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Show Notes by Jim Kerwin for Kernels of Wheat Podcast
Episode 022 — We Lend a Hand with LendAHand in Costa Rica, Including an Interview with Bobby Hoyle

Pastors and LendAHand team members gathered at the Monte Getsemaní retreat center in Costa Rica.  The three people at the extreme right of the group are (left to right) Kathryn Hoyle, Bobby Hoyle, and Pastor Jorge Fernández.

Late on Friday, August 3, I returned from another teaching trip, this time to Costa Rica. In this podcast, I share for about fifteen minutes on my small part in teaching a group of pastors associated with Iglesia Centro Misionero in Los Guido, San José, Costa Rica. I cover some of the highlights of the trip, but I encourage you to read these three related blog posts also:

• Tale of the Tangled Translator
• A Letter Home from Costa Rica
• Bye-bye, Bible!

What you may find even more interesting is this episode’s interview with [continue reading…]

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Show Notes by Jim Kerwin for Kernels of Wheat Podcast
Episode 021 — Does God Hate Socks?

No, God doesn’t hate socks,
but He has been blessing our socks off lately!

Because it’s been so long since our last podcast in our continuing study through 1 John, I thought it would be appropriate to give our listeners a rundown (all-too-brief and incomplete) of my missions trip to Guatemala and my ministry trip to Iowa.  I’ve been busy — flying 3,800 miles round trip to Guatemala, driving 4,000 miles (Florida and Iowa) — and this week’s trip to Costa Rica (another 4,300 miles) hasn’t even begun (although all the teaching materials are ready and delivered).

The last few months have become a kaleidoscope of memories:

• working hard at [continue reading…]

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Show Notes by Jim Kerwin for Kernels of Wheat Podcast
Episode 020 – Do You Have Indoor Plumbing?

Is this your experience of the Christian life, or do you have indoor plumbing?

Review of last week’s episode, What We Don’t Know About the ‘Anointing,‘ the second installment in our study of 1 John 2:18-29.

Abiding

• What is the significance of what we learned about ‘the anointing’ last week?

• Do you have indoor plumbing?
• Most Christians don’t have indoor plumbing, and find it hard to believe or even conceive that other people do!

• What does “living” mean?
• The water becomes a “well springing up to eternal life” (v. 14)
• An insignificant fact?

• Left her waterpot (v. 28) — why is this small fact important?
• (Side note: Another example of [continue reading…]

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Show Notes by Jim Kerwin for Kernels of Wheat Podcast
Episode 019 – What We Don’t Know about “The Anointing”

Part of a 'Strong's Concordance' entry on the word 'anointed'

Review of last week’s episode, An Unhappy Heresy, the first installment in our study of 1 John 2:18-29.

Study on the words anoint and anointing

• No one in the New Testament ever prayed for “the anointing,” so why are so many Christians praying this way?

• If orthodoxy is right belief, what the early Christians taught and believed, then..
• Orthopraxy is right practice, that is, how the early Christians lived out what they believed.
• In all the prayers we read in the Book of Acts, in Paul’s epistles, etc.—in other words, in any passage that would give us insight into New Testament orthopraxy—nobody ever “prayed for the anointing.” What was it that New Testament Christians understood that we don’t? [continue reading…]

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Show Notes by Jim Kerwin for Kernels of Wheat Podcast
Episode 018 – An Unhappy Heresy

Review of Last Week — Loving the World = Spiritual Adultery

If only all the heretics were this easy to spot!

Historical setting of 1 John and 1 John 2:18-29

• Response to heresy? What is heresy?

• A belief or teaching that denies an accepted fundamental truth of the Christian faith, usually falling into certain categories:

• Beliefs about God, e.g.,

• The Holy Spirit is not a person, but an “it” or an “influence”;
• The Persons of the Godhead are not co-equal and co-eternal;
• There are many gods;
• Human beings can become god.

• When you open your door to cultists, [continue reading…]

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Show Notes by Jim Kerwin for Kernels of Wheat Podcast
Episode 017 – Why the Impossible Is Impossible

Not a “sign from God” (but just as obvious)

Review of Last Week’s “Worldly” Word Study

The Command in 1 John 2:15-17 and the Reason for It:

• Don’t love the world-order or its things
• If you love the world-order and its things, the love of God isn’t in you.

