"Do I have to attend a mid-week Bible Study?"

This is a question that I have heard people ask (not just here) many times. This question usually comes as a result of church leaders making Christians feel as if they are unfaithful to Jesus if they do not attend. I want to be careful how I answer this question because I don’t want to convey the wrong ideas.

The simple answer to the above question is “no.” The Bible doesn’t have a mandate for Christians to attend a mid-week Bible study. With that said, I do believe there is tremendous value to attending the mid- week Bible study. Here are a few things that come from our mid-week Bible studies:

1. Growing in our Knowledge.

Peter commanded the Christians in 2 Peter 3:18 to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” One of the greatest ways to carry out this verse is to sit in a room with other Christians, study the Bible, and discuss the things we read in the Bible. The setting of our mid-week studies enables us to dig much deeper into the Bible than in any other setting. It is truly a place to grow in our knowledge.

2. Encouragement.

It is no doubt that life can be challenging at times. One of the best remedies for that is to spend time with other Christians in the middle of the week. In Hebrews 10:25 the writer said, “not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.” the point of this passage was to charge Christians to come together for the purpose of encouraging each other. Our mid-week studies are a place of mutual encouragement where we pray together, study together, and sing together.

3. Growing in our Faith.

This is the natural consequence of the first two things. The more a person learns about Jesus, the more that person’s faith in Him will grow. The more a Christian is surrounded by other Christians, the more their Godly influence will help that person to grow. Our mid- week study is a place to grow in your faith in Jesus as you learn about Him, and walk side by side with other faithful Christians.

To circle back to the question above: “Do I have to attend a mid-week Bible Study?” Again, the answer is no. However, when you see the benefits of attending, it should help us to at least consider attending if we can. I know how excited I am after a Sunday morning service. I believe the mid-week assembly can be just as exciting for those who attend. Will you join us on Wednesday nights to grow in our faith together?

-Kolton Ballance

Being Sorry is not Repentance

“Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation...” (2 Corinthians 7:10).

This verse is a key verse in understanding what repentance is. Paul revealed that sorrow according to God’s will leads someone towards repentance, which leads someone towards salvation.
It looks like this: SORROW --> REPENTANCE --> SALVATION.

Sadly, what usually takes place in our lives is sorrow, but nothing else. We are sorry when we sin. We feel the guilt that comes with disobeying God, and we feel remorse for our sins. We might even utter a prayer asking for forgiveness when we realize what we’ve done. But none of that is repentance - those things only lead us to repentance.

Repentance can be defined as a change in mind that leads to a change in action. The sorrow is the change in mind, but it must be followed by a change in action in order to be repentance.

John the baptist told the Jewish leaders who came to him to be baptized that they needed to “bear fruit in keeping with repentance” (Luke 3:8). In Acts 19:19 the pagan worshippers came together and burned all of their magic books publicly as a display of their repentance. When Paul told King Agrippa about his mission work all over Asia, he told him that he preached, “that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds”(Acts 26:20). The message of repentance in the Bible is not that we should feel sorry for the sins we’ve committed. The message is that the sorrow we feel should change the way that we live moving forward.

So I want to ask a few questions to close this article:
What is the last thing you changed in your life out of repentance?
When is the last time you changed something in your life out of repentance?

Do you allow your sorrow towards God for your sins drive you to change the way you live?

-Kolton Ballance