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Dr. E.C. Bragg Digital MP3 and Print Library
E.C. Bragg Digital Library
The E.C. Bragg Library at Trinity College of Florida consists of an online digital collection of the lectures, notes, and writings of Dr. E.C. Bragg and a collection of approximately 1,200 rare volumes of books on systematic theology and biblical studies.
The online library allows users access to re-mastered audio lectures on a variety of theological topics and copies of Dr. Bragg’s notes and writings. The collection of classic reference works was donated by the family of Dr. Bragg upon his death in 1995. The books were published prior to 1900 and are housed on campus in The Raymond H. Center Library. They are available for students and scholars to review during normal library hours.
Dr. Bragg was president and salutatorian of the first graduating class of the Florida Bible Institute (Trinity College) in 1934. After graduation, he pastored churches for eight years and returned to Trinity College in 1942 where he taught full-time until 1990. He earned an MA from Trinity and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity from the College in 1948. In 1995 Dr. Bragg went to be with the Lord, whom he loved deeply and served faithfully.
E.C. Bragg Biography
Ervene C. Bragg, born in Jacksonville, Florida on July 6, 1912, was raised in, what was then, a rural area of Miami. He grew up under the influence of Christian parents and the Christian Missionary Alliance Church. He was led to the Lord at the age of six by a godly Sunday school teacher of whom he spoke fondly all his life. At the age of 12, in an old-fashioned tent revival, Ervene felt the call of God upon his life for full-time Christian service in the ministry. From that time forward, his life was dedicated to following, like Caleb, His Lord wholeheartedly without wavering.
In 1932 Ervene was led by the Lord to a small Bible college in Temple Terrace, Florida. The new school was known as the Florida Fundamental Bible Institute, its first year in existence. Ervene graduated in 1934 as the first president of the graduating class of the college that would later, through several transitions, become known as Trinity College of Florida. While there he served as a part-time pastor in several churches one of which was a mission church in Largo, known as the Gospel Tabernacle of Largo, under W. T. Watson, the founder of Trinity. At that mission church, he met and later married the pianist, Pauline Bragg. They had four children, Kenneth, Mary, Donald, and Peggy.
Ervene was ordained under the Christian & Missionary Alliance in 1934 and began his first full-time pastorate at the Daytona Beach Alliance Church. For about ten years, Ervene pastored churches in Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia. In 1943 the Lord led Ervene back to Trinity College, which, at that time, was located in St. Petersburg, where he began his lifelong ministry of teaching Bible college students. During that time, he also began to learn watch and clock repair. Like Paul, Ervene was a tentmaker, supporting his family by opening and running a jewelry store while continuing his ministry of teaching at Trinity. He also furthered his education by acquiring a B.A. and an M.A. Trinity later granted him an honorary Doctor of Divinity.
Dr. Bragg taught at Trinity for 55 plus years, being the only professor to have actually been on all five campuses of the school. He is also said to have been the longest-standing professor of theology anywhere in the United States. He taught subjects ranging from Systematic Theology, Pauline Theology, Prophecy, Christian Apologetics, History of Missions, Christian Psychology, Hermeneutics, the Harmony of the Gospels, and Comparative Religions. Dr. Bragg spent hours in the Word of God, was a constant learner from the Lord, and studied his entire life for the ministry to which the Lord had called him. Dr. Bragg served as Vice-President of Trinity College for a number of years and served on the Board of Trustees from 1949 until his death.
Dr. Bragg touched the lives of hundreds of students during his tenure as a professor at Trinity College. Thousands of them are now in full-time ministry around the world using the knowledge that God gave them through his teaching. He estimated that he taught around 23,000 students during his many years as a professor. Through an endowed scholarship in his name, he continues to impact students at Trinity. He also published articles in well-known Christian magazines, served as interim pastor in churches in the greater Tampa Bay area, taught Bible classes to adults in the evening hours, preached at evangelistic services and youth rallies, spoke on the radio, and preached many different times around the United States in Bible conferences. The Lord greatly used Dr. Bragg for His service for he never wavered from His call to full-time Christian ministry. The Lord can do great things through a surrendered life like that of Dr. Ervene C. Bragg.
