This Is For Teachers Teaching The Lombardi Way

 

“Ladies Abd Gentlemen, This is a Bible” — Start with the Fundamentals

There’s a famous moment in American football lore that teaches us something about learning anything well — even Scripture.

In the summer of 1961, legendary NFL coach Vince Lombardi walked into Green Bay Packers training camp with a group of professional athletes — men who had played at the highest level, some of whom were just a play away from a championship. Instead of launching immediately into advanced plays, schemes, or conditioning, he did something surprisingly simple. He held up a football and said:

“Gentlemen, this is a football.”

That’s it.
The coach of one of the most successful teams in NFL history started not with strategy or talent, but with fundamentals.

Lombardi wasn’t patronizing his players — he was reminding them that mastery starts with basics. The Packers went on to win five NFL championships under his leadership, including the first two Super Bowls, and he became a symbol of discipline, clarity, and excellence in leadership and learning.

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Why Start with the Basics?

Most of us bring assumptions into a Bible class. We’ve heard verses quoted, doctrines summarized, songs that sound familiar. But before diving into layered theology — grace, law, covenant, dispensations — we need to be grounded:

This is a Bible.
This is God’s word.

Before we can rightly divide (as Paul commanded in 2 Timothy 2:15), we need shared vocabulary and shared walls of the building we’re about to enter. And it’s okay to start there — even necessary. Without the basics, everything above them is shaky.

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A Simple Starting Framework

If I were to teach a class on Scripture from scratch, here’s how I’d begin:

1. Introduce the Book:
   This is the Bible — God’s Word. Different translations, same core message.

2. Handle With Care:
   2 Timothy 2:15 — teach them what it means to handle the word accurately and carefully. Greek is orthotemeo meansto cut straight or patrician.

3. Permission to Explore:
   Ephesians 3:1–2 — even Paul acknowledges there is unfolding revelation and stewardship, administartion dispensation if you will of God’s mystery given to Paul.

4. Walk Through the Scope:
   Turn to Genesis 1 — creation, God speaks.
   Then flip to Malachi 4 — the last book of the Old Testament.
   Show them how the Bible was collected — not bound by apostles, but recognized over time.

5. Explain the Volume, Not the Wow:
   It's divided into the Old and New Testament — that’s a later title, not something the writers themselves gave. Knowing that saves a lot of confusion.

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Why This Matters

Going into theology before knowing the text is like teaching complex football plays before kids know what a football is. You might get some players moving the right way by accident, but you won’t build a team that understands the game.

What Lombardi did with pro athletes — start with the basics — is something Christian teaching could do more often:

• Start with Scripture itself.

• Teach people how to read.

• Build confidence in the process of discovery.

• Let the Holy Spirit guide real understanding.

Just like a coach showing a football before showing a playbook, we can show Scripture before we show systems.

And that simple posture — “This is a Bible” — can revolutionize how people think about everything that comes after.

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A Few of Lombardi’s Principles That Apply to Bible Study

(Not about winning games — about learning well)

• “Winning is not a sometime thing — it’s an all the time thing.”
  → Consistent reading matters.

• “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.”
  → We won’t understand everything at once, but faithful effort grows insight.

• “If you aren’t fired up with enthusiasm, you’ll be fired with enthusiasm.”
  → Passion for truth grows motivation to dig deeper.

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Closing Thought

Some people look at the Bible and see complexity. Some see tradition. Some see rules.

But what if we all started the way a great coach did —
with the fundamentals, explained plainly, patiently, accurately?

Then maybe Scripture wouldn’t be something to memorize —
it would be something to live.

Conditional Prophecy, Faith, and the Example of Jesus

 In Scripture, we see that God often speaks warnings or promises—prophecies that interact with people's choices. Sometimes, these prophecies are conditional, depending on repentance, obedience, or faith. Other times, they are deterministic, fulfilling God’s ultimate plan no matter what.

Take the story of Jonah and Nineveh: God warned the city of impending judgment. The people had a choice—to repent or to persist in sin. They repented, and God relented. The prophecy was conditional, and their faith and response changed the outcome.

This pattern becomes even more profound in the life of Jesus.

