Who We Are
We are a family, and friends, who have chosen to follow the call of the Master, the Lord Jesus Christ. We love the Lord and His Word and we try to walk in the footsteps that He has laid out for us. Everything we do is centered around His Word, which reveals His ways. We have been trained in inductive Bible study and wish to share it with as many people as possible.
Sharon Jensen, Director of Word Center Ministries, has been an accomplished Bible teacher for 30 years, teaching internationally and here in the states. She was a missionary with Campus Crusade for Christ for 10 years as well as serving for decades as a Precept Ministries Leader and as an interim Professor at St James Bible College in Ukraine during the late 1990’s. She studies, practices, and teaches God’s Word with passion and excitement. Her expository teaching audios are available online to help you study the Bible for yourself. She is the author of “HIStory: From Event To Event The Bible Is One Story” (an inductive study of the entire Bible), Word Center Ministries' Observation Bible Study Guides, and Zealous for HIS Glory! blog. Sharon also composes, plays keyboard, and creates our Settled Scroll Scripture Designs.
Caleb Jensen, Sharon’s son and Co-Director of Word Center Ministries, has been studying the Word of God inductively most of his life. He is the leader of the band MASKIL and, along with being a singer/songwriter, produces his own music. He is now recording his second album, “A Clean Heart”. Check out his first album, “Now I Will Arise!”. He plays a variety of instruments, including drums and percussion, several forms of guitars and ukuleles (he also plays bass or piano in a pinch).
What We Do
Word Center Ministries’ purpose is to serve the Lord God and His people by encouraging and helping you to study God's Word.
Through this website we provide free access to Bible Study materials for all who will listen to God in His Word. Our resources include expository teaching audios and Observation Bible Study Guides available for 36 books of the Bible (with the rest on the way). We offer Zealous for HIS Glory! blog and an entire collection of Scripture Designs in Settled Scroll, all free to print for yourself. "HIStory: From Event To Event The Bible Is One Story", an inductive study of the entire Bible (along with the visual companion HIStory Timeline and HIStory Flash Cards), is available for download or hard-copy purchase, as well as MASKIL’s first album “Now I Will Arise!” (word for word songs from the Bible). We are working hard to help you study every book of the Bible—this is our life’s work.
If you want to hear God and know Him, there is no substitute for diligent personal inductive Bible study. The Lord commands everyone to intently listen to Him in His Word—"Belief and Obedience" is always the appropriate and right response upon hearing. Our prayer is that you will Listen to God in His Word, Believe Him, and Obey Him in order to bring Him Glory!
What We Believe
We believe that the Bible is inspired, the only inerrant and authoritative Word of God.
We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
We believe in the Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, His virgin birth, His sinless life, His miracles, His substitutionary and atoning death through His shed blood, His bodily resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the Father, His present ministry of intercession for the believer, and His future personal bodily return in all power and glory.
We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful man, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.
We believe that a repentant person is justified by grace through faith alone in the Lord Jesus Christ.
We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by Whose indwelling the Christian is progressively sanctified and finally glorified.
We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost: the saved to eternal life, and the lost to eternal death.
We believe in the spiritual unity of true believers in our Lord Jesus Christ and that we ought to manifest that unity wherever and whenever possible.
The above is our formal declaration of faith. Below is our relaxed version. You might want to go get a cup of tea...
We believe everything God says in His Word...
Everything in the Bible is written by Him and He used men through His Holy Spirit to write it. We are personally convinced that studying the Bible inductively, one book at a time, is the best way to study His Word. And yet, despite man’s responsibility to diligently study God’s Word, ultimately God must open your eyes, ears, and mind to see, hear, and understand the things He says in His Word.
The Bible is the full revelation of God, Himself, and His ways. There is nothing that can be known about God in this present age that is not taught in the Bible. By full revelation we mean that it is complete and nothing can ever be added to it. It is also full in the sense that it is everything we need to know about Him, although it is not all there is to know about Him. True Believers will someday be with Him, and will then see and know Him as He is.
God is the only God and yet He exists in three persons. God is the true God, the living God, the everlasting King. God is eternal and before He ever created His universe He existed in His Glorious Glory beyond the horizon of eternity past.