Written by Peggy A. Bragg
Pauline Theology (Book) PDF
In 1974 Dr. Bragg completed his book entitled, Pauline Theology. This work was intended to assist students in their understanding on the writings and doctrinal teachings of the Apostle Paul. The Bragg family has graciously allowed this work to reside in the public domain, remaining accessible to biblical scholars and students.
PREFACE
There are two primary purposes in offering to the church of our Lord Jesus Christ another book on Pauline Theology.
First, there is a real need of a new emphasis on Paul’s particular teachings on the subject of Christian victory: the fact that a believer may and should be filled with the Holy Spirit; that, in fact, God commands it; and that a believer will be judged by Christ for the defeat in his Christian life if he does not go on in his experience to spiritual manhood, “to grow up into Christ in all things” (Ephesians 4:15). Paul is the great revelator of the believer’s riches in Christ.
Second, there is a further need for a criterion, a touchstone, to determine just what church truth is. The church has always had, and now has much more, conflicting and contradictory teachings advanced, with scriptural proofs, heralded as church doctrine. Is there a real criterion? Paul says emphatically, “Yes.” It is his own epistles, given unto him by “revelation of Jesus Christ.” He pronounces an anathema upon any deviation from that by angels, men, or even himself. This he does on the authority that “a dispensation was committed to him” and that he was “the apostle to the Gentiles,” and that “he was put in trust with the gospel.” Throughout this volume, we shall enlarge upon this theme: “Go to Paul’s epistles to get your church doctrine.”
We trust this volume will be found beneficial as a textbook on Pauline Theology. It is perforce only an outline study, allowing much room for classroom enlargement. We dedicate it to the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, and commit it to the Holy Spirit’s trust.
Dr. Ervene C. Bragg
Trinity College
February 27, 1974
Angelology - Study Guide and Audio Lectures
In the study of the Doctrine of Angels, we shall divide the subjects into three divisions, namely; Good Angels, Fallen Angels, and Demons.
In this Introduction to the study, it might be well to inquire into the NATURE of angels in general. There is popular disbelief in the very existence of Angels, including Satan himself. It is counted as very modern to deny their reality of anything above or beyond the realm of human experience. But here as in every other realm of Revelation, the question revolves around a belief in the Bible as the infallible Revelation of God, for the Bible is emphatic in its revelation of a supernatural order of beings in vast number, some righteous doing the bidding of the Father, and others evil and malignant.
Under the heading of Fallen Angels, we shall consider both Satan and his angels, as they are united in their rebellion against God. Satan himself is an angel. Probably the highest created being, higher than Michael. the archangel (Jude 9), yet an immeasurable gulf exists between the uncreated self-existing members of the Godhead, and this the chief creation. Cf. Bancroft’s introductions, on man’s denial of Satan’s existence. We will not go into the various arguments denying the existence of Satan, nor the so-called explanations, which are not explanations but denials of personality to Satan. The same explanation denies every fundamental of the Faith. The Temptation in the wilderness of the Lord Jesus Christ shows the reality of the Devil. Christ fought a real person, not an abstraction, evil thought, or a negation. The fact of Satan’s existence is of all evil and opposition to God.
Under the Heading of Demons, the Scriptures give abundant proof of the existence of a vast order of spirit beings who are under the control of Satan and do his bidding. Their number may be seen from the fact that a legion indwelt one man or two men of Gadare. The fact of their existence is seen from the personal contact that Jesus had with them in casting them out of possessed persons. He dealt with them as with personally responsible creatures who could understand His commands, could obey them, possessing knowledge saying to Jesus, “We know thee who Thou are” (Luke 4:39). They worshipped Christ (Mark 5:6). They can believe (James 2:19) anticipation to judgment, or have foreknowledge of impending doom (Matthew 8:29).
We dedicate these tapes to the Glory of our Great God and Savior Jesus Christ. May God bless you in the study and reveal more of His Word to you.
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Anthropology - Study Guide and Audio Lectures
The Doctrine of Anthropology is the doctrine of man-his origin, his destiny, and his redemption. It is interested in the scriptural presentation of man’s divine origin, his composition, his spiritual state, and his redemption. It seeks the answer from the scriptures as to the question of man’s beginning, the why of his condition now, and the where of his going.
We dedicate these tapes to the Glory of our Great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. May God bless you in the study and reveal more of His Word to you.
