A Little Book about the Bible
A book to help people
learn from the Holy Bible,
using the Plain English Version
1
About this book
I wrote this Little Book about the Bible to help people know more about the Holy Bible.
I used plain English in this little book, the same as we used in the Holy Bible, Plain English Version (PEV). Anybody can use this little book, but I wrote it mostly for Indigenous Australians that grew up talking their own language, and then later they learned to talk English. I wrote this little book to help people understand the Bible better.
We can learn a lot of things from the Holy Bible. This little book just talks about some of those things. It tells you what the Bible says about those things. The words that are in
this sort of print
are from the Holy Bible, PEV.
This little book also tells you where to look in the Bible to find out more. So you can use this little book for Bible studies.
I want to thank all the people that helped me write this little book. Some of them were Aboriginal Australians and some were white-fellas.
Dave Glasgow
The different parts of this book start on these pages
Part 1 Why is the Holy Bible important? Page 1
Part 2 How did we get the Holy Bible? Page 7
Part 3 Why does the Holy Bible have
chapters and verses? Page 12
Part 4 What does the Holy Bible tell us
about God and people? Page 16
Part 5
What have we got to do with the
message of the Holy Bible? Page 25
Part 6
What does the Holy Bible say about
grog and drugs? starts on page 32
Part 7
What does the Holy Bible say about people
getting married, and about people having sex with each other? Page 36
Part 8
What does the Holy Bible say about
people fighting? Page 45
Part 9
What does the Holy Bible say
about gambling? Page 52
Part 10
What does the Holy Bible say about teaching kids
to live the right way? Page 55
Part 11
What does the Holy Bible say
about spirits? Page 58
Part 12
What does the Holy Bible say about
things in our culture? Page 68
So what now? Page 75
Part 1
Why is the Holy Bible important?
Everyone should read or listen to the Bible because it is a very important book.
It is God’s word. That means that it has God’s message to us people. It tells us the things that God wants us to know about himself, and about spirits, and things that last for ever. If we read it or listen to it, and if we take notice of it, God can take us into his family.
If we have a Bible with us, will it help us?
What if we get a Bible and leave it on the shelf all the time, and we never read it. Is that all right? Will it help us? Or if we put it under the pillow of a sick person, will it help that person get better?
Well, it is good to remember that God’s word is powerful, but we have to read the Bible. Then it can help us. Or we can listen to somebody else read it. The message in the Bible is powerful, but that message has to get into our heads before we can know that power. If you believe the Bible’s message, and if you do what it says, God will take you into his family. That is the good way the Bible helps us.
This is what the Bible says in the book that has the name The letter that James wrote, in chapter 1 at verse 18,
God wanted us to be in his own family, so he sent his true word to us. And when we believed that word it was like we were born all over again. That’s how he made us his really special people.
What if we get a Bible and read it, or listen to somebody else read it, but then we just forget it and take no notice of it, is that all right? No. That is not all right. It is very important that we take notice of the message in the Bible, so that it can change us and make us better people.
This is what the Bible says in the book called The letter that James wrote, in chapter 1 at verses 21 and 25,
You have to listen properly to the word from God, that he put right inside you, and you have to do what it says. Don’t think that you are so good that you don’t need God’s word. No. You have to do what it says, then that word will save you. … You have to listen to God’s word and keep on thinking about it. Don’t forget it, but do everything it says. That word will make you free, so that you will do everything God wants. And God will make you really happy whenever you do the things he wants you to do.
So you see, everybody needs to do the things in the Bible that God tells us to do.
Where is God’s power in the Bible?
Is God’s power in the book with a cover, that has pages made out of paper and ink? Do they have God’s power? No. God’s power is in the message in the Bible. If we take notice of that message, and believe it, and if we do what it tells us to do, God will take us into his family and use his power to change us into his good people, to live with him for ever. It is good to read or listen to a part of the Bible for a little while every day, and think about it. Ask God to teach you what he wants you to learn from it. He will do that, and you will learn more and become strong for him.
We wrote this little book to help you use the Holy Bible, and to understand its message better. You can learn more about God’s word if you think about these verses.
* In The 2nd letter that Paul wrote to Timothy, at chapter 3, in verses 16 and 17 it says,
Everything in God’s book comes from God himself. It was God that sent the message to people to write down, and God uses it now to teach us his true word, and he uses it to get us to understand the things that are wrong with our lives, and he uses it to fix us up, and he uses it to teach us to do the things that are right. That’s how God properly trains his workers. He uses the words in his book to teach them, so they can do all those good things that he wants them to do.
* And this is in the book that has the name Some important parts of the good news about Jesus that Matthew wrote, at chapter 4, in verses 3 and 4,
At that time the devil came to Jesus and said, “If you are the son of God, tell these stones to turn into loaves of bread.” But Jesus told him, “No. I will not do that. You know what God says. These words are in his book, ‘People don’t live just by eating bread, but they live by every word that God says.’ ”
You can also think about what the Bible says in John wrote this good news about Jesus, in chapter 15, at verse 3, and in Mark wrote this good news about Jesus, at chapter 4, in verses 2 to 9, and in verses 14 to 20, and in The 2nd letter that Paul wrote to Timothy, in chapter 2, at verse 9.
We have to understand the message of the Holy Bible.
Whenever we read or listen to a version of the Bible, we have to understand the words and language, so that we can understand the message. Do you talk an Aboriginal language? Or do you talk a language from the Torres Strait? If you have a translation in your own language, or another language you can understand, that is the best Bible for you.
But maybe you haven’t got a Bible in your own language. Well, you can try reading the Holy Bible, Plain English Version (PEV). It uses easy English words, and it says things in the way that Aboriginal languages say things, so it is easy to understand.
We haven’t translated all of the Holy Bible into plain English yet, but you can get most of the New Testament and some of the Old Testament in PEV.
In this little book we are copying the PEV words every time we want to tell you the words that the Bible has. And sometimes we explain something about the PEV. We hope this little book will help you understand the Bible better, and help you live by it.
How to get the PEV.
Printed books
You can get Plain English Version (PEV) books with parts of the Holy Bible from the Bible League. You can call them on 1800 800 937 or go to the store on their website bl.org.au
On your phone
If you have an android smartphone you can download the PEV app. Click on the “Play Store” app, then search for “Plain English Version Bible”, click on it, and click on “Install”. You can read and listen to the PEV on that app.
The PEV is also available in the Australian Bibles app on both iPhones and androids. That app has the Holy Bible in lots of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages. You can pick “English” to read or listen to the PEV.
And the PEV is in the YouVersion Bible app on both iPhones and androids too.
You can use the QR codes on the next page to get some of those apps.
On your computer
You can read and listen to the PEV on a computer too. Go to the Aboriginal Bibles website aboriginalbibles.org.au/english-plain
These are some QR codes that let you get the PEV on to your smartphone or computer.
Plain English Version Bible app on the Google Play Store
Online at
aboriginalbibles.org.au
YouVersion Bible app
Google Play Store Apple App Store
Australian Bibles app
Google Play Store Apple App Store
Part 2
How did we get the Holy Bible?
The Holy Bible is not like any other book.
The Bible is not just one book, it is a group of books. It has 66 books all together.
God got a lot of people to write those books. They wrote them thousands of years ago.
The message in those books was really important for people thousands of years ago, and that message is still really important for us today. God’s word lasts for ever. That means it is always true.
The Bible has this in The 1st letter that Peter wrote, at chapter 1, in verse 25,
God’s word will never die, it will last for ever.
The Holy Bible has 2 main parts – the Old Testament and the New Testament.
The Old Testament has the oldest stories of the Bible. It has books that people wrote before Jesus was born.
The New Testament has the books that people wrote after Jesus was born.
The Old Testament is like this.
It has 39 books, and they are the oldest stories in the Bible.
* The first 17 books in the Bible are about the things that happened a long time ago. They start from the time God made everything, and they have stories about things that happened over the next years, really over the next thousands of years, almost until the time that Jesus was born. If you look at the printed PEV, in the first pages it shows the time when things in the Bible happened.
* The next 5 books in the Bible are songs and some things that wise men wrote about God.
* The next 17 books in the Bible are the last ones in the Old Testament. They have the messages that God got his men to tell people. Some of those messages are about things that will happen at some time in the future. God’s men wrote those messages down so we can read them. Each one of these books has the name of the man that wrote it. Sometimes we call them the prophets. Malachi was the last man to write a book in the Old Testament, and he wrote it about 400 years before Jesus was born.
The New Testament is like this.
It has 27 books, and they are about Jesus and his followers.
