approached by some Greeks who wished to see Jesus, Philip was cautious. It wasn't Philip's nature to be brash and decisive like Peter and the sons of Zebedee.
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