Bible Study
The load-bearing truths every believer stands on. Who God is, who Jesus is, what He did, and how we are saved — the bedrock beneath everything else.
Study this in the app →Before we grow, we need ground to stand on. These are the bedrock truths of the faith — who God is, who Jesus is, what He did, and how we are saved. Read them slowly; the questions are drawn from these passages.
These confessions were hammered out by the earliest church — monotheistic Jews who came to worship Jesus as God, a shift only the resurrection explains. The creeds simply summarize what these verses already say.
“In the beginning was the Word... and the Word was God... The Word became flesh and lived among us.”
Jesus is the eternal God who took on flesh.
“In him all the fullness of Deity dwells bodily.”
Not merely godlike — God Himself, in a body.
“Hear, Israel: the LORD is our God. The LORD is one.”
There is only one God (the Shema).
“...baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
The one God revealed as three Persons.
“For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.”
The human problem: every one of us.
“Christ died for our sins... was buried... was raised on the third day.”
The gospel in a single sentence.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should... have eternal life.”
God's rescue, offered to all.
“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.”
Jesus is the one way to God.
“If you confess... Jesus is Lord, and believe... God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
How a person is saved.
What does the Bible teach about who Jesus is?
Answer: He is fully God and fully man
The Christian faith confesses Jesus as fully God and fully man — one Person, two natures. John says the Word 'was God' and 'became flesh' (John 1:1,14), and Thomas worshiped Him as 'My Lord and my God!' (John 20:28).
Word study: 'Deity' is Greek theotes — the very essence of Godhood, not just godlike qualities.
Context: The earliest Christians — devout, monotheistic Jews — worshiped Jesus as God. Only the resurrection explains so radical a shift.
How does the Bible describe the one true God?
Answer: One God who eternally exists as three Persons
Scripture holds two truths together: there is only one God (Deuteronomy 6:4), yet Father, Son, and Spirit are each fully God and truly distinct (Matthew 28:19). Christians call this the Trinity — one Being, three Persons.
Word study: In Deuteronomy 6:4 the Hebrew for 'one' is echad, which can express a unity of more than one (as two become 'one flesh' in Genesis 2:24).
Context: The Shema guarded Israel against the many gods around them; the New Testament reveals how this one God exists in three Persons.
Where does the Holy Spirit live in a believer?
Answer: Within them — He dwells in those who belong to Christ
At the moment of faith, the Holy Spirit comes to live within the believer, making the body itself a temple — 'if anyone doesn't have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his' (Romans 8:9).
Word study: 'Temple' is Greek naos — the inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place where God's presence dwelt. You are now that holy space.
Context: For a Jew, God's presence filled the Jerusalem temple. Paul claims the Spirit now indwells every believer.
What happened on the third day after Jesus' death?
Answer: He rose bodily from the dead
The resurrection is bodily and historical, not a feeling or a metaphor — the risen Jesus ate, was touched, and showed His wounds (Luke 24:39-43). Paul stakes everything on it: 'If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins' (1 Corinthians 15:17). The faith rises or falls on an empty tomb.
Word study: 'Was raised' is Greek egegertai, a perfect-tense verb — a completed past event with ongoing results: He was raised and He remains risen.
Context: Paul quotes this as a creed already being handed down within a few years of the events, and points to more than five hundred living eyewitnesses (1 Corinthians 15:6) — a claim anyone in his day could have tried to disprove.
Why did Jesus die on the cross?
Answer: To bear the penalty for our sins and bring us to God
The cross was the plan, not a defeat: the sinless one took the place of sinners. Isaiah foresaw it — 'he was pierced for our transgressions' (Isaiah 53:5).
Word study: 'For' our sins (Greek peri / hyper) carries 'on behalf of' and 'in place of' — substitution.
Context: Isaiah 53, written ~700 years earlier, describes a servant bearing others' sins — read by the church as fulfilled in Jesus.
According to Romans 10:9, how is a person saved?