* The first 4 books in the New Testament are about Jesus and the things he did here on the earth, and about the way he died and then he came back to life again, and then he went up to heaven. Sometimes we call those books the gospels. That word gospel means good news. Each of these books has the name of the man that wrote it.
* Then there is a book that is about the things that Jesus’s followers did after Jesus went back to heaven.
* The next 21 books in the New Testament are letters that Jesus’s followers wrote to churches and to other Christians.
* The last book in the New Testament, and in the Bible, is called Revelation. It is about things that God showed to one of Jesus’s followers. Some of those things will happen in the future.
About 2,000 years ago, Jesus went up to heaven, and, soon after that, God’s men wrote those New Testament books.
The message in the Bible comes from God
God got people to write the books in the Holy Bible a long time ago, but its message is still important for us today. Its words and message came from God. The Holy Spirit got God’s men to write those books.
This is in The 2nd letter that Peter wrote, at chapter 1, in verses 19 to 21,
So now we can be really sure about the messages that are in God’s book. We can be sure that they are true. A long time ago, God told his men to write those words in his book. You have to think carefully about those messages. They can help us understand the true story about God, like a light helps us see things in the night. Those messages will keep on helping you until Jesus comes back and he helps you know God properly. Then it will be like Jesus is a really bright light that shows us everything clearly, like the really bright star that shines in the morning, and then the sun comes up. You see, those men that wrote those words a long time ago, they didn’t think up their own stories. No. They didn’t write down their own ideas. The Holy Spirit worked inside them and told them God’s messages. Those words came from God, and they wrote them down in his book.
Real people wrote the Bible’s books.
God got real people to write the books of the Bible, and they wrote them for real people at that time. The letters in the Bible are to real people, like to the people in a church, or to other Christians.
Whenever we think about something that is in the Bible, we also have to think about the way things were at the time God’s man wrote those words.
For example, one of Jesus’s workers was called Paul, and he wrote a letter to the Christians at Corinth. We call that letter The 1st letter that Paul wrote to the Christians at Corinth. In chapter 11, in verses 3 to 16, Paul told the Corinthians that in a church meeting, the women have to cover their heads and the men can not cover their heads. You see, in their culture at Corinth at that time, a married woman had to wear something covering her head in a meeting, to show that she respected her husband. If a woman did not wear something covering her head, it was like she was saying that she did not want her husband. That would shame her husband. That is why Paul told the women to cover their heads.
But that is not in our culture today. We don’t think like that about a woman covering her head. A man does not feel shame if his wife does not cover her head in a meeting. So that message that Paul wrote for the Christians in Corinth was about something that was right for the people of that time, but not for the people today.
The Holy Spirit will help us understand the Bible
You know, God’s Holy Spirit will help us understand his word whenever we think about it. Look at the book called John wrote this good news about Jesus, at chapter 16. In verse 13 Jesus said this,
After the Holy Spirit comes, he will tell you what is true. He will teach you everything that is true about God. He will not say his own words, but only the words he heard from God.
So every time we read or listen to the Bible, we need to ask the Holy Spirit to help us understand it. Then we need to ask ourselves these questions, and think about the answers,
* What is it saying?
* What did that mean to the people of that time?
* What does it mean to us today?
* What do we have to do about it?
Part 3
Why does the Holy Bible have chapters and verses?
Chapter numbers and verse numbers help us find the words or stories in the Bible that we want to read or talk about. Each of the books in the Bible is split up into chapters, and each chapter has a number. And each chapter in the Bible is split up into verses, and each verse has a number.
And you know, some Bibles are big books and some Bibles are little books, so their page numbers are different from each other. And some Bibles are in different languages, so their page numbers are different too. But Bibles all have the same chapter numbers and verse numbers for the same stories.
So we can look at the chapter numbers and verse numbers to find a story or message in the Bible, no matter which Bible we look at or what page it is on. So, if we want to find a story or a message, we just need the chapter number and the verse number and then we can find it easily.
God’s men that wrote the books of the Bible, they did not put the chapter and verse numbers there. Other men put them in a long time afterwards. It was a church man that split up each of the Bible books into chapters, and he gave them numbers. And some time after that another church man split up every chapter into verses, and he gave them numbers.
How to use chapter numbers and verse numbers.
Whenever we want to tell somebody where to find something in the Bible, we can tell them the book name, the chapter number and the verse number. We call that the reference.
We have a short way to write a reference. It is like this. If we want somebody to go to the book called John wrote this good news about Jesus, and look at chapter 3 at verse 16, well, we write it like this, John 3:16
We just write John for the name of the book, and then we write the chapter number, then we have this mark : and then the verse number.
If we want to look at more than one verse, like if we want to read from the start of verse 16 to the end of verse 21, we write it like this, John 3:16-21. That means go to the book called John wrote this good news about Jesus and find chapter 3, then read from verse 16 to the end of verse 21.
If we want to look at the whole chapter, we just don’t write any verse numbers, like this, John 3. That means, go to the book called John wrote this good news about Jesus and read all of chapter 3, from verse 1 to the end of the chapter.
If there is more than one chapter, we write it like this, John 17-19. That means, go to the book called John wrote this good news about Jesus, start at the beginning of chapter 17, at verse 1, and read all the way to the end of chapter 19.
This is what it looks like in the Holy Bible Plain English Version when you start reading John chapter 17,
Here are some examples of references to find some messages and stories in the Holy Bible.
* Romans 3:23 has the message that tells us that we all went wrong.
* 1 Samuel 17 has the story about the boy called David fighting a big enemy soldier and killing him dead.
* Mark 4:35-41 is the story about Jesus stopping a storm.
* Acts 27:1–28:10 is the story about Paul in a ship that sank in a storm.
Part 4
What does the Holy Bible tell us about God and people?
These are some of the important things the Holy Bible tells us.
1. God made everything.
The Bible tells us that God is the one that made everything. He made all the people, and all the animals, and all the spirits.
The Bible has this in Genesis 1:1,
First of all, a long time ago, God made everything. He made the sky, and he made the earth. He made all the things that are everywhere.
And Jesus worked with God to make everything. This is in Colossians 1:15-16,
Jesus was there with God a long time ago, and he worked with God to make everything. They made all the things in heaven, and all the things on the earth. They made the things we can see, and the things we can’t see. They made all the spirits, even the spirit bosses that we can’t see. God worked with his son to make everything, so that now everything has to respect God’s son. Jesus is God’s son, and he is the boss over everything.
You can learn more about this by reading or listening to all of Genesis 1.
2. God made people.
The Bible tells us that God is the one that made all of us people. We read this in Genesis 1:26-27,
Then God said, “We are going to make people. They will be like us. …” So God made people to be like himself.
People have spirits as well as bodies. Sometimes we call our spirits our souls. In Matthew 10:28 Jesus said,
Don’t be frightened of those people that can only kill your body. They can’t kill your soul. But you have to listen to God. If you don’t do what he says, you have to be frightened. He can finish up your body, and then he can also finish up your soul too, in that bad place called hell.
3. God made us people to be his friends and to live with him for ever.
The Bible tells us that God does not want people, after they die, to go away from him for ever. He wants them to live with him in his family. This is in 2 Peter 3:9,
God doesn’t want anyone to die for ever. He wants everyone to turn around. He wants them to stop doing bad things and turn to him.
And this is in Luke 8:1,
Jesus went around to a lot of different towns. In each town he told the people God’s good news. He said, “God wants to have you in his family.”
Those verses show us that God always wants people to be his friends and, after they die, he wants them to live with him in his family.
4. The Bible tells us that there is a problem. The first man and woman both went wrong.
They knew they went wrong, and they knew they could not be close friends of God any more.
We can read about them in Genesis 3:8,
The man and the woman heard God walking in the garden. So they got behind some trees in the garden to hide from God.
That same problem is still with us today. In Romans 5:12 the Bible says,
Think about the story about Adam. God told him, “If you eat any fruit from that tree, you will die.” Then Adam did the wrong thing, he ate that fruit, so he died. And it’s the same for everybody now.
You see, we all go wrong and we do bad things. And God is properly good, so he can not have us with him because we do bad things. He can only have good people in his family.
5. God made a way to change us so that he can take anybody into his family.
The Bible tells us that God sent his special son, called Jesus, to be a man, and to live here with us people. Jesus did that, but he didn’t do bad things like we do. Then Jesus took the blame for all us people, for all the bad things we did. Jesus let people kill him by nailing him to a wooden cross. That is the way he died for us. So now, if we trust Jesus and live for God, he will take us into his family, and after our bodies die, we will live with God for ever.
This is in John 3:16,
You see, God loved all of the people in the world. He loved everyone so much that he sent them his only son, his special son. God sent him to die instead of them, so that if anyone trusts him, God will not finish them up, but they will live with him for ever.
