Tommy Mann

What things are you occupied with? To be occupied means to be engaged in something, or giving our attention to that thing. You may be occupied with work, family, responsibilities, or hobbies. Those are all good things to be occupied by at the appropriate times. But in Acts 18:5 we read that the Apostle Paul was occupied by something quite noble. The verse says, "When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus." The Greek word that is translated as occupied means to be seized, as if something has grabbed a hold of you. Paul was seized by the word, completely controlled by it. "The word" refers to the Word of God, or the gospel. Paul was completely occupied by sharing the good news of Jesus with people who did not know the truth.  The Jews knew about Jesus, of course, but they did not believe Jesus was the Christ. Paul was able to build a systematic case for Jesus by using, you guessed it...

Is the New Testament part of the inspired Bible? While there is far more that can be said then I have room to share here, I think there is an interesting piece of evidence slipped into 1 Timothy 5:8. After Paul said an elder is deserving of his pay from the church, he went on to say: "For the Scripture says, 'You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,' and, 'The laborer deserves his wages.'”  Paul is clearly quoting Scripture. The reference to muzzling an ox comes from Deuteronomy 25. That was part of the old law, and verses like 2 Timothy 3:16 tell us "all Scripture" was breathed out by God. The Jews had collected all the books we call the Old Testament, and they viewed them as inspired writings from God through human authors, and thus incapable of containing errors. But Paul didn't just include Deuteronomy when he wrote "For the Scripture says." The second phrase about the laborer deserving his wages was a quote from Jesus re...

In 1572 an engraver named Philips Galle created a series of works that would become known as the Seven Wonders of the World. Among the scenes highlighted were the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Over time many different natural and manmade locations have been canonized as so-called Wonders of the World.  But long before Galle compiled a list of wonders in the world, the writer of Psalm 119 referred to the Wonders of the Word. In verse 18 of the psalm he prays, “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” Few of us would think any law is wondrous. Has anyone ever trembled in anticipation of reading the latest bill being debated in Congress? Man’s law is rarely wonderful, but God’s law is only wonderful.  We also need to keep in mind that the author is using a figure of speech (called synecdoche) in which a part of something is used to speak of the whole. He isn’t just talking about the law, but all of God’...

We all learned about the water cycle when we were in school: through the steps of precipitation, evaporation, and condensation, water cycles from the sky to the ground in a continuous loop (there are other steps in the process, but that is what most of us learned in elementary school). The Bible speaks to this cycle. In Ecclesiastes 1:7 the author observed: “All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full.” It is amazing to think about how much water from streams flow into the sea. Consider this: every single day the Mississippi River dumps 518 billion gallons of water into the Gulf of America, and that is just one of thousands of rivers doing the same thing. But the seas are not full. That water is going somewhere. In the 17 th  Century scientists figured out this puzzling water cycle. But the Bible actually cracked the code long before these scientists did. In Amos 9:6 the prophet asked and answered his own question:  “Who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them o...

  There are some lines or phrases in the Bible that do not make sense to us on the surface. When we come across some of these seemingly random phrases, the issue may be that something was lost in translation. A good example of this is Amos 8:1-2:   This is what the Lord GOD showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit. And He said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the LORD said to me, “The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass by them.”   Why did God give the prophet a vision of a basket of summer fruit, and then not mention it again? Did I miss something?    If we were reading Hebrew, not only would it make sense, it would be kind of funny. There is a play on words here, specifically, word sounds. The Hebrew word for fruit is pronounced like  ka-yis,  and the word for end is pronounced  kes.  The basket of summer fruit is no longer random. It was an object lesson to drive home the poi...

  In Isaiah 40 there is an interesting conversation between the prophet and someone else (possibly an angel). It says:   A voice says, “Cry!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever (v.6-8).   At the beginning of the chapter Isaiah is told to speak a message of comfort to God’s people, which was not typically part of the prophet’s job description. Condemnation and correction, yes; but comfort? Never. But in this instance God wanted to make sure His people knew He still loved them even after calamity came.    Isaiah did not seem to be in the mood to deliver the message. It’s as if he says, “Why should I? They haven’t listened to me all these years, and now I am supposed to comfort them?”    Isaiah was in his...