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Bibliology - Study Guide and Audio Lectures
Bibliology
We shall not concern ourselves in this course with the distinctions usually made between various kinds of theology; nor the history of the usage of the term theology. Any comprehensive work on the subject of systematic theology will furnish this data for ready reference without burdening the mind with much that is just as readily forgotten. We might merely name some of the intricate distinctions usually made just to illustrate:
There is that of natural and revealed, sometimes called natural and supernatural. There is the distinction between True and False Theology; Theoretical and Practical; Dogmatic and Moral; Thetic and Antithetic; Didactic and Polemic; Critical and Electric; Subjective and Objective; Scholastic and Positive. This is enough for our purpose.
The study of Christian Doctrine is the foundation of all Bible study. It forms a firm bedrock for all other Bible studies or subjects. It should straighten our loose thinking, strengthen our faith, increase our love of the Word of God, and formulate into one coherent system all of our beliefs so that the Word of God will reveal itself as One Grand Harmony.
Many have derided the study of Doctrine as unnecessary and particularly deadening to religious life; when in. truth the very opposite is true. A tree is known by its fruit. A good tree like the systematic study of the Word of God must only bring forth good fruit. Any constant handling of the Word of God; any deep study in the Word of life must of necessity strengthen, and nourish that new life of God in the soul. Peter says that it is “the sincere milk of the Word? that causes the growth in our spiritual life. By way of illustration, one may note within any given congregation, the ratio of real meaty Bible exposition is the index of spirituality in the hearers. I have heard several times the boast by a preacher, “I do not have any doctrine in my sermons.” How any man can preach the Word of God and not include doctrine is a mystery. If by doctrine he means great theological definitions and vagaries 1 could give a hearty Amen, but we shall see by our definition of what we sincerely believe true Systematic Theology to include, a man cannot preach the Word of God and not include doctrine.
Most opposition to the study of Doctrine may be traced to a desire to get away from the restrictions it would place upon unbridled thinking and license of speculation. As far as doctrine formulating a creed, every man must have a creed. It may be negative or positive. It may be a creed denying the possession of a creed but nevertheless, it is a creed.
If it is the soul’s belief, whether positive or negative, then it is the man’s creed. It is the regulator of his life. Someone has aptly said, “A creed is like a backbone, a man doesn’t need to wear his backbone in front of him, but he must have one, and that a correct one.” It holds the figure erect and gives shape to the body. Such is the underlying purpose of the study of Doctrine.
We dedicate these tapes to the Glory of our Great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. May God bless you in the study and reveal more of His word to you.
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Christology - Study Guide and Audio Lectures
Christology
Christology is the study of the Doctrine of Jesus Christ. This is the most important Doctrine of the Word of God, which follows from the fact that Jesus Christ is the Center and Executor of God’s plan of redemption from sin. He is the only Mediator between God and man. (I Tirn.2:5). Everything that God has ever done for man is doing, or will ever do for man is through Jesus Christ, by Jesus Christ, and for Jesus Christ. Paul gives the sweeping assertion of Christ being the Sum. Total of our redemption and Focal of all of God’s dealings with us in Col. 1:13-19. One cannot read this portion without receiving a new impression of the matchless worth of God’s dear Son. It places Him far above the puny position which so much of modern theology places Him, and sets Him forever apart and infinitely higher than the so-called religious leaders of the world. He is not another religious leader, He is not another way-shower, (as Eddyism would say), but THE WAY. He is not another expounder of truth, but THE TRUTH HIMSELF. He, Himself, gives meaning to the worship of God the Father by the statement, “No man cometh unto the Father but by ME.” (Jn. 14:6). He emphasizes the error and futility of all the other man-made approaches to God by manmade religions in trying to sneak up some other way as “Liars and Thiefs;” (Jo. 10:1-9).
Therefore, all of the teachings of Scriptures which center around Jesus Christ from the most important part of Christian Doctrine. A man may be orthodox to Scriptural accuracy on other doctrines; but if he is amiss on Christology, and the kindred Doctrines of Salvation, he might just as well be wrong on all of them, for he is a lost man and incapable of Spiritual discernment of any of the teachings of Scripture. (I Cor. 2:14).