And this is in Colossians 1:13-14,
You know, the boss over the bad spirits, he always used to push us to do bad things. ... But God sent his son, Jesus. … He took the payback for us, so that now God will not punish us. He set us free from that bad boss, and now we belong to the family of God’s son.
And this is in Romans 5:8,
Jesus Christ died for us while we were still really bad people. That shows that God really loves us very much.
6. We need to stop doing wrong things, we need to trust Jesus, and to start living God’s way.
The Bible says we need to believe in Jesus and turn around, we need to stop going the wrong way and we need to turn to God.
(Some English Bibles use the word repent, but a lot of people don’t really know what that word means. It is a translation of the Greek word that means turn around, and in the Bible it usually means turn around in the way we live. So in the PEV we have translated it turn around, or in words like that.)
In Mark 1:15 Jesus said,
Now is the right time for God to take people into his family. You mob have to take notice and turn right around and live God’s way. You have to believe this good news.
But if we don’t stop doing bad things, and if we don’t turn to Jesus, God will give us trouble. This is in Acts 17:30-31,
Now God says to all of us, that we have to turn around and stop doing bad things. And if we don’t stop doing bad things, he will give us big trouble. He is going to have a big court, and all of us will have to stand in front of the judge. He has already set the date for that. It will be a fair court, and he has picked one man to be the judge. That man died, but God made him alive again. God did that to show everybody that he picked that man to be the big judge.
And this is in 2 Timothy 4:1,
You know, Jesus Christ will come back, and he will judge everyone. He will judge everyone that is alive at that time, and everyone that is already dead.
And this is in Romans 6:23,
If we do bad things, we will get our pay for doing those things. We will die. That’s all the pay we will get. But if we join up to our leader, Jesus Christ, we will not die. God will give us properly good life. We will live with him for ever.
And this is in John 3:18,
If anyone believes in God’s son, then God will not say they are guilty. But if anyone does not believe in him, God has already said they are guilty. You see, they do not believe in God’s only son, his special son.
7. If we trust Jesus, the Holy Spirit will come into us and change us.
The Bible tells us this is in John 3:5-6,
Jesus said, “Listen, I am telling you straight, if anyone wants to be in God’s family, they have to get born again God’s way. God has to make them clean, and he has to put his spirit in them. You see, … if people get born again from God’s Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit gives new life to their spirits too.”
And this is in Ephesians 4:30,
God gave the Holy Spirit to you so that you can be really sure that you belong to God.
And this is in Romans 8:1-2,
If we belong to Jesus Christ, God will never say we are guilty. His spirit is in us, and he gives us new life, and he makes us strong so that we can say no to that bad part of us that tries to make us go wrong. That is the new way that we live, because we belong to Jesus, and it makes us free from the old way of doing bad things and ending up dead.
When Jesus was talking to his followers just before he died, he told them this. It is in John 14:26,
“The father will send the Holy Spirit to help you. He will be your teacher, in my place. He will help you remember all the things I told you, and he will teach you everything you need to know.”
The Holy Spirit will control us if we let him.
This is in Galatians 5:22-23,
If God’s spirit controls people, he gets them to do good things. You know that a good fruit tree always gets good fruit on it. Well, like that, a person with God’s spirit does good things. If you let his spirit lead you, he will get you to love God and to love other people. And you will be happy. And you will feel good and quiet inside yourself so that you will not fight with other people. God’s spirit inside you will help you be good to people and not get angry, even if they give you trouble. And he will get you to be friendly to other people, and he will get you to do good things. He will make you the sort of person that other people can trust. He will stop you from thinking you are too important, and he will help you to control yourself.
You can learn more from a lot of other places in the Bible that tell us about the Holy Spirit. Some of them are Acts 2:32-40, Titus 3:5, Galatians 4:6, 5:25-26, Romans 8:3-17 and Acts 1:8.
8. One day Jesus will come back for us.
The Bible tells us that one day Jesus will come back to earth again, and then all the dead people that believed in Jesus, they will come back to life, and they will get new bodies. And all the people that believe in Jesus and are still alive, they will get new bodies too. Those bodies will never die, and we will all live with Jesus, and with God, for ever.
This is in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17,
Christian friends, we are going to tell you now about people that have already died. We don’t want you to be sad when you think about them. … You see, we believe that Jesus died, and after that, God made him alive again. So we also believe that when Jesus comes back to this earth, all the Christians that already died will come back with him. … It will happen like this. Our leader, Jesus himself, will come down from heaven, and while he is coming, everyone will hear him call out, and they will hear the voice of the boss angel, and they will hear the sound of God’s trumpet. Then, first of all, those people that belonged to Jesus Christ and already died, they will come back to life. After that, God will get those of us Christians that are still alive at that time, and he will take us up into the clouds with the Christians that already died, and we will all meet Jesus, our leader, way up in the air. And so, after that, we will be with Jesus all the time, for ever.
Part 5
What have we got to do with the message of the Holy Bible?
1. We have to properly believe that the Bible is God’s word.
We have to believe that the Bible has God’s message to us people.
* We have to believe that God’s word is true.
In John 17:17, as Jesus was talking to God, he said this,
Your word is that true message.
And in John 14:10 Jesus told the people,
I don’t just say whatever I want to say. The father told me what to say.
And in John 14:6 Jesus said,
I am the one that says what is true about God.
* We have to believe that God’s word lasts for ever.
This is in 1 Peter 1:25,
God’s word will never die, it will last for ever. And that is the message about Jesus that God’s people told you.
* We have to believe that God’s word shows us how to live the right way.
Jesus said this in John 8:31-32,
If you keep on following me, and if you do the things I teach you, then you will be my proper followers, and you will know the true message.
2. We have to believe what the Bible says about people, and that means me and you.
This is what it says in Romans 3:10,
Nobody is really good, not even one person.
And this is in Romans 3:23,
We all went the wrong way, and we did bad things. Nobody is properly good, like God wants us to be.
And this is in Galatians 3:22,
God says in his book that everyone does bad things. They can’t stop doing those bad things.
3. We have to do what the Bible says.
That means, we have to do what God says, and what Jesus says.
These are 3 important things we have to do.
a. We have to believe that Jesus died for us, and we have to trust him to save us.
This is in Romans 3:22-25,
God says that if we trust in Jesus, he will save us. It doesn’t matter who we are. God treats everybody the same. We all went the wrong way, and we did bad things. Nobody is properly good, like God wants us to be. But Jesus Christ died for us. He took the payback for those bad things that we did. So now God is really good to us, and he says that we are all right now, and he will not blame us any more. And we don’t have to pay anything. God sent Jesus to die for us, so that, if we believe that Jesus died for us, God is not angry with us any more. Jesus let people kill him, and his blood came out, so now, if we trust him, God says we are all right.
And this is in John 3:16,
God loved everyone so much that he sent them his only son, his special son. God sent him to die instead of them, so that if anyone trusts him, God will not finish them up, but they will live with him for ever.
b. We have to turn away from doing wrong things and turn to God.
Both John the Baptiser and Jesus told people to turn right around and turn to God.
In Mark 1:4 John the Baptiser said this,
You mob have to be really sorry for the wrong way you are living. You have to turn right around and live God’s way.
And in Mark 1:15 Jesus said this,
Now is the right time for God to take people into his family. You mob have to take notice and turn right around and live God’s way. You have to believe this good news.
Jesus’s special followers told people the same message. In Acts 3:19-21 Peter said,
Listen. You mob have to change the way you live, and you have to turn back to God, so that he will not blame you or do payback to you for the bad things you did. Then God will make your spirits happy and strong.
In Acts 17:30-31 Paul told the people,
Now God says to all of us, that we have to turn around and stop doing bad things. And if we don’t stop doing bad things, he will give us big trouble.
You can learn more about this from Luke 13:3 and 15:7, Matthew 4:17, Acts 3:19-21, 1 Peter 3:9-12 and Matthew 7:24-27.
c. We have to let people know that we follow Jesus.
This is in Romans 10:9,
You have to really believe that God made Jesus alive again after he died, and you have to tell people that you belong to Jesus. If you believe like that, and if you talk like that, God will save you.
And this is in Matthew 10:32-33,
Jesus said, “If you tell everyone that you are one of my followers, I will tell God, my father in heaven, that you are one of my followers. But if you tell everyone that you are not one of my followers, I will tell God, my father in heaven, that I don’t know you, and I will tell him that you are not one of my followers.”
4. We have to let the Holy Spirit control us.
The Holy Spirit will change us and make us new, like we get born again as new people. God does that to take us into his family.
In Acts 2:38-39 Peter talked to people that were sorry for the bad things they did. He said,
You have to turn around and follow Jesus. … Then God will … give you the Holy Spirit to live in you.