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Jesus’ Example

Hebrews 4:15 tells us that Jesus was tempted in every way we are, yet He did not sin. That means His choice was real—He could have yielded to temptation, but He did not. On the cross, John 17 shows Jesus exercising trust in His Father, knowing the suffering He would endure, and trusting in the resurrection to vindicate Him.

Faith, therefore, is not just a passive gift. Romans 10:17 reminds us that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Jesus is the pattern of active faith: hearing the Word, trusting God, and responding in faith.

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Conditional Prophecy in Action

Here’s the flow:

1. Prophecy / Warning – God gives a warning or promise

2. Hearing / Awareness – people or Jesus perceive the warning

3. Choice / Temptation – A real decision must be made

4. Exercise of Faith – Trusting God’s Word and promises

5. Obedience / Response – Acting according to faith

6. Outcome – Conditional prophecy is fulfilled or withheld; mercy or judgment realized

In Jesus, faith is perfect and active, showing us the example of faith for responding to God’s Word as in John 17, Galatians 2:15 and Philippians 3:9..."the faith of Christ." In people and groups' examples—such as: Nineveh, Hezekiah, or rebellious kings—the outcome depends on how faith is exercised.

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Takeaway

Therefore it seems that prophecy, faith, and obedience are intertwined. God’s warnings are real, but He gives people the responsibility to respond. Jesus shows the perfect response, modeling faith in action. Our role is to hear and trust - faith is the conduit, not a passive gift Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God Not of works, lest any man should boast. What is grace it is the Death, Burial and Resurrection of Jesus Christ(1 Corinthians 15:1-4. What are we save from the 2nd death (Revelation 21:8.)

Be Still My Soul

 

Before 1611: God Didn’t Drop a Bible from the Sky (Part 1)

 For many believers, the story of the English Bible seems to begin in 1611 with the King James Version. It’s familiar, trusted, and for good reason deeply loved. But history tells us something important right up front:

God did not drop an English Bible from the sky.

What we hold today came through a long and costly process—through faithful men, dangerous choices, and a conviction that ordinary people should be able to read the words of God for themselves.

This isn’t a story about tearing down the KJV.
It’s a story about how God preserved His word long before it had royal approval.

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When Scripture Was Locked Away

For centuries, the Bible in Western Europe existed primarily in Latin. That wasn’t a problem for scholars and clergy—but it was a wall for everyone else. Farmers, craftsmen, mothers, children—the very people Scripture was written to instruct—were largely dependent on secondhand explanations.

And that dependence mattered.

Once Scripture is mediated only through authority, it becomes easy for tradition to quietly replace the text. The issue was never that Latin was sinful. The issue was control.

So when men began asking whether the Bible could—and should—be read in the common tongue, it wasn’t seen as a harmless project. It was seen as a threat.

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Translation as an Act of Faith

Translating Scripture wasn’t merely academic work. It was a confession:

• That God’s word is clear enough to be read

• That truth does not require a gatekeeper

• That faith grows best when rooted in the text itself

Those convictions came at a cost.

Long before printing presses filled England, handwritten English Scriptures were copied in secret. Later, when the press made distribution possible, it also made persecution faster and more public.

Some translators were imprisoned.
Some were burned.
Some labored in exile, knowing they might never return home.

Not because they hated the church—but because they loved the Word.

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A Stream, Not a Moment

The King James Version did not appear in isolation. It stands at the end of a stream already flowing—fed by earlier English efforts, continental reformers, and believers who believed Scripture should speak plainly.

English translators were not alone. Across Europe, the same conviction was taking root: God’s word belongs to God’s people.

This matters because it reframes how we think about preservation. God did not preserve His word by freezing it in one moment of history. He preserved it through faithful transmission, careful translation, and an unbroken concern for accuracy and clarity.

The miracle is not that one translation exists.
The miracle is that the Word survived opposition at every step.

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Why This Series Exists

This series is not an exhaustive history. It’s not a defense of one camp or an attack on another. It’s a brief look at the men and moments that shaped the English Bible before 1611—so that when we open our Bibles today, we do so with gratitude instead of assumption.

If God was faithful to preserve His word through persecution, exile, and human weakness, then the real question isn’t which translation we defend—but whether we’re willing to read, study, and believe the Scriptures those men risked everything to give us.

In the next post, we’ll meet one of them—a man whose English still echoes every time we open our Bibles, even if we don’t know his name.