God created His creation for His Glory to be seen and all of His creation, especially mankind, has a responsibility to “respond rightly” to their Creator. Adam, the first man, responded wrongly by disobeying his Creator in the very beginning of earth’s existence and as a result immediately died spiritually and eventually physically. God promised Adam and Eve that He would bring Spiritual Life to them through The Seed of the woman. The Promised Seed would be Jesus of Nazareth, God’s Son, and therefore GOD, while at the same time He was fully man.
Man was given the command to spread out on the earth and fill it. This was to bring Glory to God. Mankind had been created in God’s image, and if men obeyed their Creator they would bring Glory to Him since God’s commands would bring behavior to men which would point to God. (I.e. God is righteous and God commanded men to be righteous; God is holy and God commanded men to be holy to Him; God does not lie and God commanded men not to lie.) Men (holy righteous men) would paint a picture of God on this earth and bring Glory to Him through their words and actions—they would give an accurate estimate of God.
However, men did not bring Glory to their Creator (the purpose of their existence) because of the continual rebellion against their Creator so God destroyed the distorted image of His Glory they had become; all except for Noah’s family. God had favor on Noah because He had promised that The Seed would come through woman; therefore, He needed to keep at least one man and woman alive on earth so they could reproduce. All of the people who have lived since the time of the flood are descendants of Noah.
As men increased after the flood, so did their sin. They finally decided to rebel against God’s preeminent command—to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it. They were willing to be fruitful and they were willing to multiply and they were willing to subdue the earth—but they would not fill the earth. Instead, they wanted to stay where they were and make a name for themselves rather than for God—to bring glory to themselves instead of to God.
But God had not changed His plan to bring Glory to Himself through a planet filled with righteous men in His Own image. His created men would not obey Him and scatter in order to fill the earth, so He scattered them Himself. How? He created nations out of all the peoples by confusing the one language which all men had previously spoken. All the people who found others they could understand grouped together and went off to live together in different places on the earth. As they procreated, they began to fill the earth.
Out of all the newly formed nations, God chose one man out of one nation to become a special nation. He called him out of the area of Babylon (present day Iraq) and brought him to the land of Canaan (present day Israel). He made a Covenant with this man and changed his name from Abram to Abraham. He made promises as part of His Covenant, one of which was a New Covenant which would be The Seed, Jesus. He promised that The Seed would come from Abraham’s progeny, and that Abraham and his descendants would inherit the land to which Abraham followed God. That land is much larger than the present day boundaries of Israel. He promised that Abraham would become a great nation (the nation of Israel), and that all the nations would be blessed through him.
Abraham had a son called Isaac, Isaac had a son called Jacob, and Jacob had twelve sons who were named… well… we’ll pass on that one. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel and his twelve sons became the twelve tribes of Israel. Of those twelve sons, God appointed Judah to be the carrier the The Seed.
Israel, the nation which came from Abraham, was in Egypt for 430 years, 400 of which were years in slavery. God chose Moses to be Israel’s deliver and He took His nation to Mt. Sinai. There He gave her His laws because He was Israel’s true King.
God commanded Moses to build a tabernacle, using the pattern of the heavenly place where God dwelt, which would be used to allow the Israelites access to God. The Glory of God filled the tabernacle once it was built. The tabernacle itself was a picture of the New Covenant God had promised to Abraham. Jesus would be that New Covenant.
God cut a Covenant at Mt. Sinai with the nation of Israel, using Moses as the mediator. This became known as the Covenant of Law, the Mosaic Law, or the Old Covenant. The people agreed to the Covenant and said they would keep it.
The agreement was this: if they obeyed God, He would bless them and give them life and prosperity; if they disobeyed God, He would curse them and give them death and adversity. Plus, they would be taken out of the land they were supposed to be possessing (this turned out to be their 430 year trip to Egypt).
Everything in the Old Covenant was a picture of the New, which would come in the Messiah (Jesus). The Abrahamic Covenant was a promise of the New Covenant. The Mosaic Covenant was a picture of the New Covenant. Jesus is the reality of the New Covenant.