And this is in John 3:6,
If people get born again from God’s Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit gives new life to their spirits too.
The Bible says this about people that believe in Jesus, in John 1:12-13,
God said they can join his family, and be his own kids. Yes, those people are in God’s family, but they were not born into it the way kids are born into human families. And they did not come from what a human mother or father wanted. God himself gave them new life and made them his kids.
If we let the Holy Spirit control us, he will help us live the right way. This is in Galatians 5:16-18,
So this is what I’m telling you, let God’s spirit control your lives, and you will not do any of those bad things that make you feel good. You see, it is like this. We all have a bad part in us that makes us want to do bad things, to make us feel good. And we also have God’s spirit in us, and he makes us want to do good things. Those 2 are both in you, and they both want to control you, so they are fighting each other inside you all the time. Whenever you listen to God’s spirit and try to do good things, that bad part in you tries to stop you, so you don’t do what you really want to do. But if you let God’s spirit control you, you will do good things.
You can learn more about the Holy Spirit by reading or listening to John 3:3-8, 6:63, 14:15-19, 15:26, 16:5-15 and Galatians 5:24-26.
5. We have to talk about God’s word and teach it to other people.
This is what the Bible tells us.
* God wants us to talk with each other about his word.
This is in Colossians 3:16,
And always think about the message that came from Jesus Christ, so that you follow it all the time. Talk to each other about Jesus’s message, and help each other to follow it properly. Think about it the right way. If anyone starts to get it wrong, straighten each other out.
* God wants us to tell everybody his word.
Just before Jesus went back to heaven, he told his followers this. It is in Mark 16:15,
You have to go out to everywhere in the world and tell everybody the good news about me.
And Jesus said this to his followers in Acts 1:8,
The Holy Spirit will come to you, and he will give you power, and then you will tell people about me … and you will go to people everywhere in the world, and you will tell them about me.
This is in 1 Peter 3:15-16,
People might say to you, “Tell us, why are you sure that God will do good things for you?” So you always have to be ready to help them understand why you are sure. Tell them clearly, and respect them as you talk to them.
This is in Romans 10:13-14,
God says this in his book too, “God will save everybody that calls out to him for help and asks him to save them.” But what about people that don’t believe in God? They can’t call out to him, right? And what about people that have never even heard about Jesus? They can’t believe in him, right? Somebody has to tell them about him, and then they can believe in him.
You can read more about this in Matthew 28:16-20 and Romans 1:15.
Part 6
What does the Holy Bible say about grog and drugs?
1. What does the Bible say about grog?
Grog, and wine, and those kinds of drinks, have a poison called alcohol in them. Alcohol stops our brains from working properly. That is what happens if we get drunk.
So the Bible tells us not to get drunk.
This is in Ephesians 5:18,
Don’t get drunk. If you drink too much grog, you will go wild, and you will do stupid things. Don’t do that, but instead, keep on letting the Holy Spirit come into you and fill you up.
And this is in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10,
I’ll tell you now about the sort of people that will not be in God’s family … people that always get drunk.
In 1 Timothy 3:3 the Bible says that a church leader can not be a drunken man, and in 1 Timothy 3:8 it says the same thing about helpers in the church.
All those verses in the Bible say that it is bad to get drunk. But they don’t say it is bad to drink just a little bit of wine, not enough to start making you drunk.
So it’s all right to drink just a little bit. Even Jesus drank a little bit of wine.
In Matthew 11:19 Jesus said,
Sometimes I go to parties and eat good food, and sometimes I drink wine.
In Mark 14:23-25 the Bible says,
Then Jesus picked up the cup of wine and said thank you to God for it, and he gave it to his followers, and they passed it around, and each of them drank a little bit of wine.
And you know, at that time, 2,000 years ago, the wine was not as cheeky as it is today. People only learned how to make wine more cheeky about 150 years ago. That was a long time after God’s men wrote the Holy Bible. In their time it was not so cheeky, so they had to drink more of it to get drunk.
At that time, 2,000 years ago, houses did not have clean water in pipes and taps, and they did not have flush toilets, so the water that people drank often had bad germs in it, and that made them sick. But alcohol will kill germs, so if people mixed some wine into the water before they drank it, they would not get sick. A little bit of wine in the water would not make them drunk. So, in 1 Timothy 5:23 Paul told Timothy,
By the way, I know that you are often sick in the stomach, so you have to mix a little bit of wine into the water you drink.
We have to think about these things that the Bible says about grog, and then we can know that if we drink a little bit of grog, it is not wrong. But if we get drunk, that is very wrong.
A lot of Christians know that if they taste a little bit of grog they will want to drink more, and if they drink more, they can not control themselves and they will get drunk. So they don’t drink any grog or wine at all. They’ve got good sense. It is better to not drink any grog at all than to lose control of yourself and get drunk.
You know, churches have a ceremony called communion, and in that ceremony the Christians drink a little bit of wine and eat a little bit of bread to remember that Jesus died for us. Some churches don’t use cheeky wine for that ceremony, they just use grape juice that is not cheeky. They do that so that people don’t have to drink any cheeky wine.
In Romans 14, and in 1 Corinthians 8, the Bible teaches us to think about other people too. Maybe if we drink a little bit of wine or grog, other people will think we are not following God. Or maybe if we drink a little bit of wine or grog, other people that don’t know the Bible properly will see us and think it’s all right to drink as much as they feel like drinking, and maybe they will get drunk. Then it is better not to drink any wine or grog in front of those people. God says it’s all right to drink a little bit of wine or grog, but we don’t want to make other people go wrong.
You can learn more about this from 1 Corinthians 5:11-13 and 1 Timothy 3:1-13.
2. What does the Bible say about drugs?
There are other things that hurt our bodies or stop our brains from working properly. They are called drugs. They are things like tobacco, ganja, speed, ice, and petrol.
God’s men wrote the books in the Bible a long time ago. At that time there was no tobacco, no ganja, no speed, no ice, no petrol. And there was none of those other things we call drugs that hurt us or stop our brains from working properly. They only had drinks with alcohol in them, like grog. But we can read what the Bible says about grog, and when we think about it, we can work out what God thinks about drugs. We can work out that God does not want us to use anything that will hurt our bodies or stop our brains from working properly. So he wants us to think the same way about drugs as we do about grog. He does not want us to use drugs, just like he does not want us to get drunk.
Part 7
What does the Holy Bible say about people getting married, and about people having sex with each other?
When the Bible talks about people getting married, it is not just talking about the white-fella way, where they have a wedding ceremony. It is talking about Indigenous people’s way too. It is talking about any man and woman that live together as partners and have sex together. Maybe they had a white-fella wedding ceremony, but maybe they didn’t. It does not matter. The Bible says they are joined to each other, so they are married. That is the way God made them, right from the start.
This is in Genesis 2:23-24,
The man looked at that woman, and he said, “This is really good. Now I have a mate.” … They will join with each other, and their bodies will be like one body.
1. The Bible says that husbands and wives have to love and respect each other.
God wants husbands to love their wives and be good to them, and he wants wives to respect their husbands and be good to them.
This is in Ephesians 5:33,
Every one of you husbands has to love your own wife as much as you love yourself. And every wife has to respect her husband.
And this is in Ephesians 5:22 and 25,
You women that are wives, you have to think about what your husbands want, and agree with them, just like God’s people always have to agree with what our leader, Jesus, wants. … Yes, and you men that are husbands, you have to do your part too. You have to always love your wives properly, just like Jesus Christ loves the people in his church properly.
2. The Bible says that only a man and his wife can have sex together.
That’s the way God made us. You see, right from the start, God made people so that they could have sex with each other, but only as husband and wife.
In Mark 10:6-7 Jesus told the people these words,
God tells us in his book that he made people and everything else. His book says, “He made them man and woman.” And he tells us, “A man will leave his mother and father and marry a woman. The man and his wife will join with each other, and their bodies will be like one body again.”
Those words came from Genesis 1:27 and 2:24.
That is the way God wants us to live. He wants husbands to always love their wives and be good to them, and he wants wives to always respect their husbands and be good to them. If a husband and wife look after each other in that way they will be more happy together. In 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 Paul says,
If a wife needs her husband to sleep with her and do what married people do together, he has to agree to it, to make her happy. And if a husband needs his wife to sleep with him and do what married people do together, she has to agree to it, to make him happy. You see, the wife’s body does not only belong to her, it also belongs to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body doesn’t only belong to him, it also belongs to his wife. So, if your husband or wife wants to sleep with you, to do what married people do together, you can’t say, “No.”
