Peter's sermon at Pentecost ends with three thousand souls added to the church (Acts 2:41) — but Luke's own summary says Peter "with many other words did testify and exhort" before that happened (Acts 2:40), and this study takes that overlooked verse as its starting point, asking what the rest of those words most likely were. Twelve chapters trace Acts 2:38-41 verse by verse — the call to repent and be baptized, the promise reaching "to your children, and to all that are afar off" — then widen out to the other recorded words of Christ these three thousand almost certainly already knew (the Great Commission, the Upper Room Discourse, the keys of the kingdom) and to what changed at Pentecost itself: the Grace Administration it opened, traced from Genesis through the ascension. Closes by asking where a reader today actually stands relative to Acts 2:39's promise, and names honestly, rather than glossing over, the handful of questions the study leaves open. A thorough, scripture-first study of what it actually meant, and still means, to "save yourselves from this untoward generation."
God: Deliverer, Not Destroyer Takes on the hardest passages in scripture — the ones skeptics and believers alike struggle with, where God appears to destroy, judge, or command violence — and examines them carefully against His own revealed character and stated purpose. Rather than explaining these texts away, the study works through them directly, in their own context, asking how they fit with scripture's consistent testimony that God's desire is to deliver, not to destroy. Written for believers whose faith has been challenged by these passages.
One God, One Mediator: A careful, scripture-first examination of the nature of God and the identity of Jesus Christ, anchored in 1 Timothy 2:5: "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." Works directly through the texts most often cited on every side of this question to let scripture itself define the relationship between the Father and the Son, rather than importing a later creedal framework. Written for believers who want a clear, honest, and thoroughly biblical answer to one of the most debated questions in Christian history — who is the one true God, and who is Jesus Christ in relation to Him?
The Seven Administrations of Scripture A narrative study identifying and defining the seven administrations, or dispensations, of biblical history — Paradise (Eden), the Patriarchal age, the Mosaic Law, Christ's earthly ministry, the present Grace Administration, the coming Day of Wrath, and the Day of Judgment and Millennial Kingdom — each marked in scripture by its own audible declaration and governing basis. Traces how God has dealt with mankind differently across each age and resolves open questions such as whether the "Administration of the Mystery" is a separate era or the fuller unfolding of Grace. A clear big-picture framework for understanding how the whole Bible fits together from Genesis to Revelation.
Thirteen of the New Testament's books carry Paul's name, and no other apostle's own story fills as much of the book of Acts. Yet by every human measure, Saul of Tarsus was the last man who should have been called to be an apostle — not a bystander to the church's earliest persecution, but its chief agent. Then came Damascus, and by his own account the reversal was immediate, coming, in his own words, without his once conferring "with flesh and blood." This study asks and answers, from the text itself, who Paul actually was before his conversion, what happened when he was called and how that calling is recorded and corroborated, how his commission to the Gentiles related to Peter's and James's to the circumcision, and how he says he received the gospel he preached — a claim this study finds without an exact parallel among the New Testament's other writers. It follows him through the book of Acts, across his thirteen letters both by the order he likely wrote them and the order the church has preserved them, and into what the seven letters written to churches actually divide into and why — before settling the hardest and most disputed question of all: was his journey to Jerusalem an act of disobedience, or the fulfillment of everything he had already been called to do?
Paul told the Ephesian elders plainly that he was "purposed in the spirit" to go to Jerusalem, even though he already knew bonds and afflictions awaited him there (Acts 20:22-23). When he arrived at Tyre, disciples there, "by the Spirit," told him not to go (Acts 21:4) — and within days he was arrested, beginning an ordeal that would keep him a prisoner for years. Was Paul disobeying a direct word from God, or fulfilling a commission named at his very calling? This study works the question directly: from Paul's original commission (Acts 9:15-16) and Luke's own vocabulary of divine necessity, through the hardest verse for either side (Acts 21:4, read against Luke's own fuller account of what was actually revealed versus what alarmed companions concluded), to the Lord's own confirmation to Paul after his arrest (Acts 23:11) and what that imprisonment went on to produce — some of the fullest revelation Paul ever wrote. A considered, carefully argued answer to one of the most debated questions in Paul's life, weighed honestly against the case for the other side. This study also appears, in full, as Chapter 4 of the larger study Who Is Paul? An Apostle's Most Unusual Calling.
Tests the Gap Theory — the idea that an undated ruin-and-reconstruction gap separates Genesis 1:1 from 1:2 — directly against scripture, arguing it has no place to sit: the fall requires a prior creation as its very destination, and creation's own purpose was never repair work improvised after an unplanned catastrophe, but the stage foreordained for man, a Redeemer, and the demonstration of love. Having settled that question, the study turns to the verse's own vocabulary, examining Genesis 1:2 word by word and letter by letter — down to its Hebrew grammar, its paleo-Hebrew pictographs, and its gematria — to let the text speak for itself.
Grace Administration Primer: A foundational study written for the new believer, walking step by step through what the Grace Administration provides in Christ: salvation and the promise of a Messiah traced from Genesis 3:15 forward, the six Sonship Rights every believer receives (Righteousness, Sanctification, Redemption, Justification, Reconciliation, and Adoption), the believer's Hope and the armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-17), our God-given titles and attributes in Christ, and practical instruction on temptation, sin, and prayer. A full section explains the gift of holy spirit — the distinction between the Holy Spirit as Giver and holy spirit as gift — along with the purpose and benefits of speaking in tongues. Scripture-saturated and easy to follow, ideal both for personal grounding in the basics of the faith and for sharing with someone newly born again.
Overcoming Temptation and Sin Traces the biblical pattern of temptation and sin from its first appearance in Eden, through the Law's diagnosis of sin, to the believer's victory over it in the Grace Administration. Examines how temptation works, what scripture says about the sin nature versus the new birth, and the specific provision believers have in Christ to overcome sin day to day — not through willpower alone, but through the resources of the new birth. Practical and pastoral, written to equip the believer for real, everyday victory.
Outreach in the Grace Administration: A practical, scripture-grounded study on how the gospel was carried to people — first by Christ during His own earthly ministry, then by the early church under the Grace Administration — and what that pattern means for personal witnessing, home fellowships, and door-to-door outreach today. Draws on Christ's own method (Matthew 10, Luke 10, John 4, the sower) and the church's pattern in Acts, comparing what changes and what stays constant between the two administrations. Offers a structured approach for short encounters, guidance on handling common objections, and worked-through responses to three frequent scenarios — "I'm Jewish," "I already believe in God," and "the Bible has too many contradictions" — each brought back to the one question that matters most: do you want everlasting life?
This study asks a question raised directly by Acts 1 and 2's own wording: when the New Testament says someone was "baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus," is that reporting a water rite, or naming the new birth itself? Working straight through Acts — Pentecost, Samaria, Cornelius's household, Saul of Tarsus, Ephesus, and the plainly literal baptisms of the Ethiopian eunuch, Lydia, and the Philippian jailer — it traces "baptized with the Holy Ghost" as a phrase used six times for one unrepeated event, and "baptized in the name of Jesus Christ" as the idiom Acts 2:38 introduces for that same new birth, run consistently every time it appears afterward. The study doesn't explain away water baptism where the text plainly means it; it identifies where the text means something else, and shows its work at every step.
