That You May Know

by Mike Ratliff

13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. (1 John 5:13 ESV)

Over the past several weeks it seems that I have written almost exclusively about Christian Authenticity, our battle against discouragement, and our dire need for personal holiness. As I did a quick review of the posts here since way before Thanksgiving, I was struck at how often we have discussed these things compared to more volatile subjects such as the Apostate contemporary Church in the USA. As I prayed for direction for this post this afternoon and evening I found myself right back here looking at those things that are vital to our being able to walk this walk by faith.

Jesus Knows What is in Man

by Mike Ratliff

First, I want to thank Pastor Ken Silva for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this ministry. I am not a pastor or preacher. My Bible training is not formal. I never went to seminary. I work as a Database Administrator for large hospital group. However, I have been a Bible teacher for over 20 years. I became a certified Precept leader in the late 1980’s. It was the training through Kay Arthur’s ministry that taught me how to do word studies from scripture as well as how to correctly study the Bible.

From that training and leading many Precept Study classes and adult Sunday School classes I learned that God had given me an insatiable hunger for the truth from His word. This hunger was not to study the Bible as an end in itself. Instead, the Lord taught me that all Bible study must have the end of knowing the author more intimately and deeply. If we study the Bible as an end then we make the same mistake as the Pharisees who knew the Old Testament very well, but did not know the author. This caused them to miss His coming and actually become His persecutors.