BibleStudyWithJairus

Leviticus 22 says that priests must be holy when they are offering sacrifices to the Lord. Those who are not holy can’t offer sacrifices to the Lord, nor can they eat the sacred offerings dedicated to Him. For example, verses 12-13 says, “If a priest’s daughter marries anyone other than a priest, she may not eat any of the sacred contributions. But if a priest’s daughter becomes a widow or is divorced, yet has no children, and she returns to live in her father’s household as in her youth, she may eat her father’s food. No unauthorized person, however, may eat it.” How can we interpret the meaning of these verses? Our Bible studies are not a word for word explanation of the chapter we are reading because we can’t do this in just one or two hours. The focus of each of our Bible studies is to follow the leading and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Our fellowship is often closely related to our life and work from the past week. As we have mentioned many times, our Bible study's goal is to have the Word of God speak to us and change us by giving us a fresh perspective and insight. Knowledge without being moved by the Spirit means the study wasn’t as effective as it should be. In other words, we may have understood the words being said, but we didn’t understand the Spirit behind the words. II Corinthians 3:6 tells us, “For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. In today’s study, we’ll share the inspirations that the Holy Spirit encouraged us with, and hopefully, it will help you also. In this week’s meeting, a lady shared an experience that she had recently. She made a negative comment to a colleague. On the one hand, as a Christian, she felt she shouldn’t have said it. On the other hand, the Lord showed her that this comment exposed her real spiritual state, which wasn’t very good. She felt awful about it and couldn’t find any inner peace during prayer. She brought this situation to our study in hopes of getting help from others. The members of the study encouraged her not to be too hard on herself and realize that Christians are human beings who say and do things in the flesh. They encouraged her to confess to God, apologize to the offended person, and receive God’s grace. The story looks like it has nothing to do with this chapter of the Bible, but it ties into this chapter deeply. Through experience, we recognize that when members of our study have problems in life or at work, sharing their stories often leads the Holy Spirit to show us how these experiences tie into the chapter we are reading, which helps us to go deeper. What makes this woman sad is her lack of intimacy with the Lord. She’s often with her atheist colleagues who influence the flesh rather than the Spirit. She also feels bad about her Christian testimony. On the other hand, she felt like she prayed, and God didn’t listen, so she didn’t have inner peace. As a Christian who is seeking a deeper inner spiritual life, the feelings she was experiencing are normal. Nominal Christians or unbelievers may feel like you are causing your own problems. A principle in the spiritual realm is that the closer we are to the Lord, the more sensitive we are. The Lord’s expectations are higher for those who are closer to Him. For example, let’s look at the temple in the Old Testament. Many ordinary Israelis could come to the outer courtyard to offer cattle and sheep sacrifices, but only the Levites could serve in the Holy Place. Only people who were descendants of Zadok could serve priests in the Holy Place. The other Levites could not serve as priests (Ezekiel 44:13). Taking it a step further, only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies once a year. Leviticus chapter 22 is a case where the priest offers sacrifices to God and eats the sacred offerings knowing what to do to avoid defiling himself. You can’t just casually go inside God’s sanctuary and offer sacrifices. You must be holy. After being defiled, you need to be cleansed first before you can enter the sanctuary again to offer sacrifices. This woman’s experience is closely related to what we mentioned earlier in chapter 22:12-13. These two verses say: “If a priest’s daughter marries anyone other than a priest, she may not eat any of the sacred contributions. But if a priest’s daughter becomes a widow or is divorced, yet has no children, and she returns to live in her father’s household as in her youth, she may eat her father’s food. No unauthorized person, however, may eat it.” Deuteronomy 7:6 says, “The LORD your God has chosen the Israelites out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.” (Deuteronomy 7:6, NIV). Read More: https://jbwm.org/bible-study-with-jairus-leviticus-22/

