The Exploring Expositor

 5 This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.  6  If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:  7  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.  8  If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  9  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us  our  sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  10  If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.   Picking up from the end of verse 4, wherein John has made his initial declaration affirming that Christ was, in the beginning , fully and completely God, and later, was born (manifest unto us), making him completely human. John concluded in verse...

1 John 1:1-4 1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;  2 (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)  3 That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.  4 And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. Today we will begin our study of 1 John by looking at the first four verses in this letter. As I stated in the Introduction post about this book, John wrote this as a letter to combat false teachings that were rising up in the church at the end of the first century. These teachings primarily centered around denying the humanity of Jesus within one group, and another group denying his deity. It b...

I want to begin my study with you by looking into the book of 1 John. This will be a good point of departure primarily because this is a smaller book, therefore I can devote more of my time digging deeper into a shorter epistle, and then work my way into the more sizable books of scripture.   We know John the Apostle to be, along with his brother James, one of the sons of Zebedee. Both James and John were given the surname "Sons of Thunder" by Jesus ( Mark 3:17 ), likely a reference to their tempers which were exhibited in  Luke 9:54  wherein James and John wanted to call down fire on a village of Samaritans that would not receive Jesus. John often referred to himself as "the disciple whom Jesus loved" in his own gospel, and is also known as "The Apostle of Love" for his self-attributed name, as well as for speaking more about the love of God the Father and His Son Jesus than any other gospel writer. Like all of John's writings in the Bible, this book ...

       If you are like me, you may have never heard the term exposition in a biblical context before. According to merriam-webster.com, exposition means "a setting forth of the meaning or purpose (as of a writing) ( https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exposition ). In short, that is my entire mission as a preacher, to be an expositor of the Word of God. I want to open the Scripture, take a passage from within, and set forth its meaning and its purpose, in its original context. My goal is to be able to take the reader of this blog, or the listener of my sermons and transport them back into the biblical day. I want us all to come to an understanding of what the authorial intent was in the day that it was written, because that is still the intent that the Lord has for it in our modern day. In essence, what God told the church through the apostles is the same thing he wants to tell us. Despite all of the cultural advancements, quality of life improvements, and mod...

Welcome to the Exploring Expositor!      Hello and welcome to the beginning of what I hope will become and in-depth, educational experience for all who come to this site. By way of introduction, I am an assistant preacher in a small Baptist church, and just surrendered to my call to preach in June of 2023. After I began to preach I was given an insatiable hunger for my Bible. Ever since my salvation I had a desire to read the Bible, but it seemed like something always got in the way, or I would put other things first, and would "get around to it", which, as anyone that has been in a similar situation knows, never happened. However, once I gave in to the will of God for my life, preaching his Word, it has been as craving water after finishing yard work in the middle of summer. I can not get enough of my Bible, reading it, learning the history of the church, dipping into original language word studies, anything I can do to deepen my understanding of the Scriptures.  ...