God Is Not the Author of Confusion

 One verse keeps returning to my mind whenever discussions about election, appointment, or salvation order become tangled:

“For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace.”
(1 Corinthians 14:33)

Paul says this in a practical context, but the statement reveals something deeper about God Himself. God does not operate through disorder, contradiction, or hidden chaos. His work—whether in creation, revelation, or salvation—has coherence.

That matters when we read difficult passages.

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Ordinance, Appointment, and Order

Psalm 119:91 says of creation:

“They continue this day according to thine ordinances: for all are thy servants.”

Creation stands because God set it in order. The universe is not random; it is governed. Seasons repeat, cause and effect hold, and life functions within a framework God established.

That same idea helps when reading Acts 13:48:

“As many as were appointed to eternal life believed.”

Some older translations use language closer to ordained or set in order. Newer translations often choose appointed or designated. The word choice can sound heavy to modern ears, but the underlying idea is consistent with Scripture: God works according to order.

This does not mean God forces belief. It means belief occurs within the framework God has established—just as life exists within the framework of creation.

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Salvation Has an Order

Ephesians 2:8 gives us a simple sequence:

• grace

• faith

• salvation

Grace precedes.
Faith responds.
Salvation follows.

That is not confusion. That is order.

If salvation were arbitrary, incoherent, or internally contradictory, Scripture would reflect that. Instead, Scripture repeatedly explains, reasons, persuades, warns, and invites.

Paul can say:

• “Faith comes by hearing”

• “We persuade men”

• “Be reconciled to God”

Those appeals only make sense if God’s way of saving is intelligible.

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Translation and Tone

Sometimes newer translations sound like a parent saying, “We’ll see.”
Not wrong—but vague enough to plant uncertainty.

Older language often leaned toward ordinance and order because those words emphasized stability. Not unpredictability. Not confusion.

The 1611 translators were not inventing theology; they were using the vocabulary of their time to express an orderly God working through an orderly plan.

Later spelling updates didn’t change that foundation.

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Creation as the Illustration

If someone struggles with words like ordained or appointed, creation is a helpful place to start.

God did not micromanage every leaf falling, yet He ordained the system.
God does not force faith, yet He ordained the way salvation works.

Different realm.
Same God.
Same consistency.

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A Final Thought

If God is not the author of confusion, then whatever we believe about salvation must:

• be coherent

• be consistent with the gospel call

• align with the character of God revealed in Scripture

Let Scripture interpret Scripture.
Let order explain order.
And let God remain who He says He is.

Calvinism, Arminianism, and Dispensationalism — A Quick Guide (with my two cents)

 If you’ve ever tried to wrap your head around God’s sovereignty, human choice, and prophecy, you’ve probably stumbled across Calvinism, Arminianism, and Dispensationalism. They each have their strengths… and yes, a few quirks that make you sweat a little.

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1. Calvinism and Hyper-Calvinism

In a nutshell: God is in ultimate control. Like, everything.

Core Beliefs:

• God chooses who will be saved — predestination is a big deal here.

• Jesus’ death saves the elect — not everyone automatically.

• Once saved, you’re saved. No take-backs.

• God orchestrates events, but humans still have “secondary responsibility” (whatever that means in practice).

Pros:

• Super comforting if you like knowing God’s plan cannot fail.

• Your salvation is secure — no worries about a “slip-up” derailing the plan.

• Explains why God’s plans always succeed, despite our screw-ups.

Cons / Things to sweat over:

• Can feel like you’re watching a cosmic puppet show — are humans really free?

• Hard to reconcile some Bible verses about choice and responsibility.

Hyper-Calvinism (for context):

• Pushes Calvinism to the extreme.

• Suggests God actively controls every action, leaving almost no room for choice.

• Feels a bit like being a pawn in a cosmic chess game — not my cup of tea.

• My questions: how do you know that you are one of the elect? What if you're not and you just think you are sense it's not your choice? That could be sweating time.

• Did God made me do bad and blame me for it?

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2. Arminianism

In a nutshell: Your choices actually matter. Yep — sweat a little here. 😅

Core Beliefs:

• God offers grace to everyone — you get to say yes or no.

• Salvation can be lost if you turn your back or persist in sin (conditional security).