Matthew 10:8 (NIV) says, “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.” This sentence is what the Lord Jesus told the twelve disciples when He sent them out to preach. It seems that "raise the dead" is somewhat of an obscure command. Even among the twelve disciples, there is not much recorded of them raising someone from the dead. But there are a few examples, including Acts 9, where Peter raised Dorcas from the dead, and Acts 20, where Paul raised Eutychus from the dead, which we will read today. Nine people in the Bible were raised from the dead. This includes the prophet Elijah who raised the widow's son, Elisha, who revived the woman's son, and the man who revived by touching Elisha’s bones. Jesus raised the daughter of Jairus, the son of the widow of Nain and Lazarus. God raised Jesus from the dead, plus the examples of Peter and Paul above. We will not discuss the other resurrections during this study. We will only discuss the resurrection of Eutychus. Why did God arrange for Eutychus to be raised from the dead? After this story, Paul arrived in Jerusalem. Was this because of God's leading, or because Paul made a mistake? From what I’ve studied and the teaching I’ve received, Paul made a mistake here. The prophet Agabus had prophesied in Acts 21:10-11 that Paul would be bound at Jerusalem. Agabus took Paul’s belt, tied his own hands and feet with it, and said, “The Holy Spirit says, ‘In this way, the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.’” (NIV) Then Luke 12:15 records the following: 12 When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. 13 Then Paul answered, “Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. ” 14 When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, “The Lord’s will be done.” 15 After this, we started on our way up to Jerusalem. (NIV) I was saved in the Local Church movement and accepted their teachings for many years. I remember reading something about this subject. Witness Lee thought Paul made a mistake here. When he was asked by others why Paul made such a mistake here, Witness Lee replied that only Jesus is the perfect saint. What he meant is that everybody makes mistakes. So this comment made a strong impression on me. But ever since the Lord led me to learn about the prophetic gifts in the Pentecostal Movement, I felt more confused when I heard their different interpretations of this verse. Many people with prophetic gifts hold similar views. They believe that Paul did not make any mistake here; he was just following the Lord’s leading. Because Paul was doing it in the name of the Lord Jesus, not only was he bound, even if he died in Jerusalem, he was also ready. Also, Luke mentioned afterward, “May the Lord's purposes be accomplished.” Acts 21:4 also says that “We sought out the disciples there and stayed with them seven days. Through the Spirit they urged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem.” (NIV) But Paul said in Acts 20:22-24, “And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city, the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.” (NIV) So at least from here, the biblical record is contradictory. On the one hand, the Holy Spirit reminds him not to go to Jerusalem through people who have prophetic gifts. On the other hand, Paul said that the Spirit compelled him to go to Jerusalem. It’s just that the Holy Spirit told him that he would face difficulties. The question is, does God want Paul to go or not? This is a tricky situation, and there is a lot of debate about this. The reason people thought Paul was wrong and shouldn’t have gone to Jerusalem stems from a prophetic word from the disciples in Acts 21:4 as well as Agabus’ prophesy in Acts 21:11. Agabus was thought to be a reliable prophet because he prophesied in Acts 11 that there would be a famine that happened during Claudius's reign. I thought the same thing, but when I was learning the gift of prophecy, some teachers who were gifted prophetically taught on how to avoid giving wrong prophesies and talked about Agabus making a questionable prophesy and how we should learn from it. I was surprised. It never occurred to me that a prophet in the Bible could make a wrong prophesy. Read more: https://jbwm.org/bible-study-with-jairus-acts-20/

Brother Jairus leads a Bible study group in Chinese every week, and the Holy Spirit often speaks in these meetings. We felt obligated to share some of the enlightenments we received from the Holy Spirit and hope this will benefit more listeners. So welcome to Bible Study with Jairus. This kind of Bible study is not a verse by verse study of scriptures. Rather each study will focus on certain topics or verses highlighted by the Holy Spirit. The structure our Bible Study is to have one brother or sister share their understanding of the chapter and ask some questions about it. Everybody in the small group, or a cell group, takes turn leading the Bible study, and afterwards we allow people to share freely. I will often comment on questions or share what I have received from the Holy Spirit. This is a better way to study the Bible compared to when one particular person leads the discussion. I say this because it forces this person who leads to read the Bible during the week and spend more time in prayer asking for help with understanding. It also helps this person to practice his or her skill to teach the Bible and often helps them to grow spiritually. Of course, it is also vital to have someone with more understanding of the Bible to help new people grow in the knowledge and experience of the Word of God. One of the problems in this fast paced world is that people have no time to read the Bible on a daily basis. Even though it is greatly encouraged that Christians should read the Bible every day, I have found they do not. Many factors prevent Christians from reading the Bible. It is true especially when it comes to some new believers or some Christians who don’t have a strong spiritual discipline. So on a practical level, our way of studying the Bible in a small group setting offers one person a chance once or twice a month to lead a Bible study. This helps them to get deeper into a certain chapter or book of the Bible. At other meetings, he or she will still have chance to listen to other people sharing what they’ve learned about the Bible. This way of studying the Bible really helps them to build up their knowledge about the Word of God. Acts 15 tells us three stories. The first story is that Paul and Barnabas got into a fierce argument with some people about the need to circumcise the Gentiles. Peter and Jacob responded saying that God had chosen the Gentiles. The second story is the sending of Judas and Silas to Antioch to comfort the brothers and sisters of Gentiles. The third story is about Paul and Barnabas getting into a disagreement whether or not they should take Mark to Pamphylia.

