Cheryl and Wade Hudson - Our Heritage and Faith Holy Bible for African-American Teens, KJV

Our Heritage and Faith Holy Bible for African-American Teens

King James Version

Our Heritage and Faith Holy Bible for African-American Teens, KJV

Copyright 2009 by Zondervan

All rights reserved

Published by Zondervan

eISBN: 9780310410904

Grand Rapids, Michigan, 49530, U.S.A.

Table of Contents

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Our Heritage and Faith Holy Bible for African-American Teens, KJV

Copyright 2010 by Zondervan

All rights reserved.

Project Concept/Managing Editors

Cheryl Willis Hudson

Wade Hudson

Contributors

Eleanor Henderson

Sharrata M. Hunt

Booker T. Mattison

Katara Washington Patton

Jamaine Robinson-Herbert

Kellie Tabron

Editor

Doris Rikkers

Design

Matthew P. Van Kirk

The Bible says All Scripture is God-breathed (). We who wrote these additions to this Bible for teens are mindful that Gods words are perfect and that our words are not.

Our goal is to encourage you to read Scripture for yourself, to reflect on the passages you read and apply Gods Word to your life and to the world of your generation. Each Bible verse mentioned in this section is followed by the page number, so that you can click right to it and read it for yourself. For example, clicking on takes you to the Bible book of Revelation, the first chapter and the eighth verse. We encourage you to read the verses before and after the cited verse to get the full meaning.

The purpose of these questions is to help you, and also the adults in your life, grasp the revolutionary potential of Christian faith acquired before adulthood. When the adolescent tendency to question and even rebel is allowed in a Christian context, God triumphs and molds youth who powerfully advance the faith.

Many of the great men and women of the Bible were not yet of voting age when they stepped out of the comfort zone of their age and culture to take a stand for God. From Joseph the son of Jacob, to Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego and Daniel, to Esther, to David, to Samuel, to Mary, even to Jesus, these real people, who are documented in the Bible, faced the timeless issues that teens face todaypeers, fears, parents, popularity, hopes, ambitions, self image, and more. Because the Bible is God-breathed, it offers unparalleled instruction on all topics.

Youthful questions and challenges are powerful agents for spiritual awakening. This resource lets your inquiries and even your reservations flourish. As you read and study the Bible, we hope you seek answers for yourself about God and ultimately the meaning of your own life.

While the questions and answers are written from the perspective of youth, the eternal integrity of Scriptural meaning is maintained. The gospel songs, quotes, essays, speeches and articles are intended to help Gods Word come alive and have clearer meaning for inquisitive young adults.

The Negro National Anthem

Lift Every Voice and Sing

by James Weldon Johnson

Lift every voice and sing,

Til earth and heaven ring,

Ring with the harmonies of liberty;

Let our rejoicing rise

High as the listening skies,

Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,

Let us march on til victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,

Bitter the chastning rod,

Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;

Yet with a steady beat,

Have not our weary feet

Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,

We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,

Out from the gloomy past,

Til now we stand at last

Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,

God of our silent tears,

Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;

Thou who has by Thy might

Led us into the light,

Keep us forever in the path, we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,

Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;

Shadowed beneath Thy hand,

May we forever stand,

True to our God,

True to our native land.

Who, what is God, really?
(And what if somebody asks me to prove it?)

The Bible refers to God as the Creator. The very first verse of the first Bible book ( that God is Alpha and Omegaeternal, without beginning or end. (Alpha means beginning and Omega means end.)

Those who trust the Bible read the Scripture passages cited above and other parts of Gods Word and believe that God is the maker of everything, the Creator.

The next logical question would be, Well, who made God? and the Bibles answer is that God was not made. God is the beginning of everything. God just is. God is eternal.

Evidence of Gods existence is in what God created, and that can be found everywhere you look. Read . Even people who did not have the Bible or know anything about Jesus knew from nature that there had to be a Creator. Despite great dissention on how (the process by which) the world began, even some scientists point to intelligent designa Creator.

Christians think of God like water, which can be enjoyed in three forms: liquid, steam (gas) or ice (solid). Christians believe our Lord is knowable in three forms:

God, the Creator;

God, the Redeemer;

God, the Holy Spirit.

As already discussed, our creator God is knowable by the amazing world we live in, the universe that we cant even reach and our own unique selves. Even someone who is not able to read or understand the Bible can know there is a God from experiencing the natural world, from just being part of the natural world created by God.

Christians believe God not only created us but desires to relate to us. For that reason God chose to reveal more than we could understand only from nature. That revelation of God is the Bible. In it we can receive literary glimpses of God. We are provided examples of the workings of God in human history. We can glean the fundamental reasons that we and the whole world are out of harmony with God. And we have the biography of Jesus, who is the Redeemerthe example of God in human form, God on our levelwith whom we can identify.

God exists everywhere and in everything. In all things, in every situation, God always has our back. God is always with us. All we have to do is call on the Holy One to be there. That powerful presence of God is called the Holy Spirit.