  The devil is no fan of God’s Word, and he doesn’t want you to be one either. I believe he knows Scripture. He has been around for a long time, and he has probably read it from cover to cover. There is no way he is ignorant of the Bible. I believe he knows what it says, and he hates it.     He also knows that the more you read it and understand it, the better off you will be. Since the devil hates God yet can’t beat Him, he wants to hurt God by leading people to reject God. He does that by attacking the Bible.    Think about it: he was the first to question the Bible when he said to Eve, “Did God  really  say…?” (Genesis 3:1) He was the first to deny the Bible when he told her, “You will not surely die.” (Genesis 3:4)  And he was the first to take the Bible out of context when he told Jesus, “Throw yourself down, for He will command His angels concerning you, ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”...

  The biblical account of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness is a favorite one for many people; it appears in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It is a great narrative because it gives us a manual for how to handle our own temptations—each time the devil tempted Jesus, the Lord responded by quoting Scripture. We too should rely on God’s Word, hidden in our hearts, to help us in our spiritual battles.    But today I want to focus on a different part of the temptation account. Often lost in the telling of this story is the fact that Satan also quoted Scripture. Its as if the devil tweaks his strategy and says, “If you’re going to quote Scripture, then I will as well.” In Matthew 4:5-6 we read, “Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “He will command his angels concerning you,” and “On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your ...

  As a Bible believer, I make my decisions based on God’s Word. I believe the Bible is completely true and free from error. The Bible is inspired, it is living and active, it is profitable, and it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes.    Because of this biblical worldview, the Bible is the place to start when making decisions or when telling someone about the Lord. But some object to this on the grounds that, since unbelievers don’t believe the Bible, then we should use other sources to convince them when we are talking about God. I understand that sentiment, but I reject it.    I realize that it might sound like circular logic to tell someone that Jesus is the Son of God “because the Bible says so,” and they should believe the Bible because “the Bible says it is God’s Word.” But here are two things to consider. First, when making a defense of what we believe, we always start with that which holds the most authority. If you start with pers...

One of the supposed errors in the Bible that atheists are trained to use against Christians is that the Bible wrongly refers to birds as bats. This is one of those assumed discrepancies that are used to discredit the Bible. If the Bible is wrong about a bat, they argue, then we can reject what it says about homosexuality, hell, Creation, Calvary, or whatever else they are trying to oppose. Here are the verses in question: In a list of birds that the Israelites were not allowed to eat, we see, “Nor the heron, nor the lapwing, nor the bat (Leviticus 11:19, Deuteronomy 14:18).” People rightly point out that the bat is a mammal and not a bird. Therefore, they conclude, that the Bible is wrong. But please let me point out two things, one obvious, and the other not so obvious. The obvious: these passages were written in Hebrew 4,000 years ago, translated into Greek a few thousand years later, and translated into English a few hundred years ago. The system we have t...

I’ll be honest: I’m not really sure what to make of Columbus Day. I know I’m not alone. Most Americans know little about holidays if they are not accompanied by a paid day off. Are we supposed to hail Columbus as a hero? He got lost, “discovered” a new land that was already occupied, claimed it for his country, then began to sell the natives as slaves in Spain. He thought he was in India, so he incorrectly labeled the Native Americans as Indians. That mishap still confuses people today. My grandfather is part Indian. No, no, not the kind from India. The real kind.   Still, I’m glad that Columbus’ discovery was made, for it opened the door for the Puritans and Separatists to come here peacefully in search of religious freedom. This is separate from the merchants who came here for prosperity and killed the Indians. No, no, not the kind from India. Columbus forced the natives to convert to Catholicism, which was the very reason the Puritans and Separatists wanted to lea...

Q. How is the Word of God made effectual for salvation? A. The Spirit of God makes the reading and the preaching of the Word an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners . Some people like to pose the question, “If a man on a deserted island dies and never hears about Jesus, will he go to hell?” While that is a most unlikely hypothetical question, I believe that God will do whatever He has to in order to give that man the chance to be saved (2 Peter 3:9, 1 Timothy 2:3-4,). God could send an angel, appear in a vision, or let the beauty of creation lead him to the truth (Psalm 19:1). But for those of us who are not on a deserted island, God has chosen the manifestation of His Word as the vehicle to bring the lost to salvation. Any person can pick up a Bible and read Romans 10:13: “Whosoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” But God’s desire is for salvation to be both personal and relational. That is why God established the pastor to be ...