Theologians usually divide Christology into two natural divisions: First, the Person of Christ; Second, the Work of Christ, but we wish to reserve the Work of Christ for separate consideration under another Doctrine; namely, Soteriology or the Doctrine of Salvation. We shall only consider the Work of Christ here as it throws light upon His glorious Person. Dr. Foster well says, “Christ could have been what He was with-out doing what He did, but He could not ]have done what He did without being what He was.” He was God before His manifestation in human flesh, and what He was led Him to what He did to save lost men.
As we shall view the Deity of Jesus Christ, we shall see that all we are able to understand of Theology concerning the Nature and Attributes of God are true concerning Christ. As the Second Person of the August Holy Trinity, He shares the one Nature of the One Godhead in all its fullness. In fact, all that we can really grasp of God the Father is what is revealed in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. ” He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,” Jn. 14:9. Is it to be wondered at that the Modernist in his blindness toward Jesus Christ, in robbing Him of His Deity, misses also a just conception of God the Father? It is a good exercise for your soul to keep in mind all the wonderful revelations of Scriptures concerning the infinite attributes of God while studying Christology. The Christ we worship is Almighty God.
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Cosmology - Study Guide and Audio Lectures
Cosmology
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF COSMOLOGY is the study of the world primarily as the sphere of redemption. The word Cosmology comes from the two Greek words, “Kosmos” meaning world or world order, and “Logos” meaning speech or reason. Hence the treatise or reasoned discourse on the world especially concerning creation and preservation.
The various meanings of the word world in the Bible denote a varied sum of things. Cremer in his lexicon says in the general sense it denotes the “ordered sum total of what God has created.” Thus, “the heavens and the earth” of the Old Testament. For in the Old Testament there is no word denoting the sum total of creation. In a narrower sense of the word, the word world is used to denote the sphere of human activity, a human system world order of things, as lying in the wicked one, belonging to the sphere of Satan’s usurped authority. As John said, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world” meaning not the trees, flowers, nor geography of the earth, but the worldly system opposed to God. Again the word is used as a translation of the word “aeon” or age. As the world of time, the progression of the world as a movement is aging. This study shall be primarily concerned with the Universe as a whole and this earthly sphere in redemption, and an outline of the sum total of creation.
The Christian viewpoint of Cosmology or the study of creation is in the light of God’s plan of creation. The scriptures affirm that this earth is the center or focal point of all creation as far as the universe is concerned and man is the center of this earthly interest. The earth was made for him and in a real sense, the heavenly bodies were made for him. Gen. 1:14-18. The sun was to give light and life to the earth and man, to divide night from days for signs and for seasons. Yes, and with the renovation of the earth with fire, the heavenly bodies shall also perish with this present order. II Pet. 3:10. But greater than this, the paramount importance `of earth, is the advent of God’s Son upon it to accomplish redemption here. The Scriptures and for Him. Col. 1:16. It was made to be the theatre of God’s crowning work of recreation. Upon no other planet or within no other universe would God die upon a cross to save sinners. This earth and its redemption, with God’s Son dying upon a cross, certainly constitutes the central theme of God’s creative power and wisdom. Herein lies our interest in Cosmology.
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Ecclesiology - Study Guide and Audio Lectures
Ecclesiology
The Doctrine of Ecclesiology is the Doctrine of the Church. It is the study of the origin, nature, constitution, ordinances, and activities. We shall confine our consideration to four topics. The origin of the church, the organism of the church, the organization of the church, and the ordinances of the church. There is always in the popular mind, the hazy conception of the church as a club, a mutual society of kindred minds, and a continual confusion of the church with the Kingdom of Heaven. How often is the aim of the church stated as, “Advancing the Kingdom” and “bringing in the Kingdom,” “establishing the Kingdom.” Many times made the church a political thing. Men lose sight of the primary nature of the church as a “called out” body of people “for His name”, a heavenly people, one body separate from all other men of the world as a unique heavenly bride of Christ. Ignorance of its true nature is also displayed in classifying all the saved of all ages as “members of the church.” Some would even put all the sinners who, like the “mixed multitude” which followed Israel, fasten themselves for one reason or another like parasites to the church as bonified members of the church. We must always see the distinctive nature of the church both as to dispensations and as containing only the born – again. Not an earthly organization but a heavenly organism.