3. The Bible says single people shouldn’t have sex with anyone
Paul wrote this to the single Christians in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 7:8-9,
Now I will talk to you people that are not married. Maybe your wife or husband has died, or maybe you never married anyone. This is what I reckon. Stay single, like me. But you have to control yourself properly. If that is too hard for you, then marry somebody. If you are always wanting to sleep with somebody and do what married people do together, don’t try to stay single.
4. The Bible says it is wrong to have sex with somebody that’s not your husband or wife.
In Mark 10:19 Jesus said,
You know God’s laws. … Don’t sleep with a woman that is not your wife, as if you are married to her.
God says that he can not have you in his family if you are having sex with somebody that you are not married to. This is in 1 Corinthians 6:9,
Don’t let anyone trick you about this. I’ll tell you now about the sort of people that will not be in God’s family. People that sleep with somebody that’s not their wife or husband, as if they are married. Those people will not be in God’s family.
The Bible says we should not even think about having sex with somebody we are not married to.
Jesus said this in Matthew 5:27-28,
You know, the teachers of God’s law tell you this, “Don’t sleep with a woman that is not your wife, as if you are married to her.” But now I’m telling you this. If you look at a woman that is not your wife, and you think about sleeping with her, that is bad too. If you think about doing that, you are going wrong. Thinking about it is just as bad as doing it.
You can learn more about this from 1 Thessalonians 4:2-8, and 1 Corinthians 10:8-11 and 5:11.
5. The Bible says that divorce is not good.
God wants husbands and wives to live together in a happy way. They can not look around and think somebody else might be better, and then get a divorce, and go to that other person. In Mark 10:11-12 Jesus said,
If a man splits up from his wife, and then if he marries another woman, he is sleeping with the wrong woman as if she is his proper wife. But she is not, and he is breaking God’s law, and he is doing wrong to his proper wife. And if a woman splits up from her husband, and then if she marries another man, she is sleeping with the wrong man as if he is her proper husband. But he is not, and she is breaking God’s law, and she is doing wrong to her proper husband.
What if one partner cheats on the other partner and sleeps with somebody else? Do they have to stay together if that happens? Well, when Jesus said that people can not get divorced, he said it is different if one person has been cheating on the other. If one of them did that, then the other one can divorce that one. Jesus said this in Matthew 5:32,
I’m telling you this, husbands and wives have to stay married to each other. Only if a man’s wife sleeps with another man, as if he is her husband, only then can her husband divorce her. But if a wife never does that, then her husband can’t divorce her. If he divorces her, he is forcing her to marry another man and sleep with him, and that is wrong. And the man that marries her is doing wrong too.
But what if your partner does not believe in Jesus? Do you have to stay together? Well, read what the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 7:15-16,
So if you have a husband or wife that is not Christian, and they want to leave you, then you can let them go. Christians don’t have to try to make their partners stay with them if their partners are not Christians. God wants us to be quiet and happy. He doesn’t want us to be arguing and fighting with each other. But if your husband or wife is not Christian, but they agree to stay with you, then don’t leave them. Listen, Christian wife, maybe you can help your husband turn around and let God save him. And listen, Christian husband, maybe you can help your wife turn around and let God save her.
Sometimes a man does not live the right way, but he hits his wife and treats her in a bad way, and sometimes he treats his kids in a bad way too. That sort of man is not living God’s way. Those words from 1 Corinthians let us know that sometimes it is all right for a woman to get away from that sort of man, and to take her kids with her.
You can learn more about this from Mark 10:2-12, and 1 Corinthians 7:10-17, and then 1 Corinthians 13. Think about what those words tell us about the way married people have to treat each other.
6. God made our bodies for good things, so we have to keep them away from bad things.
The Bible has this is in 1 Corinthians 6:13-20,
God made your bodies for you to live his way. You can’t sleep with anyone you want to. You have to use your bodies the way God wants you to use them. You see, our bodies are important to God. Our leader, Jesus died, but then God made him alive again. And God will use his power to make our bodies alive again too. Think about this. God says this in his book, “The man and his wife will join with each other, and their bodies will be like one body.” So, if a man pays a woman money to let him sleep with her, he joins his own body to her body and becomes like one body with her. And you know, your bodies are parts of Jesus Christ’s body. So don’t let part of Jesus’s body join up to the body of a bad woman. No way. But, you know, if you join on to our leader, Jesus, you join your spirit to his spirit, and the 2 of you become like one spirit. So never sleep with anyone that is not your own wife or husband and do what married people do together. Get away from that sort of bad thing. You see, other bad things that you do are outside of your own body. But if you sleep with a person you are not married to, you hurt your own body. And you know, God gave you his spirit, and he lives in you. Your body is the home of the Holy Spirit. You don’t belong to yourself any more, but you belong to God. Remember this, God bought you. He paid a lot for you. So you have to use your body to live for him, to show everyone that God is really great and good.
And this is in Ephesians 5:3-5,
So don’t sleep with somebody that is not your own wife or husband, as if you are married to them. … You are God’s own people, so don’t even think about doing bad things like that. That’s not the way for God’s people to live. And don’t talk in a dirty way or tell dirty jokes, and don’t say stupid things. It’s not right for God’s people to talk like that. Instead, when you talk, you have to thank God a lot. Listen, this is true. If you do those bad and dirty things, you will never get the good things that God gives to his people. It’s like this, if you think in a dirty way, you can’t be in God’s family, you can’t be with Jesus Christ. And if you sleep with somebody that is not your wife or husband, as if you are married to them, you can’t be in God’s family.
7. How can we stop ourselves from having sex the wrong way?
We have to stop thinking about doing bad things. This is in Colossians 3:5,
You have to stop doing bad things. If that bad part inside you wants you to do something bad, don’t do it. It’s like you have to kill that old bad part inside you. Don’t listen to it. Don’t sleep with anyone that is not your wife or your husband, as if you are married to them. And don’t think bad, dirty thoughts. Don’t think about doing bad things.
And we have to control the way we think. This is in Philippians 4:8,
Keep thinking about the things that are true, and the things that people should respect. Keep thinking about the things that are right, and good, and lovely. Think about things that everyone reckons are really good. Think about the things that we can thank God for.
And we have to let the Holy Spirit control us. This is in Galatians 5:19 and 22,
Everybody knows about the bad things that people do to make themselves feel good. They sleep with people that are not their own wives or husbands, and they do what married people do together. They think about dirty things, and then they do those bad things. They don’t try to control their bad thoughts. … But if God’s spirit controls people, he gets them to do good things.
You can also read or listen to Mark 7:20-23 and Ephesians 5:7.
Part 8
What does the Holy Bible say about people fighting?
1. Does the Bible say we can fight with other people?
The Bible tells us to live quietly with everyone, with no fighting.
This is in Mark 9:50,
You have to try to make people’s lives better, and don’t fight with anyone, but live happy and quiet together.
You can also read Matthew 5:23-26.
The Bible tells us not to do payback.
Sometimes other people do something bad to us, or they do something bad to somebody in our family, so we get angry. Is it all right for us to get up and fight that other mob? No. The Bible tells us that if we get angry, we can not stay angry. We have to control ourselves and not hurt anybody. We can not do payback to anyone.
This is in Colossians 3:12-14,
Don’t get angry with other people, even if they give you trouble. Don’t get upset with each other. If somebody does something bad to you, don’t do payback to them. Remember that God doesn’t do payback to you, for the bad things that you do. So don’t do payback to other people. And you really have to love each other properly.
And this is in Ephesians 4:26-27,
If you get angry, don’t do anything wrong. Don’t stay angry all day, but quickly stop being angry. Don’t make it easy for the devil, the boss over the bad spirits, to get you to go wrong.
We have to let the Holy Spirit control us.
The Bible tells that if we let the Holy Spirit lead us, he will help us, so that we will not get angry, but we will love other people.
This is in Galatians 5:22,
If you let God’s spirit lead you, he will get you to love God and to love other people. And you will be happy. And you will feel good and quiet inside yourself so that you will not fight with other people. God’s spirit inside you will help you be good to people and not get angry, even if they give you trouble. And he will get you to be friendly to other people.
The Bible tells us to love our enemies.
Yes, God wants us to love our enemies and pray for them. Jesus said this in Matthew 5:44,
You have to love your enemies too. And if anyone makes trouble for you, pray to God and ask him to be good to them.
And this is in Romans 12:20,
If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. Then they will be sorry and feel shame for the bad things they did to you.
Those verses tell us that it is wrong for people to get angry and fight each other. That means if another person, or another family, or another tribe, if they want to fight you or your family, God wants you to control yourself and not get angry, and not fight them. And we know that if we let God’s spirit control us, he will help us.
You can learn more about this from Matthew 5:9, 2 Timothy 2:22-24 and 1 Peter 3:11-12.