God took His people from Mt Sinai to the land of Canaan/Israel, but because of their unbelief (disobedience) they were to be led through the wilderness for 40 years before entering to possess the land promised to Abraham. By withholding the land and giving them adversity, God was keeping His Covenant that He made with His people, Israel, at Mt. Sinai because they had disobeyed Him.
Joshua took the people into the promised land and battled the inhabitants in order to take possession of it. In giving Israel the present day land of Israel (Canaan), God was keeping the previous Covenant He had made with Abraham.
God then sent judges to rule His people, Israel, in the land of Canaan. The judges and the people followed a disastrous habit of doing what they wanted instead of doing what God wanted. Again, keeping His Covenant, God would send in a nation to punish them, the people would cry out to God to deliver them (and He would) but once they were safe they started sinning again and the entire cycle would repeat itself.
Finally the people came right out and said, “We don’t want God to rule over us any longer. We want to have a “real” king like all the rest of the nations get to have.” Israel rejected God as her king and He gave them a human king like they wanted.
He knew, however, that having a human king would and could not deliver His people from their sin.
David was the second king of Israel and God made a Covenant with him. God promised David that he would always have an heir on the throne of Israel, but his sons were required to be righteous. This Covenant looked forward to the True Everlasting King who would come as The Seed promised in the aftermath of Adam’s sin.
Only a God King could rule in righteousness. Only a sinless man could deliver them from their sin. Jesus was that God and He would become that man.
David wanted to build God a great house, or temple, in which to dwell. God decided that David’s son, Solomon, would be the one to build it. When it was finished it was great and grand and God filled it with His Glory.
Solomon, however, sinned greatly and God split the Kingdom of Israel into two separate kingdoms. There was still only one nation, but now there were two kingdoms, the Northern Kingdom (ten of the tribes) and the Southern Kingdom (two of the tribes). The Southern Kingdom was called Judah and would carry the line of The Seed.
Sure enough, the earthly kings did not keep the people from sinning (mostly because they were too busy sinning themselves) so God sent His prophets to them time and time and hundreds of times again. The prophets warned the people of their fate if they did not repent of their sin. The people seldom repented and many times instead murdered God’s prophet. God kept His Covenant and eventually brought the Assyrian nation southwest to take the Northern Kingdom captive.
You would think that the Southern Kingdom would have taken note and adjusted their sinful ways before God (God was obviously serious about His Covenant) yet sadly, they did nothing of the kind. Instead, they acted more wickedly than the Northern Kingdom ever had. Ultimately God brought the Babylonians west to take the Southern Kingdom captive.
They would not return to Israel and God's beloved city, Jerusalem, for 70 years.
While the Southern Kingdom was in captivity in Babylon, God continued to speak to His people through His prophets. Through Jeremiah and Ezekiel, God promised to send a New Covenant; a Covenant that was better than the Old Covenant. (After all, they were in captivity because they had broken the Old Covenant.) In the New Covenant, God would keep their side of the Covenant so they would not—could not—break it. He would give them a new heart—one that was sensitive to God’s touch, and a new spirit—one that wanted to do the will of God, and He would place His Own Holy Spirit inside of them to cause them to walk in His ways.
Wow! Oh, wow! Oh, wow! Oh, wow! Oh, wow!!! What a Covenant! What a Covenant keeping God!!!
While the Southern Kingdom was in captivity in Babylon something else very important and very terrible happened. Because the people continued in their sin, the Glory of God left the temple, and left the city of Jerusalem...
After 70 years in Babylon, God brought the Southern Kingdom of Judah back to the land of Israel. Those few who came back to Jerusalem rebuilt the walls, the city, and the temple, but those who were old enough to remember the original temple wept loudly at the sight of the new temple’s foundation because it was so small and inglorious compared to the temple which had been built in the time of Solomon.
Hmmm… You might want to go get a fresh cup of tea...
God’s people had short periods of obedience here and there, but ultimately their sin continued and increased. God called His people back to Himself through the prophet Malachi, but then He was quiet and sent no more prophets for 400 years.
Besides calling the nation of Israel to repent, the prophet Malachi prophesied that God would send a Messenger of the Covenant which would be Jesus, and a messenger of the Messenger, which would be John the Baptist. And sure enough, true to His Word, God sent John the Baptist (a prophet). John the Baptist broke the 400 year silence of the Lord by crying out God’s message of the Kingdom of heaven.