We dedicate these tapes to the Glory of our Great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. May God bless you in the study and reveal more of His Word to you.
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Hamartiology - Study Guide and Audio Lectures
Hamartiology
The Doctrine of Hamartiology is the Doctrine of Sin. It is interested in the questions of the nature, extent, pollution, and guilt of sin, taking up the subject from the Scriptural portrayal of sin as “a reproach to any people. It is to obtain a clear light upon sin as a hateful thing to God and a shameful thing to man. It is an. addition to God’s original creation, outside the working of God, originating in the free will of man opposed to God.
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Pauline Theology - Study Guide and Audio Lectures
Pauline Theology
These tapes are the actual recordings of the classroom lectures on Pauline Theology. They gather together the precious riches which are ours in Christ Jesus, as members of His body. They form a summation of the complete revelation given to the Apostle Paul as the Christ-chosen Revelator to His church.
There is a twofold emphasis in the tapes:
The real need for the believer to appropriate all of Christ’s saving work in a life of Victory through the Second Comforter, the Holy Spirit. The fact that a believer may and should be filled with The Holy Spirit – that, in fact, God Commands it – and that a believer will be judged by Christ in the day of Christ for not experiencing in His life, the bring – lug to Spiritual manhood his New Life, born of the Spirit. The new easy believisrn, cold formalism, carnal babyism is an affront to the Precious Father and His Son’s “ability to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth.”
There is a further need for a criterion, a touchstone, to determine just what is church truth and what is error. The church has always had and now has more conflicting and contradictory teaching advanced with a great show of Scriptural proofs heralded as “church doctrine”. Is there a real infallible criterion? Paul says emphatically, “Yes”. “Revelation of Jesus Christ”. (of. II Thessalonians 3:6-14) Paul could state,) “though we or an angel from heaven.., or if any man preach let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8-9) (This Paul could do on the authority that “A dispensation was committed to his trust” and that “He was Apostle to the Gentiles.” Throughout the tapes this great truth should be emphasized, i. e. “Go to Paul’s Epistles to get your church doctrine” and “BEWARE of all those who bring unique and startling new interpretations to saddle upon the church teachings, restrictions, ordinances not derived from Paul’s Epistles.”
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Pneumatology - Study Guide and Audio Lectures
Pneumatology
There is hardly a more confusing subject to be found in the Holy Scriptures, among religious people, than the identity, work, and mission of the Holy Spirit. Hence, the need of the clear doctrinal presentation of PNEUMATOLOGY, or the DOCTRINE of the HOLY SPIRIT. Few subjects could be weightier or more fraught with more far-reaching consequences to our theology, or victorious Christian living and successful ministry than this one. If the study of Christology is important, and it is, to the all-important work of Jesus Christ, as the very son the Holy Spirit is important, as He is the ONLY ONE to apply and work out that redemption as it is in Christ Jesus our Lord. There is no OTHER to apply and perfect that Salvation in us. He is the “ANOTHER COMFORTER” promised of Jesus before He left His disciples to “sit down at the right hand of God.” HOW WE NEED TO KNOW ALL THAT THE SCRIPTURES HAVE TO TEACH ABOUT THIS WONDERFUL, HEAVENLY PARACLETE THAT WE NAY PERFECTLY YIELD TO HIS EVERY DESIRE AND IMPULSE, COMPLETELY COOPERATING WITH HIM ALWAYS, NEVER GRIEVING OR QUENCHING HIM. Nay the Blessed Holy Spirit Himself, guide our study in Pneumatology, for He is the One who “Carried Holy men of God along as they wrote” about the Holy Spirit.
We dedicate these tapes to the Glory of our Great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. May God bless you in the study and reveal more of His Word to you.
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Prophecy 1 - Study Guide and Audio Lectures
Prophecy 1
There are two fields of Prophecy-fulfilled Prophecy (as upon Jerusalem and the Jews and upon the First Coming of Christ) and unfulfilled Prophecy which is from now to Eternity. Unfulfilled Prophecy is the one we will be concerned about within this course. We will give only a very brief outline of past events such as the First Coming of Christ of which there were 318 Prophecies fulfilled, plus a very brief outline of the Dispensations of the Past, the one we are in now and the one in the Future.