2. Sometimes people fight because they are jealous, and they want somebody else’s partner.
The Bible says this in James 3:14-16,
But if you only think about things that are good for yourself, and if you are jealous of other people, and if you hate other people, you are not thinking God’s way. That’s the devil’s way. … You see, sometimes people get jealous of each other, and sometimes they only do things to make themselves happy, and they don’t think about anyone else. Whenever that happens, those people start fighting each other, and they get into all sorts of trouble.
And this is in James 4:2-3,
You think you really want something a lot, and if you can’t get it, you argue and fight for it. You try to work out ways to trick people, or maybe even kill people, just to get something you want. You don’t ask God for it, and that’s why you don’t get it. And even if you do ask God for something, he doesn’t listen to you. He knows that you are just thinking about yourself. He knows you just want to make yourself happy, and you don’t care about anybody else, so he doesn’t give you that thing you want.
And in Matthew 5:28-29 Jesus said,
If you look at a woman that is not your wife, and you think about sleeping with her, that is bad too. If you think about doing that, you are going wrong. Thinking about it is just as bad as doing it. You see, if things in your life push you to go wrong, then you have to get rid of them, even if it is hard to do.
Jesus said that to men, but it is just as true for women.
So if we feel jealous we have to control ourselves and think about other people, not just think about what we want for ourselves. If we do not do that, we get into big trouble.
Remember that the Bible has this in Galatians 5:22-24,
If God’s spirit controls people, he gets them to do good things. … he will help you to control yourself. And there is no law to stop anybody doing any of those good things. You see, sometimes doing bad things makes people feel good. But people that belong to Jesus Christ stop doing those bad things. That bad part inside them might make them feel like doing those bad things, but they don’t take any notice of it any more.
3. What does the Bible say about husbands and wives fighting each other?
* The Bible tells husbands to love their wives and be good to them.
This is in Ephesians 5:28-29 and 33,
Husbands have to love their wives properly, just like Jesus loves us. You know that everyone loves his own body and looks after it properly. Well, in the same way, husbands have to love their wives and look after them, just as much as they love their own bodies. A man that loves his wife, loves himself. No man ever hates his own body. No, instead he gives it food and takes care of it. … So. … every one of you husbands has to love your own wife as much as you love yourself.
And this is in Colossians 3:19,
You men … have to love your wives properly, and don’t ever be hard on them.
And this is in 1 Peter 3:7,
You men … have to respect your wives and take good care of them. Their bodies aren’t strong like yours. But all of you are God’s people, so God gave them life, just the same as he gave you life. So remember that, and be good to them and respect them. Then God will hear your prayers.
* The Bible tells wives to respect their husbands.
This is in Ephesians 5:22 and 33,
You women that are wives, you have to think about what your husbands want, and agree with them, just like God’s people always have to agree with what our leader, Jesus, wants. … So … every wife has to respect her husband.
And this is in Colossians 3:18,
You women that are wives, you have to think about what your husbands want, and agree with them. That is the right way to follow our leader Jesus.
Those verses tell us that it is wrong for husbands and wives to fight each other.
And remember that if we let God’s spirit control us, he will help us so that we don’t fight with our husband or wife. Remember this message in Galatians 5:22,
If you let God’s spirit lead you, he will get you to love God and to love other people. And you will be happy. And you will feel good and quiet inside yourself so that you will not fight with other people. God’s spirit inside you will help you be good to people and not get angry, even if they give you trouble.
Part 9
What does the Holy Bible say about gambling?
Gambling is doing things to try to get a lot of money, like playing cards for money, or playing the pokies, or betting on race horses, or buying tickets in Keno or Lotto. Why do people do it? Sometimes it is because they love money and they are greedy, so they gamble to get more money for themselves.
1. It is wrong to love money.
The Bible tells us not to love money. So if you gamble because you love money, you are doing something that God says is wrong.
This is in 1 Timothy 6:9-10,
People that try to get lots of money, they let the devil trick them. The devil is the boss over the bad spirits. He gets those people to want things so much that they will do anything to get them. That’s how they fall into the devil’s trap. They do silly things, and bad things too. The devil really wrecks them. If you love money a lot, you will do all sorts of bad things to get it.
And this is in Matthew 6:24,
Jesus told them another picture story. He said, “You can’t work for 2 bosses at the same time. If you try to do that, then you will only like one boss, and you will always work properly for him. But you will not like the other boss, and you will never work properly for him. You see, you can’t have God as your boss, and money as your boss, both at the same time.”
Those verses tell us that it is wrong to love money and it is wrong to let money be our boss. So if you gamble because you love money, you are doing something that God says is wrong.
2. It is wrong to be greedy.
The Bible tells us not to be greedy. If you play cards or gamble because you are greedy and you want more than you have, you are doing what God says is wrong.
This is in Colossians 3:5-6,
Don’t be greedy, wanting lots of money and things. Greedy people respect money and things more than they respect God. You know, some people will not do what God says, and he will be angry with those people, and he will punish them.
And this is in Luke 12:15,
Jesus said to the people, “Think carefully about this. Don’t be greedy. Don’t try to get more things than you need. You can’t get real life from the things you own, even if you are rich.”
You can learn more about this from 1 Corinthians 5:11, Titus 1:7, Luke 12:15, Ephesians 5:3, Philippians 4:11-13, 1 Timothy 3:3 and 8.
All those verses tell us that it is wrong to be greedy, and that we can be happy with what we’ve got. So if you gamble because you love money, that is wrong.
3. We have to work to get money to take care of our family.
The Bible tells us that we have to work to get enough money for the things we need, and to take care of our family.
This is in 1 Timothy 5:8,
If people don’t take care of their own family or their own relatives, they are not doing the thing that Jesus wants us to do.
And this is in 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12,
And don’t be lazy, but work to get enough money to buy whatever you need. Then you will not have to ask other people for things. If you live like that, the people that don’t know God will see that you are good, and they will respect you.
In Acts 20 Paul talked to the Christian leaders at Ephesus. He said this in Acts 20:33-35,
You saw the way that I lived when I was with you. I showed you the right way for a Christian to live. I never wanted to get anyone’s money or good clothes. I always worked to get the money that I needed, and to get money for my friends too. I did everything in a way that showed you that we all have to work hard to get enough money, not just for ourselves, but to give some to people that are short of the things they need. We have to remember that our leader, Jesus, said, “If people give things to you, that can make you a bit happy. But if you give things to other people, you will be properly happy.”
You can also read or listen to 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13.
Part 10
What does the Holy Bible say about teaching kids to live the right way?
The Bible says a lot about teaching kids, but we have not yet translated most of those places into PEV. There are a lot of places in the Old Testament book called Proverbs where it says that we have to teach kids what is right, and to train them to live the right way, and it says to punish them if they go the wrong way. If we punish them, they might cry, but the Bible says that if we do that, the kids will end up thanking us for it. When you think about it, if we don’t do that, they might go the wrong way, and make their lives no good, or maybe end up in jail.
Do we love our kids?
We have not yet translated the New Testament book called Hebrews into PEV, but in Hebrews 12:5-9 it tells us that God really loves us, so he treats us like we are his kids and he trains us to go the right way, and he punishes us if we go the wrong way. He does that so we will live the right way, and we will live in his family for ever. And it says that we have to teach our kids to live the right way too.
Whose job is it to teach kids to live God’s way?
* Is it their father’s job?
In the culture of the people in the Bible it was the job of the kid’s father to teach the kid to live God’s way. So in the places in the Bible that talk about this, it usually talks to the fathers, like in Ephesians 6:4,
Now I’m talking to you fathers. Don’t make your kids angry. But instead, as they are growing up, you have to teach them the way God wants them to live, and show them how to live the right way.
In white-fella culture it is the father’s job, but the mother helps him with it, so it is the mother’s job too.
* Is it their uncle’s job? (That is, their mother’s brother.)
In the culture of a lot of Aboriginal people it is the job of the kid’s uncle to teach the kids about their traditional law and train them to live the right way.
But a lot of people now have to live in two worlds. They live in their traditional world, and they live in the white-fella world. So Aboriginal people have to decide whose job it is to teach their kids to live God’s way. White-fellas can not tell Aboriginal people to do it the white-fella way. Aboriginal people themselves have to work out the way God wants them to do it.
The important thing is that somebody teaches the kids to live the right way. If nobody does that, then we will get trouble, because the kids will go the wrong way and hurt people.
The Holy Spirit will help us do it right.
We can ask the Holy Spirit to show us how to teach our kids properly. Jesus said this in John 14:26,
The father will send the Holy Spirit to help you. He will be your teacher, in my place. … and he will teach you everything you need to know.
