Our Jealous God Bible Study

Before doing this short Bible study, please read the one-minute introduction Our Jealous God. 

 

It explains that the type of Jealousy God has for us is holy, righteous, and a blessing,

“Be careful not to forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he made with you; do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” Deuteronomy 4:23-24:

A similar passage is found several chapters later. God obviously wanted to make this clear:  

Deuteronomy 6:14-19: Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; 15 for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land. 16 Do not put the Lord your God to the test as you did at Massah. 17 Be sure to keep the commands of the Lord your God and the stipulations and decrees he has given you. 18 Do what is right and good in the Lord’s sight, so that it may go well with you and you may go in and take over the good land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors, 19 thrusting out all your enemies before you, as the Lord said.” 

See Righteous Jealousy. 

Pagan worship was a predominant part of Israel's history. 

Read Psalm 106 that outlines Israel's repeated rebellion against God. Notice verses 19, 28, and 34-39.  

Paganism damages our hearts and souls, and faith in God builds, inspires, and strengthens our souls. God is jealous because He loves and cares for us.

These passages are New Testament confirmations of the passages in Deuteronomy.

What kind of gods do modern Christians sometimes honor? Some are pagan and some are not. See Priorities and Our Jealous God.

1 Corinthians 10:18-22: Consider the people of Israel: Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar? 19 Do I mean then that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? 20 No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. 21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons. 22 Are we trying to arouse the Lord’s jealousy? Are we stronger than he? 

The Apostle Paul showed a similar jealousy for those he'd discipled: 

2 Corinthians 11:1-3: I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! 2 For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. 3 But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 

2 Corinthians 6:15-17: What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”17 Therefore, “Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord.Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” 

 

copyright, Gail Burton Purath, 2015, BiteSizeBibleStudy.com, updated in 2026

 

 

What the Bible Teaches About Certain Sexual Sins

Before doing this study, I encourage you to read Do You Think You Can Pick Which Bible Verses to Believe? as in introduction.

Dear Christians, now more than ever before, we must know what the Bible teaches. And we must realize it will never be popular.

The lines are drawn, and Jesus drew them.

We have a choice: We can study God's truth and speak up for it in love, or we can become people of whom Christ is ashamed (Joshua 24:14-15; Luke 9:26). 

1. Don't be Ashamed.
We must never be ashamed of Bible commands, no matter how unpopular they become in our culture. Remember these words:

Luke 9:26: Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.  

2.  Know what the Bible says.

There are numerous passages addressing the sin of homosexuality. It's critical that we know what the Bible says! (2 Timothy 2:15)

A. God's design for sexuality is clearly established in the first book of the Bible and restated in the New Testament:*
Mark 10:6-9: “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ 7 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 8 and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

B. Christ confirmed God's design:
The marriage of one man and one woman is confirmed by Christ in Matthew 19:1-8 and the New Testament instructions for pastors and elders also confirm this design (1 Timothy 3).

C. The passages below confirm God's consistent, unchanging view of homosexuality as a sin.

Romans 1:24-32: Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. 

Jude 1:7: In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. 

1 Corinthians 6:9-11: Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

The real hate crime is being silent about God's commands. We should be concerned for the spiritual destiny of those who reject God's commands and pray for their souls. Will you take a few moments right now to pray for homosexuals, especially those you know personally?

copyright 2015, Gail Burton Purath, BiteSizeBibleStudy.com, edited and updated in 2026

When Jesus Tells Professing Christians "I Never Knew You!"

Before doing this study, please read the one-minute introduction: 

Why Christ Tells Some People, “I Never Knew You.”

 

It discusses Matthew 7:21-23:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”

✔ Confusion about performing miracles

What initially confused me in this passage was the fact that fake believers could perform miracles and cast out demons. Perhaps these were fake, orchestrated “performances,” but I’m also reminded of Balaam who actually heard from God and sometimes did what God said, but never fully trusted God. These passages tell different things about Balaam: Numbers 22, Deuteronomy 23:4; Joshua 13:22; Nehemiah 13:1-2; Micah 6:5; 2 Peter 2:15; Jude 11; Revelation 2:14.  

In addition, Satan can also perform miracles to deceive undiscerning people (2 Thessalonians 2:9-10; Matthew 24:24).   

✔ People who are surprised at final judgment are those who have only a form of godliness as described below:

2 Timothy 3:1-5: “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.” 

✔ Let's look at one example many people overlook: those who are “disobedient to their parents.”

Because this verse is speaking of adults, this means disobedient to God's commands to honor them, because adults are not required to obey their parents.

For example, they may neglect their parents while being involved in Christian ministry. In Matthew 15:3-9 Jesus speaks about people who do this and quotes the Old Testament verse below to describe them:

Isaiah 29:13: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.”

✔ Another example: those who are “brutal, not lovers of the good.”

This makes me think of people who go to church and give generously to help the needy but also support pro-abortion politics. I can't think of anything more brutal than killing innocent unborn babies right up to the day of delivery. Lovers of Good seek to obey the command in Proverbs 24:11-12.

Perhaps you can think of some other relevant examples based on the list in 2 Timothy 3:1-5.

✔ Some additional insights

God tells us to “have nothing to do with such people,” which means we are sometimes able to recognize them. But some may hide their sins and mislead people for many years before they are found out. And some may even be able to hide their sins for a lifetime. 

Sadly, some preachers encourage people to believe they can be saved while living sinful lifestyles. For example, see Have We Misjudged Andy Stanley?

But Scripture is clear:

“No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.” 1 John 3:6

✔  What do you think Christ wanted us to learn from this passage?

 

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Be prepared to stand firm in our anti-Christian culture. Check out: Lies in Disguise:

✔ Chapter titles

✔ Endorsements

✔ Where to purchase

✔ Important reasons to read it