As we deal with Prophecy there is the Telescopic View which hits all the mountain peaks and the Microscopic View which deals with all the details in between. In the Macroscopic View, there is much divergence among the great Evangelical Fundamental Scholars but as time passed much has been revealed to us that was hidden in the Word. It is also agreed upon by most of the Fundamental Scholars and Teachers that the Second Coming of Christ is very near. There is nothing to be fulfilled before the Rapture of the Church, it could happen at any moment.
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Prophecy 2 - Study Guide and Audio Lectures
Prophecy 2
There are two primary truths emphasized in these tapes. The First, is that the Book is a Revelation or unveiling of Jesus Christ. This is the most important truth to see in the study of Revelation. We shall emphasize the Sevenfold Revelation of Christ. Verse one of the first chapter gives the purpose of the whole book – “The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto Him.” This follows the statement of Revelation 19:10, “the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy.’ The other very important emphasis is upon the method the Holy Spirit has used in the Revelation of recurring over and over again to the same period, to add more details. We call this the “Law of Recurrence” famous to Bible Exegetes. It is seen plainly in the Book of Daniel but has been ignored in the interpretation of Revelation.
We shall use the literal method of interpretation with two exceptions; one where the Holy Spirit indicates, in plain language that the meaning is symbolical; Second where the plain meaning runs into absurdity.
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Psychology - Study Guide and Audio Lectures
Psychology
Christian Psychology is more commonly called “Biblical Psychology.’ While it is true that the Bible was not written as a textbook on psychology, it nowhere sets forth any complete psychology. We shall see that we are correct in formulating a system of psychology more than of ethics, theology, or any other science. Every subject of the Word of God grows throughout the Book as the Holy Spirit adds details, here by a type, thereby the recounting of some historical dealing of God with the sinner or saint, sometimes by explicit command at others by way of illustration, until the growing picture is complete in ethics, morality, philosophy of life and so in psychology.
We go to the Bible to study True Psychology and find there, the pure revelation of the psychology of man, unadulterated by the vague guesses and tainted imaginations of unregenerated professors. The Bible many times in one verse will reveal to us more true psychology than all the textbooks on psychology – analysis and psycho-pathology ever written. That is the hidden reason for all of man’s emotional instability, fear complexes, insecurity, evil fixations, immoral and unethical behavior, frustrations and distractions, and disintegrations. THEREFORE we are just as correct in studying Biblical or Christian Psychology as we are of studying Christian Ethics, Christian Theology, and Christian Dogma.
Certainly, since we believe that the Bible is the very Word of God and inspired verbally, fully, and infallible as given in the original, that it speaks not with guesses, suppositions, and errors as man-made science; but it speaks with the very wisdom of the God Who made man, “And needs not that any should testify of man for He knew what was in man.” When it speaks of sin as the underlying cause of all maladjustments and disorganization of personality, it speaks with pattern. (And it doesn’t have to resort to white rats to do it.) If Psychology is both the study of man’s mental and emotional makeup as well as the study of human behavior, then there is no other source with any comparable degree of authority as the Word of God to unmask the heart and mind of man and to tell him the why of his darkened mind and evil hardened heart. This is to say naught of the Bible as the sourcebook to explain the natural consecrated men psychologically. (See how all the uninspired minds of even consecrated men have erred in the tripartite makeup of man..)
Where else can the real permanent total cure be found, psychologically, for all the personality ills of mankind? The psychologists say, “Is man back into harmony and fellowship with God?”
So this is a course in BIBLICAL PSYCHOLOGY or Christian Psychology. We shall endeavor to make use of any valid findings of scientific psychology but we shall let the Scriptures give their own particular shades of meaning to the psychological terms it uses rather than to do as most Biblical Psychologists have done in the past; to read into the Biblical terms the modern meanings. Paul was not a psychologist but a Spirit-filled, Spirit-controlled, Spirit-engraved man.
The definition of Psychology is from the Greek word “psyche” or soul and Logos or discourse or study. Biblical Psychology is the description and explanation of man’s spiritual and physical constitution, by creation; the fall and redemption from the Holy Scriptures.