There are a lot of details stipulated in the law in Leviticus 19. For example, in verse 19 (NIV), it says, “Keep my decrees. Do not mate different kinds of animals. Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.” How can we understand what this means? Each time we read a portion of scripture, we have a person lead the discussion by sharing some thoughts about the chapter and asking questions that they may have. Then we all engage in discussion. The woman who was leading our Bible study often talks to her atheist friends and they argued with her saying that the accounts in the Old Testament are really behind the times and outdated. They said that hybrid wheat has saved a lot of people’s lives yet the bible says that you cannot cross two different seeds. This was our discussion question. The question raised by the woman who was leading our Bible Study, was that she often talks to her atheist friends and they argued with her saying that: "The accounts in the Old Testament are really behind the times, you see, the hybrid wheat has saved a lot of people’s lives. But the Bible wrote that you cannot cross two different seeds. It’s really outdated." How can we come to an understanding in this situation? Imagine if the Lord Jesus was here today and faced with this question. How would He answer? Another woman asked the question, “should we use genetic modification?” We may not know exactly how the Lord would answer but we do know that when the Pharisees, teachers of the law, elders and chief priests challenged Jesus’ behavior in eating with tax collectors and prostitutes that the same principles can apply. How do we understand this problem? Imagine this. If the Lord Jesus sat here today and we proposed to ask this question to Him, how would He answer? There is also another lady asking, “Should we use genetic modification?” We certainly don't know how the Lord will answer, but what we know is that in the bible, when the Pharisees, the teachers of the law, the elders and the chief priests challenge Jesus behavior in eating with the tax collectors and prostitutes, they may apply the same principles. Based on the principle described in Leviticus 19, let’s take a look. Jesus is a Jew. The Jews should not have dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus is also a man, and a man should not talk with a Samaritan woman, but He had done this. When He did this, not only did his disciples express surprise, but even the Samaritan woman was shocked. She said, “Are you not a Jew? Why did you ask a Samaritan woman for a drink?” This clearly reveals that the Jews didn’t speak with the Samaritans at that time. In addition, the analogy in the parable of the Good Samaritan told by Jesus is also a great breakthrough in the Jewish idea. Perhaps, the person who was attacked by robbers is unclean, and if the Levite and the priest touch Him, they may become unclean, affecting their observance of Sabbath rules and rituals.