• God foreknows what you’ll choose, but He doesn’t predetermine it.

Pros:

• Makes human choice and responsibility real.

• Faith and obedience actually count.

• Feels very personal — God sees your yes or no.

Cons / Things to sweat over:

• Can create anxiety: “Wait, what if I mess this up?”

• Might underplay God’s ultimate control of history.

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3. Dispensationalism

In a nutshell: God runs different “programs” for humanity at different times. Think of it like divine seasons or phases.

Core Beliefs:

• Scripture must be rightly divided — promises apply differently depending on the dispensation.

• Church Age is separate from Israel’s covenantal promises.

• Humans are responsible for their choices; God foreknows, but doesn’t force.

• Prophecy often focuses on Israel, not necessarily the Church.

Pros:

• Provides a framework for understanding God’s plan across history.

• Makes sense of who warnings and promises apply to.

• Keeps human responsibility real while honoring God’s omniscience.

Cons / Things to sweat over:

• Can get technical — you might feel like you need a theology degree.

• Easy to over-divide Scripture if you’re not careful.

System	God’s Sovereignty	Human Free Will	Security of Salvation	Focus
Calvinism	Very high	Limited	Eternal for the elect	God’s ultimate control
Arminianism	Moderate	High — you decide	Conditional — can be lost	Human responsibility
Dispensationalism	High — sees choices	High	Varied — age-dependent

Bottom Line

• Calvinism: God’s control is everything — sit back and relax (mostly).

• Arminianism: Your choice matters — so maybe sweat a little.

• Dispensationalism: God runs different programs; your choices still matter, but prophecy and Israel add layers of complexity.

All three attempt to wrestle with foreknowledge, human choice, and prophecy. No one system solves every tension, but understanding the differences helps you navigate Scripture thoughtfully — and maybe enjoy the mental workout. 💪

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If you like, I can also make a super-short “quick-read” version with punchy bullet points and examples — perfect for social media or sidebar posts — keeping your personality in it.

Dead Men Who Are Still With Us Today Episode 2

 

If Dewey trained culture to live without fixed truth, Michel Foucault trained it to distrust the very idea that truth ever existed.

With Foucault, the progression reaches its logical conclusion. Truth is no longer something to be discovered, reinterpreted, or applied — it is something to be suspected. Claims of truth are not evaluated for accuracy, but interrogated for motive.

Knowledge as Power

Foucault argued that what societies call “truth” is inseparable from power. Knowledge does not stand above institutions, language, or culture — it is produced by them. Every claim to truth serves someone’s interests.

In this framework, truth does not liberate. It controls.

The task, then, is not to believe, but to unmask. Not to understand, but to deconstruct. Suspicion becomes a virtue, and certainty becomes a threat.

Language Dissolves Meaning

Foucault placed enormous weight on language. Words do not convey stable meaning; they shape and constrain thought. To control language is to control reality.

Once this assumption takes hold, communication itself becomes adversarial. Statements are no longer heard — they are analyzed. Intent matters more than content. Authority is always guilty until proven innocent.

Why Foucault Still Rules

Foucault rules from the grave whenever disagreement is framed as harm, conviction as violence, and clarity as domination. He rules wherever institutions are assumed corrupt by definition and moral claims are treated as masks for power.

You don’t have to read Foucault to think this way. His influence lives in cultural instincts — in the reflex to critique rather than understand.

Scripture Under Suspicion

The Bible cannot survive in a Foucauldian framework as Scripture. Its claims to truth and authority immediately place it under suspicion. It is no longer read to be understood, but examined to be exposed.

When Scripture speaks clearly, it is accused of oppression. When it refuses revision, it is labeled dangerous. The problem is not the text — but the framework brought to it.

The End of the Drift

At this point in the progression, nothing remains solid. Truth is power. Meaning is unstable. Authority is suspect. What began as reinterpretation ends in dissolution.

And yet, this was not planned.

These men did not work together. They lived in different times, different cultures, and addressed different questions. Still, their ideas form a coherent drift — not because of coordination, but because they shared a direction.

When revelation is set aside, something else must take its place. And what replaces it will inevitably reflect human authority, not divine truth.

A Final Word

This series has not been about demonizing thinkers or denying complexity. It has been about recognizing frameworks.

It’s done.