What was that message? It was, “Repent! For the Kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
Why was that the message? Because John was sent as the forerunner of the Covenant, who was Jesus, the King of the Kingdom of heaven. A forerunner is someone who goes before an important person in order to “make the way straight” for the important person. What could make the King’s road to His throne straighter than to get rid of the rebellion of the people of His Kingdom?
When King Jesus appeared, He too proclaimed the message of the Kingdom which was still (and still is, by the way) “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
Jesus was the Son of God, He was the One promised so very long ago by God as The Seed who would come to bring life to men.
How would The Seed bring life? Just like seeds on our earth show us, He would be killed, buried, and brought to life again in order to produce many more seeds which would be taken from its plant and produce more life by being killed, buried and brought to life again in order to produce many more seeds which would be… well, I think you can see the cycle. Jesus began the true cycle when He was killed, buried, and resurrected as the first of many brethren. True brethren will go through the same cycle in order to fill the earth and bring Glory to God (Does that remind you of God's same command to both Adam and to Noah?)
When God sent His Son, The Seed, Jesus, He made sure that the world would recognize Him by anointing Him. The word for “anoint" means to be marked out as the “one” by smearing it with paint or some form of mark.
How did God anoint Jesus Christ? God, throughout the Old Testament, gave prophecy after prophecy concerning The Seed. He told the world when and where the Messiah would come, what He would do and say, and what would happen to Him.
How did Jesus display the anointing? What was the mark God put on Him? The Jews could recognize Jesus as the Christ through the details surrounding His birth, Jesus’ preaching, teaching, prayers, healings, and miracles. The Old Testament gave them hundreds of signs that Jesus truly was the Promised One, The Seed, The Christ. The annointing was as clear as a billboard to anyone who would simply look.
But the lost sheep of the house of Israel would not recognize their Savior, they would not recognize the time of their visitation, the time when He came to take care of their spiritual need and save them from the death inherited from their father, Adam, and give them the life of their Savior promised to Adam so long ago.
Ultimately Israel’s rejection of their Savior brought about His rejection of them. He would not reject them forever, in fact any Jew who believes in Jesus as Messiah will be given life, and eventually the entire nation of Israel will be saved. In the meantime the offer of life, the gospel, would be given to the rest of the nations (called the Gentiles in the New Testament. By the way, if you are not a Jew then you are considered part of the nations; unless you have received the love of the Truth so as to be saved!)
Jesus was the Lamb of God, God’s own sacrifice, to pay for the sins of all people who would believe that this was the only way to be saved from the wrath of God, to receive eternal life, to be reconciled to God. If you want to be saved from the wrath of God (and who wouldn't if they really understood what is at stake here) you must believe that righteousness before God can come only through faith in the spotless Lamb of God, His own Son, Jesus, the Savior.
In God’s perfectly appointed time, He put His Son to death for my sins instead of putting me to death for my sins. He put His Son to death for your sins instead of putting you to death for your sins. If you believe in what God has done through Jesus, in what Jesus has done for you, and repent of your sins, God’s wrath will be withdrawn from you and instead, you will receive eternal life—union with God, and blessings too wonderful to comprehend.
Why does God exempt you from His wrath when you repent and trust in Jesus’ sinless life and perfect blood to save you? Because God put His wrath on Jesus while He was on the cross for you, instead of on you. Jesus has paid the debt you owed (your life) for your sin.
Jesus was buried, a sign that He was truly dead, and God raised Him to life showing that He accepted Jesus’ payment for sin. He was witnessed by hundreds and hundreds of people. And just like a seed, The Seed, once raised to life, would produce more life. He was the firstborn of many brethren who would believe.
For those who put their trust in Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection in their stead, they too, are spiritually crucified, buried and raised to walk in newness of life; the same life Jesus lives, they live—a life lived unto God. They are given the promises of the New Covenant—a new heart which is sensitive to the touch of God, a new spirit that wants to walk in the ways of God, and the Holy Spirit which causes them to walk in the ways of God.