Today we will share some understanding from our recent study on Acts 14. Acts chapter 14 talks about the story of Paul healing a man who was lame from birth in Lystra. Paul preached the Gospel in the city of Lystra and then Derbe. He won many converts in Derbe and then returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch (verse 21). In verse 22 it says, “Strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God’. （ESV） There are many different translations of this phrase “strengthening the souls of the disciples”. For example, the NIV translates it as “strengthening the disciples” and the New Living Translation translates it as “they strengthened the believers”. But the English Standard Version, New American Standard Bible and King James Bible all pointed out that they strengthen the “souls of the disciples.” The English Standard version and others translate this phrase as strengthening the “souls” of the disciples. But some of our Bible study group members use the Chinese Union Version which translates it as “strengthening the hearts of the believers”. The woman who led the Bible study this week asked a question “why does the Bible say strengthening the ‘soul’ here rather than the ‘spirit’?” This question has its legitimacy as we can learn from the famous verse in Ephesians 3:16: “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,” (NIV) The “inner being” here often refers to the spiritual man inside of us or our spirit. This seems to be a pattern in Paul’s speaking. He often mentions the Lord will be present or strengthening our spirits. For example, 2 Timothy 4:22, “The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you all.” Galatians 6:18 also says, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers, and sisters. Amen.” (NIV) I am not sure if this question makes sense to you or not but it does make sense to some of our members in this Bible study. Some of them were saved in a church movement where they stressed the importance of exercising our human spirit strongly. This teaching stresses that once we pursue the growth in our inner spiritual life, other problems in our soul will be solved. Gradually this teaching becomes focused on the development of our spiritual man but neglects the issues in our soul. Whenever someone has troubles in their soul, someone in the church may ignore it by just considering this person has not fully reckoned his or her death in Jesus Christ. But this verse says these Apostles strengthened the souls of the disciples which bothered this woman. So, she asked this question. Why does here stress the word “soul” instead of the word “spirit”? Why does the Bible just say “strengthening their spirits”? What are the significances to mention “souls” here? We recognized a pattern in doing the Bible study the way we do. Often a question raised by a member, in the beginning, is the very question that the Holy Spirit wanted to answer us in that meeting. In other words, the Holy Spirit will often cause someone to ask a question. When we try to understand this question more, the Holy Spirit will release the answer gradually in the meeting and speak a Rhema Word of God to guide us, comfort us and strengthen us. I will explain this more in the following part of this study in the hope that you will understand what I am talking about.

Leviticus 18 talks about the 17 situations on the prohibition of fornication that God told Moses about. Have you ever wondered why there are a lot of details listed here? Some people say that God the Father is a man of few words in the New Testament. He didn’t say much but in the Old Testament, He spoke to Moses about the unlawful sexual relations in detail. Isn’t this a bit overboard in detail? For example, check out the following references: do not have sexual relations with your mother, your father's wife, sister, son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter, father’s sister, mother’s sister, aunt, daughter-in-law, brother’s wife, both a woman and her daughter, with many women of different generations; you could not marry the older sister and younger sister at the same time; homosexuality is not allowed; do not approach a woman to have sexual relations during her monthly period, do not have sexual relations with an animal, do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molek. When we counted them, there were about 17 different references. Let me ask you a question. Don’t these verses seem somewhat repetitive, wordy or even unnecessary? We don’t often hear our Father speak in the New Testament. One preacher said that God had barely talked, yet here, God (our Father) and the Israelites (represented by Moses) engaged in a long-winded discussion about the unlawful cases of sexual relations. It’s a bit confusing isn’t it? I realized a few things after reading the Old Testament. If you don’t get anything spiritually beneficial from what you’ve read, then you might not understand what it’s saying. There are a lot of chapters in the Bible that you may think are very simple but often these are the easiest ones for Christians to ignore. What I mean is, you may take the words in their most basic sense but you don’t fully understand the deeper spiritual meaning. When you think about it, this is really the case. You know that the Bible is inspired by the revelation from the Holy Spirit, and John 21:25 NIV said, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them was written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written”. According to this principle, all that is written in the Bible whether the Old Testament or the New Testament can be said to have no-nonsense writing and everything written was on point. The second thing I realized is that if you’re done reading a chapter of the Bible and it did not give you any inspiration for your present life or give you answers to the problems that you are currently facing; it might be that you have’nt understood or fully grasped the spiritual meaning contained in this part of the Bible. Third, if you’re done reading a chapter of the Bible and you have not experienced God's love in a deeper way this is also an indicator that you have missed the deeper and spiritual meaning of this chapter. For example, after reading this chapter, what kind of inspiration will a person get in order to be counted as understanding the deeper meaning? The Bible is inexhaustible. Everywhere you go, the Holy Spirit gives spiritual illumination, so there is not just one conclusion. The key is that the Holy Spirit speaks to you through the Bible and illuminates scripture to you. In addition, the deeper we understand the passage, the more real God’s love will be to us.

https://jairusbibleworld.com/ Acts 27 records Paul’s voyage to Italy. This journey involves a variety of places, and often people don’t understand the details of Paul’s journeys and the spiritual significance behind them. Paul’s four journeys encompassed many different locations and can be confusing to those who haven’t studied it to the point of understanding. When we were reading the Bible this time, we got the illumination of the Holy Spirit; thus, we had a clear understanding of Paul’s fourth journey and had a deeper understanding of the spiritual significance behind it.