That is, what he was in the original creation, what he is by reason of the fall or the presence of sin in his members, and what God makes of him in regeneration. It should be very patent, at least, to the Bible Scholar, that there can be no understanding of the science of Nan’s spiritual and psychical makeup, no real understanding of why he thinks and acts as he does, no real understanding of the emotional and mental crack-ups and enslavement to all kinds of evil and immoral habits, without taking into consideration the fact of his fallen nature. To the Christian, it Is clear that there can be no permanent complete cure for man’s psychological ills outside of the “new creation” in Christ Jesus. All man-made cures are but panacreas, which treat symptoms and leave the original disease to carry on its dread plague.
Psychology MP3 Messages:
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Psychology Message 19 (missing)
Soteriology - Study Guide and Audio Lectures
Soteriology
In the study of Soteriology, we are arriving at the culminating point of doctrine, the end, and the purpose for which all other doctrines are given and intended. Every revelation of each member of the Godhead and His specific work for man is for the end of Soteriology — hence the importance of the study of this doctrine.
There are two great divisions of the doctrine of Soteriology which we shall pursue; first, the basis of salvation resting upon the work of Jesus, in His atoning death; and second, the application of that work in the salvation of the sinner. First would be salvation bought and second salvation wrought first the foundation or basis or ground of salvation, second the nature or application of salvation to the individual sinner. We have reserved the work of Christ in His propitiation for this doctrine rather than put it in Christology, as it is so closely linked together with the out-working of that salvation in the individual case of man’s redemption. The first part of our consideration of Soteriology shall be taken up with the study of redemption as an eternal decree of God, conceived from all eternity and wrought out in time. In relationship to this, we shall consider election and predestination and the errors of fatalism and false fore-ordination. The next subject shall be the three-fold office of Christ as prophet, priest, and king, as the “one mediator between God and man.’ The concluding subject under part one shall be a consideration of the atonement: This is the heart of Soteriology.
The second part of Soteriology shall consist of the elements of redemption in the individual sinner, his standing in Christ and his position in Christ his conviction, repentance, conversion, regeneration, union with Christ, justification, and sanctification. The redemption accomplished for him is now wrought out in him.
In studying the plan of redemption it is well to bear always in mind the vast scope of our study. To be right here is to find eternal salvation. Keep in mind that this is not a dry didactic thesis on philosophy or a moral essay, but God’s gracious provision for the sinner’s greatest need — salvation from sin and reinstatement into fellowship and relationship with God. In the study of the atonement of Jesus Christ, “The decree which He should accomplish at Jerusalem,” we are witnessing the accomplishment of the eternal plan of God, the “finishing of the work which the Father gave Him to do,’ the only perfect measurement of the love of God — “God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son,” — and the measurement of the love of God “He loved me and gave Himself for me.” Every doctrine of the Word of God is bound up in the one great work of Christ, which gave complete satisfaction to divine justice and opened the “new and living way” into the presence of God for guilty sinners, giving them perfect exoneration or justification from all sins.
In this division, we are to consider the work of redemption wrought out according to the divine plan by God and accomplished without the conscious cooperation of the sinner or consent of the race for which it was accomplished. With this part of redemption, the man had nothing whatsoever to do. God decreed it and accomplished it apart from any consent of man. That is why we term it objective Soteriology. The second great division shall be occupied with Subjective Soteriology the individual accomplishment in the individual of that redemption and it must be with the consent of that individual. God worked out His plan after His own sovereign decree and purpose and no one could stay His hand. But when working it out in the individual for his own personal redemption, it must be always with his consent and his free moral agency as the fullest way possible to man. It is well to remember this when reading the Scripture which seems contradictory. One speaks of God’s side of redemption and another of man’s.
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Theology - Study Guides and Audio Lectures
Theology
In its limited meaning Theology is the doctrine of God. In its broadest sense, it is the science or study of God in all of His character and relation to all of His Works. Thus when used in a limited sense theology is employed only of the department which studies the nature and attributes of God; but when used in its broadest sense, through common usage, it has come to designate the whole realm of Christian doctrine.
Christian Theology (limited) then is the doctrinal study of the nature and attributes of the Godhead from the complete teachings of the Scriptures.
We dedicate these tapes to the Glory of our Great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. May God bless you in the study and reveal more of His Word to you.
Systematic Theology PDF Study Guide
Theology MP3 Messages:
Theology Message 22 (Missing)