“All that is in the world-order” – what’s included in “all”?

• The word for lust – Greek = epithumeia (noun) and epithumeo(verb)
  • Doesn’t always mean “sexual lust”
  • The basic meaning is [continue reading…]

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Jim Kerwin’s Show Notes for Kernels of Wheat Podcast
Episode 016 – If ‘God So Loved the World,’ Why Am I Not Allowed To?

"Come again?"

Review and Tie-Up of Last Week: 1 John 2:12-14

A “Worldly” Word Study—A First Look at 1 John 2:15-17

Different Uses of the Word World in the New Testament

• κοσμέω (kos MEH oh, kosmeo –> cosmetics)

• Pre-New Testament Greek:

• setting troops in order
• women “putting themselves in order”— clothing, make-up, etc.; adorn
• regulating

• Put in order

• (in the sense of trim): Matthew 25:7—Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps.
• Matthew 12:44—Then [the unclean spirit]  [continue reading…]

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Episode 015 – Walking into Maturity

Walking into Maturity

Review and Tie-Up of Last Week: 1 John 2:8-11

Three Levels of Maturity: 1 John 2:12-14

• Little children (vv. 12,13)

• “Because your sins are forgiven you for His name’s sake”
• “Because you have known the Father”

• “Because you have known Him Who is from the beginning” (twice)

• “Because you have overcome the [continue reading…]

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Episode 014 – A New Gift from Jesus

Reminder:

A New Gift from Jesus

1. Read through the First Epistle of John once a week
2. Remember to substitute the phrase “the Anointed One” for Christ or Messiah for the next few weeks, to get in practice.

This Week’s Passage: 1 John 2:6-11–The New Commandment, the New Gift

• A Christian is someone who abides in Christ, and, thus, ought to walk in the same manner as He walked.  Your walk looks more and more like the walk and life and person of Jesus.
• What is the New Commandment?

• “Love one another as I have loved you.”
• First mentioned in John 13:30-35 (specifically v. 34)
• “I give to you”—anything given is a GIFT. [continue reading…]

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Show Notes by Jim Kerwin for Kernels of Wheat Podcast
Episode 013—The Love Meter

Review

How do you rate on God's Love Meter?

• God’s desire: “That you also may have fellowship with us” (1 John 1:3) — intimate communion with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
• The reason the Holy Spirit comes within — to draw us into that fellowship and to make us godly, Christlike
• Abiding in that fellowship is the foundation of freedom from sin and sinning
• “I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.” (1 John 2:1)

1 John 2:1-2

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Episode 012—Are You Fulfilling Bible Prophecy?

Are you helping to fulfill Bible prophecy by not reading the Scriptures regularly?

Prophecies You Don’t Want to Fulfill!

• Some Christians will fall away from the faith, drawn away by deceitful spirits, teaching of demons, and conscience-less liars — 1 Timothy 4:1-3
• The time will come [has come!] when some Christians won’t endure sound teaching, will want their “ears tickled,” and will turn their ears away from the truth — 2 Timothy 3:13–4:8.
• False Christs and false prophets will be bent on deceiving God’s people — Mark 13:21-23.
• The most sobering prophecy — the day when Jesus says to many of those who thought they were serving Him, “I never knew you; depart from Me.” — Matthew 7:21-23

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Episode 011 – The Original Aromas of Christmas

There's a reason why nobody talks about the 'aromas' of the first Christmas!

The Aromas of Modern Christmas — Modern Luxuries

In North American culture, we associate various aromas and fragrances with Christmas — pine boughs, “chestnuts roasting on an open fire,” pumpkin pie, roasted turkey, baked ham, yams, apple pie, hot chocolate, and egg nog.

The Original “Aromas” of Christmas–Dung and Urine

Luke 2:1-20–The story of the shepherds, the angels, and the stable

• Confusing a stable with a manger. (French: mange = eat; thus, a manger = a feeding trough)
• Children sing about the [continue reading…]

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Episode 010 – That Uncomfortable Word – Part 2

Reviewing the Article So Far

Most of the “notes” for this week can be found in the online article entitled That Uncomfortable Word–Conviction!

• What is sin?  Sin is anomia–lawlessness, to be outside of God’s revealed Law (1 John 3:4).
• The Questions We Seek to Answer:

• What is conviction?
• How does God accomplish [continue reading…]