Answer: By confessing Jesus as Lord and believing God raised Him
Salvation comes through trusting Jesus — confessing Him as Lord and believing in the resurrection — not by stacking up good deeds (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Word study: 'Lord' is Greek Kyrios, the word the Greek Old Testament used for God's covenant name — a confession of His deity and authority.
Context: For the early church, 'Jesus is Lord' rather than 'Caesar is lord' could cost a believer's life.
According to Romans 3:23, what is true of every human being?
Answer: All have sinned and fall short of God's glory
The gospel begins with honest diagnosis: every person has sinned and cannot bridge the gap to God by effort. That's why salvation must be a gift — 'the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus' (Romans 6:23).
Word study: 'Sinned' is Greek hamartano — an archery term meaning 'to miss the mark.' Sin is falling short of God's standard, not merely breaking rules.
Context: Paul levels the ground in Romans 1–3: Jew and Gentile alike stand guilty, so all alike need grace.
In John 3:16, what does God give to those who believe?
Answer: Eternal life
The most familiar verse in Scripture is also one of the deepest: God's love moved Him to give His Son so that believing sinners would not perish but have eternal life — a life that begins now and never ends. The next verse guards us from misreading it: the Son came not to condemn the world but to save it. Judgment is the backdrop; rescue is the mission.
Word study: 'One and only' is Greek monogenes — unique, one of a kind. 'World' is kosmos: God's love reaches the whole of fallen humanity, not a favored few.
Context: Jesus says this to Nicodemus, a respected teacher who came by night, explaining that new birth comes not by status, learning, or effort but by trusting the Son 'lifted up' (John 3:14-15) — an image of the cross.
In John 14:6, how did Jesus describe the way to the Father?
Answer: He is the way, the truth, and the life
Jesus makes a sweeping, exclusive claim: He Himself is the way to God — not merely a guide who shows a way. This is humbling and freeing: the door is a Person, and that Person welcomes all who come.
Word study: 'Way' is Greek hodos (a road); early believers were even called followers of 'the Way' (Acts 9:2).
Context: Jesus says this to anxious disciples the night before His death, comforting them that He Himself is their road home to the Father.
What does the Bible claim about itself (2 Timothy 3:16-17)?
Answer: It is breathed out by God and able to equip us for every good work
Scripture is not merely human reflection about God; it is 'God-breathed' — given by God through human authors carried along by the Spirit. That is why it has authority to teach, correct, and fully equip us for life.
Word study: 'God-breathed' is Greek theopneustos — literally 'breathed out by God,' capturing Scripture's divine origin.
Context: Paul writes to Timothy as false teaching spreads; the church's anchor is the inspired Scriptures Timothy has known 'from infancy' (2 Timothy 3:15).
Paul tells Timothy that Scripture can make him 'wise for salvation.' Why does that matter for how we read the Bible?
Answer: Its ultimate aim is to point us to salvation in Christ, not merely to inform us
Scripture is not given mainly to satisfy curiosity but to lead us to Christ and shape us in Him. We read best when we read looking for Him — letting information become transformation. The Bible informs the mind in order to convert and renew the heart.
Word study: 'Wise for salvation' frames the Bible's purpose: sophia (wisdom) aimed at soteria (salvation), received 'through faith in Christ Jesus.'
Context: Paul points Timothy back to the Scriptures he learned as a child from his mother and grandmother (2 Timothy 1:5) — a faith handed down in an ordinary home.
Why did the early church insist Jesus had to be both fully God and fully man to save us?
Answer: Only a man could stand in our place, and only God could truly save
Our rescue depends on both natures. As true man, Jesus could represent us and die in our place; as true God, His sacrifice had infinite worth and power to save. Take away either, and the gospel collapses. This is why He is the one mediator who can join us to God.
Word study: 'Made like his brothers' (Greek homoioo) stresses real likeness — Jesus shares our humanity fully, not in appearance only.
Context: Hebrews was written to believers tempted to drift back from Christ; it anchors them in a Savior who is both enthroned in heaven and able to sympathize with their weakness.