And he said this in John 16:13,
After the Holy Spirit comes, he will tell you what is true.
Part 11
What does the Holy Bible say about spirits?
1. God is a spirit and we have to respect him.
This is in John 4:24,
You see, God is a spirit, and the people that really respect him have to know the true story about him, and they have to respect him with their spirits.
We also call God’s spirit the Holy Spirit.
* We have to respect God because he made everything.
God made everything. He made us, and everything else. So we have to respect him properly.
These are the first words in the Bible, in Genesis 1:1,
First of all, a long time ago, God made everything. He made the sky, and he made the earth. He made all the things that are everywhere.
You can learn more about this in Genesis 1-3.
* We have to respect Jesus because he worked with God to make everything.
The Bible has this in 1 Corinthians 8:6,
Jesus Christ worked with God, and together they made everything.
* God and Jesus made spirits as well as people and things.
The Bible has this in Colossians 1:15-16,
Jesus was there with God … They made all the things in heaven, and all the things on the earth. They made the things we can see, and the things we can’t see. They made all the spirits, even the spirit bosses that we can’t see. God worked with his son to make everything, so that now everything has to respect God’s son. Jesus is God’s son, and he is the boss over everything.
This tells us that we only have to show special respect to God, and to his son, Jesus. We don’t have to show that special respect to any spirits that they made.
2. There are good spirits in the world.
The good spirits are usually called angels. That name comes from the Greek word for messenger, so the PEV often has angel messengers. They are God’s messengers and workers that he sends to tell people his special messages, and to do special things for God. These are some of the places in the Bible where we can read about God’s angel messengers.
This is in Luke 1:26-28,
God sent Gabriel, [his] angel messenger, to Galilee country, to a town called Nazareth. He went there to a young girl that was not married. Her name was Mary. … Gabriel came to Mary and said, “Hello, Mary. God loves you and is good to you. He is here with you now, and he will do something good for you.”
And we can read about the time some bosses put Jesus’s special workers in jail, and God sent an angel to free them. This is in Acts 5:19-20,
But that night, God sent an angel messenger to Jesus’s special workers, and he opened the jail doors and let them out. That angel said to them, “Go and stand in God’s ceremony house, and tell all the people there everything about this new life that Jesus gives.”
You can read that whole story in Acts 5:12-42.
And there are many other places in the Bible that tell us about God’s angel messengers and the things they did. Some of those places are Matthew 1:20-21, 4:11, 28:2-4, Luke 1:11-20, 2:8-16, and Acts 8:26, 10:3-8, 12:6-11, 27:23-24.
3. There are bad spirits in the world.
In other English versions of the Bible the bad spirits are sometimes called devils, or sometimes called demons, or sometimes called evil spirits, or sometimes called unclean spirits. The PEV just uses bad spirits. Their boss is called the devil, or Satan, or Beelzebul.
In Ephesians 2:2 Paul wrote this about the devil,
The devil is the boss over those strong bad spirits that are in the air.
* The devil tries to get people to go wrong and do bad things.
This is in 1 Peter 5:8,
You have to think clearly and watch out for your enemy, the devil. He is the boss over all the bad spirits, and he is going around looking for people to trick.
And this is in 2 Timothy 2:26,
You know, the devil, the boss over the bad spirits, he tries to trick people. It is like he sets a trap for them. He catches people in his trap, then he makes them do whatever he wants them to do.
And there are other places in the Bible that show us that the devil tricks people and gets them to do bad things. Some of those places are Ephesians 2:2 and 1 Timothy 4:1, and in John 13:1-2 and 27, Acts 5:3, John 8:44, Mark 4:15, and Luke 13:16. You can think about those verses and learn more from them.
4. That bad spirit mob are enemies of God.
And if we follow Jesus and live his way, the bad spirits are our enemies too. We are at war with them.
In Ephesians 6:12-18 Paul wrote this,
You see, we are not fighting against people, but we are fighting against a big mob of bad spirits. We are fighting against the bad spirit bosses that we can’t see in this bad world. And we are fighting against the powerful bad spirits that live above the earth too. So you have to use all the special gear that God gives you, so that you can stand up to those bad spirits whenever they come at you, and they will not win. And at the end of the fight, you will still be standing strong. So put on that special gear from God, so you can stand up against the devil. This is what that gear is.
– You know that a soldier wears a belt, to hold his clothes on tight, so he can move quickly in a fight. Well, just like that, you take notice of what is true, so you can fight better against the devil.
– And a soldier wears an iron plate, to stop the enemy from hitting his chest. Well, you have to always do what is right, and that will be like an iron plate for you, to stop the devil from hitting you.
– And a soldier wears special shoes, so that he can always be ready to fight. Well, you have to remember the good news about Jesus, that he makes us God’s friends. Then you will be ready to fight the devil.
– You know that a soldier always has a shield, to stop the spears that the enemy throws at him. In the same way, you have to always trust God. Whenever you do that, it is like you are holding up a shield that stops the things that the devil throws at you. They are like burning spears, but if you trust God, he will stop them and put them out.
– And a soldier wears an iron hat, that stops the enemy from hurting his head. Well, you remember that God has saved you. That will be like an iron hat for you, to keep you safe.
– And you know the long knife a soldier has, called a sword? He uses it to fight back against his enemy. Well, in the same way, you can use God’s word to fight back against the devil, and the Holy Spirit will help you.
And always pray in the way that God’s spirit leads you. Pray about every problem, and pray in all sorts of ways, and ask God for whatever you need.
If we stay strong for Jesus, we will win in the end. This is in Romans 8:31,
We are on God’s side. He is with us, so it doesn’t matter who is against us, they can’t win against God.
And this is in Romans 8:38-39,
I’m really sure that nothing at all can make God stop loving us. … Those bad spirits, they can’t make him stop loving us.
You can learn more about the devil and those bad spirits in John 16:11 and Mark 3:23-26.
5. God and Jesus are more powerful than the devil and his bad spirit mob.
This is in 1 Peter 3:22,
All the angels, and all the bad spirits, and all the bosses everywhere, they haven’t got as much power as Jesus. No. He is the strongest one anywhere. He has more power than all of them.
And this is in Ephesians 1:19-22,
God is stronger and more powerful than anyone, and … he will use his power to do good things for all of us that trust him.
God is very powerful. You see, people killed Jesus Christ, but God used his power to make him alive again, and to take him up into heaven. That shows that God is really powerful. Then God put Jesus in the most important place in heaven. He is sitting right next to God, on his right-hand side. Jesus is now the biggest boss. He is bigger than all the other bosses everywhere, and he is bigger than all the spirits everywhere. He is the big boss over everyone in this world now, and he’s the big boss over everyone in the world that will come later. Not one of them is stronger than Jesus. Only Jesus has God’s power. God made Jesus the boss over everyone. It’s like everything is under Jesus’s feet.
6. God and Jesus can stop bad spirits so that they can not make us go wrong, and he can stop them so that they can not hurt us.
This is in Romans 16:20,
You know, Satan, the boss over the bad spirits, he tries to get you to go wrong. But God is stronger than Satan. God is the one that makes us happy and quiet inside ourselves. And he will beat Satan, so that Satan can’t do anything to you any more.
And this is in Colossians 1:13-14,
You know, the boss over the bad spirits always used to push us to do bad things. It’s like we were in a bad place, where he is the boss. But God sent his son, Jesus, to get us out of that place. He took the payback for us, so that now God will not punish us. He set us free from that bad boss, and now we belong to the family of God’s son.
This is in James 4:7,
So listen to God, and follow him, and do what he says. Fight back against the devil, the boss over the bad spirits. Whenever he tries to get you to go wrong, just tell him to be quiet, and don’t listen to him. Then he will leave you, and he will run away from you.
This is in 2 Thessalonians 3:3,
Jesus, our leader, is always good to us, and he always does what he promised to do. He will help you to keep on trusting him strongly. He will keep you safe from that really bad one, the boss over the bad spirits, so that he can’t touch you.
Those verses show us that Jesus can stop bad spirits from hurting us, and we can fight back against the devil. So if anyone tells us that we have to show respect to a bad spirit, or that they will sing us and hurt us, we just have to trust Jesus and say “No. My God will look after me.” Then Jesus will stop all those bad spirits and keep them away from us.
There is more in the Bible about the way that God and Jesus have power over bad spirits. You can learn more from John 12:31-33, Ephesians 6:10-18, Philippians 2:9-11, Colossians 2:10, Romans 8:38-39, and Mark 5:1-20.
Sometimes people get frightened when a baby or a little kid cries. Some people think that a bad spirit will hear that kid and will come and hurt them. That message is not in the Bible, so I reckon it comes from the devil. Do not believe it. Just remember that Jesus will stop bad spirits from hurting us.
7. One day Jesus will finish up all that bad spirit mob.
This is in 1 Corinthians 15:23-24,
After Jesus comes back, all his people will live again too. Then Jesus will finish up all the bad spirits. Some of them are bosses, and some of them have power. He will take away their power, and he will finish them all up. Then the end will come.
You can also read Matthew 25:41 and Jude 1:6.
8. We can not show respect to bad spirits.
We have to show respect to God but we can not show respect to bad spirits, or to anything that has a bad spirit in it. This is in Galatians 4:3, 8-9,
The bad spirits that are the bosses over this world, they were our bosses. … At first you didn’t know God. Those other bad spirits were your bosses. Those spirits are not gods at all, but you couldn’t get free from them. But then you heard about Jesus, and now you do know God, or really, God knows you. So don’t turn back now to those weak and useless spirits that are the bosses over this world. Don’t let them be your bosses again.
At the time when God’s men wrote the Holy Bible, people used to make statues and show respect to them. This is in 1 Corinthians 8:4-6,
We know that there is only the one God. But some people that are not Christians, they respect lots of spirits. They respect spirits in the sky, and spirits on the earth. And they think those spirits are gods, and they let those spirits be their bosses. And people make statues that they think look like those spirits, and they think those statues get power from those spirits. But we Christians know that those statues are nothing at all. We know there is only one God. He is our father. He made everything, and we want to do whatever he wants, as long as we live. And there is only one true boss. He is Jesus Christ. He worked with God, and together they made everything. And Jesus gives us Christians real life.
And this is in 1 Corinthians 10:19-22,
You see, this is what I’m saying. Those statues that people think are gods, they are really nothing. … Really, those people are showing respect to bad spirits, not God, and they are joining themselves to bad spirits. Don’t do that. I don’t want you to join up with bad spirits. You can’t go 2 ways at the same time. You can’t drink from the cup of our leader, Jesus, and then drink from the cup of bad spirits. You can’t eat the damper from the table of Jesus, and then eat food from the table of bad spirits. If you do, you will make God jealous, and he will get angry with you.
Part 12
What does the Holy Bible say about things in our culture?
1. We all have our own culture.
All nations of people have their own culture, and they are different from each other. Some of the things in our cultures are about spirits, and other things in our cultures are about the way we live with our families, and about how we get our food, and about our language, and those sorts of things. And some ceremonies in our culture might be for giving respect to a spirit, and some ceremonies might be for other things.
2. How can we know if something in our culture is good or bad?
a. We have to think about what the Bible says, and take notice of it.
We know that the Bible is God’s word. This is in 2 Timothy 3:16,
Everything in God’s book comes from God himself. It was God that sent the message to people to write down, and God uses it now to teach us his true word, and he uses it to get us to understand the things that are wrong with our lives, and to straighten us out, and he uses it to teach us to do the things that are right.
So we always have to take notice of the Bible, and we have to do what God wants us to do. We can not do anything that God says is wrong.
We can think about the laws and ceremonies in our culture, and we have to think about what the Bible says too. If we think about a law, we have to ask ourselves, “Is this law right? Or is it wrong? Is this the way God wants us to live?” If we think about a ceremony, we have to ask ourselves, “Does this ceremony show respect to a bad spirit, or does it show respect to God? Or is it just a fun thing that is all right?”
There can be things that are wrong in any culture. There are a lot of things in white-fella culture that are wrong. For example, white-fella culture and laws say it’s all right for two people that haven’t got partners to have sex with each other if they want to. But the Bible says we can only have sex with our partner, that is, the person we are married to in the Aboriginal way, or married to in the white-fella way. (See part 7.) So that bit of white-fella culture is wrong.
God wants Christian white-fellas to keep away from everything in their culture that is wrong, even if their family and friends don’t agree with them leaving those things, and even if their family and friends make trouble for them.
And it is the same for Christian Indigenous people. God wants them to keep away from everything in their culture that is wrong, even if their family and friends don’t agree with them leaving those things, and even if their family and friends make trouble for them.
b. We have to think about how to love God and people.
Remember what Jesus told us in Mark 12:29-39,
The most important law is this one. … “You have to love God properly, not just a little bit. You have to love God from right inside yourself. You have to love God in the way you feel, and in the way you think. And you have to love God in the way you do things.”
The 2nd most important law is this one, “You have to love other people just as much as you love yourself.”
Those 2 laws are the strongest and most important laws.
We have to follow those 2 important laws, even if we go against our culture to do them.
c. We have to ask God to help us.
We need God’s help to work out what is right and what is wrong in our culture. This is in James 1:5,
So if you want to properly understand what is the right thing to do, and if you want to learn how to be strong when you get trouble, just ask God to help you. He will not be angry with you. He is happy when you ask him for help like that, and he will help you, and make you think properly. He will make you think the right way so that you will do the right thing.
d. The Holy Spirit will help us.
Remember what Jesus said to his followers, in John 16:13,
After the Holy Spirit comes, he will tell you what is true.
And remember this, in Ephesians 6:17,
You can use God’s word to fight back against the devil, and the Holy Spirit will help you.
e. If people give you trouble, stay strong for God.
Maybe we will think about what God says, and we will work out that something in our culture is wrong, so after that we will not do it. Then maybe people will make trouble for us. But we will be happy anyway, because we know that we will be doing what God wants. Jesus said this is in Matthew 5:10,
Some people do what is right, but some other people don’t like it, and they make trouble for those good people. But God takes those good people into his family, and they will be really happy.
And this is in 1 Peter 4:16,
If people give you trouble because you follow Jesus, don’t feel shame. No. Just thank God that you belong to Jesus.
And this is in Romans 12:12,
If people give you trouble now, don’t worry. But stay strong for God. And keep on talking to God about everything.
3. What about Dreamings in Aboriginal culture?
Are Dreamings good spirits from God, or are they bad spirits from the devil’s mob that are tricking people? Or are they not spirits at all, but maybe they are things in stories to show Aboriginal people that they are properly Aboriginal? Or what are Dreamings? The white-fellas can not really say. It is up to Aboriginal Christians to find out what is right in their culture, just like white-fella Christians have to find out what is right in white-fella culture.
This is in Acts 17:26-28,
And God gave each tribe their own country, and he planned where they will live and how long they will live there. He did that so that we can look for him, and maybe we can find him. But really, he is not very far away from any of us. That old story is true that says, “He is with us all the time. He is the one that makes us alive, so that we can walk about and do things.”
That was in the message Paul gave to some people that made statues and showed respect to them. Then Paul told them this, in Acts 17:29-31,
We shouldn’t just dream up something and then make a statue like that from gold or silver or stone, and say, “My god looks like this.’’ No way. Nobody can make any sort of statue that is anything like God. You see, at first people didn’t know about God, but at that time he didn’t worry about it. Now it is different. Now he says to all of us, that we have to turn around and stop doing bad things.
From those words we know that, even though God didn’t try to straighten out people in the past, it is different now. He now wants everyone to live his way.
The Bible has this is in Colossians 2:8,
Some people might try to make you believe some ideas about God that are wrong. Those ideas didn’t come from Jesus Christ, but they came from bad spirits, and from the people of this world. People taught those ideas to their kids, and to their grand-kids. But those ideas are not true. They might sound good, but they are tricky lies. Be careful. Don’t believe them.
And this is in 1 Thessalonians 5:20-22,
Don’t rubbish God’s messages, but listen carefully when anyone tells you a message from God. Think carefully about everything they say, and find out if it really comes from God. Then, if it is right, be careful to remember it and to do those good things. But if it is wrong, or if it tells you to do a bad thing, don’t do it. Keep away from every sort of bad thing, and don’t listen to messages that don’t come from God.
And this is in Acts 4:12,
Jesus is the only one that can save people. God didn’t send anyone else to save us. Jesus is the only one in the world that has power to save people.
You can also read Matthew 7:13-20, and John 1:1-30.
So what now?
After you have read this little book you have to think about the words from the Holy Bible that are in it. They tell us that God made everything. He made people, and he wants them to be in his family. But the Bible tells us that we have to trust Jesus, and we have to live the good way he wants us to live.
And God made spirits too. There are bad spirits in the world, and their boss is Satan. He is the one that tries to make us go wrong. But the Bible also tells us that Jesus is more powerful than Satan and all that bad spirit mob, and one day he will finish them up. Jesus can stop those bad spirits from hurting us. So we have to show respect only to God and to Jesus. If there is anything in our culture that gets us to show respect to bad spirits, we can not follow that part of our culture. We have to leave it.
God gives us that message from the Holy Bible.