Finally, when Jesus’ testimony was finished, He returned to heaven and His Father, God. He was lifted up out of the sight of His disciples in a cloud. He gave them His last instructions; they were to wait in Jerusalem for power from on high, the Holy Spirit, which Jesus, Himself, would pour forth for them. God had promised to give Jesus the Holy Spirit when He had accomplished His important work on earth successfully. Jesus had indeed finished His work on earth, His work being to pay the ransom for mankind with His Own perfectly sinless life, and He was successful in every detail.
While Jesus was on earth accomplishing His unimaginably, unbearable task for the Father, the Jews had refused to recognize Jesus as the One God promised to Adam and Eve way back in the Garden of Eden; the One promised to bring life—The Seed. Therefore they would be put on the back burner in God’s economy, so to speak. He was not finished with them yet, that was impossible, but He would turn His attention to building a church, those who would believe and put their trust in His Son. He put a partial hardening on their “belief abilities” until a later day, a time during the Day of the Lord.
He will, though, come again and save the entire nation of Jews living at that time. But until that blessed day, they are being set aside and purified, a necessary trial because they are the wife of God and will be so for all of eternity. Their anguish will come to a horrific climax in the final three and one-half years, called the Great Tribulation, (that is when God's bowls of wrath will be poured out and emptied on those who live on the earth—the last half of Daniel's 70th week) before Jesus ultimately comes and delivers them from it.
At that time an evil supernatural man, known as the anti-Christ will be ruling savagely over the earth, his every effort spent in destroying the Jews, God’s beloved people. His partner will be an abominable false-prophet who does false signs and miracles before the eyes of the entire world. The whole world will follow and worship this beast, this lawless one, this one called the anti-Christ.
Once Jesus left the earth, His disciples stayed in Jerusalem just as He commanded them, and waited for the Promise of the Holy Spirit. On the Day of Pentecost (fifty days after Jesus, the Lamb from God, was sacrificed on the Day of Passover), true to His Word, Jesus poured forth the Holy Spirit on His followers. This day marked the beginning of the church, a group of believers in Jesus, the Christ. This body of believers would be responsible to carry the message of Jesus, the Promised One who had come to bring eternal reconciliation with the God of the universe, and urge anyone that would, to trust in Him for their own salvation from the wrath of God.
The time of the church is our present day. It started on Pentecost 2,000 years ago and will continue here on earth until Jesus comes to get all of us (commonly called the Rapture) in order to be married to the Lamb. That’s right, the Lamb of God will be wed to everyone who believes during this present time.
While we wait for our bridegroom we are to walk according to the instructions He has given us. In actuality, we find our instructions in the entire Bible, but specific orders for the church are given in the Epistles of the New Testament. To walk according the command of the Lord shows the world who God is and brings Him Glory.
The Jews are being purified for God during this present time and the church is being made holy during this same duration of time. Both are anxiously awaiting their Messiah, the Jews believe it will be His first appearance because they didn’t believe Jesus to be their Messiah when He came to earth 2,000 years ago, and the church waits for the catching up of all the saints, the Rapture.
No one knows for certain when the Rapture will take place, but we know it will be before Jesus comes in Glory to save Israel and judge the earth. At the Rapture Jesus will come in a cloud and catch all true Christians together up to Himself in that cloud, and it will all happen in the twinkling of an eye, in just a nanosecond, or less, of time.
At the Second Coming, however (different than the Rapture), Jesus will come all the way to earth and everyone will see Him coming in great power and majesty. The Jews will mourn because they will realize Jesus has been their Messiah all along, and that they crucified Him instead of embracing Him. All Jews that have survived the horrific tribulation of those days will be saved on that wonderful day.
His Glorious return will be the end of the world’s understanding of government as we now know it and the beginning of the reign of the Lord of all the earth. He will rule the world with a rod of iron, one that causes the peoples of this planet to obey Him. It won’t be a time of perfect people, but it will be a time of perfect rule by the One and only Lord of lords and King of kings—Jesus is His Name!
The rule of Jesus on this present earth will last for 1,000 years. Satan, the serpent of old, the one who tempted Adam and Eve back in the Garden of Eden will be bound in a pit during those 1,000 years. At the end of the Millennial Reign, however, Satan will be let loose and he will be able to gather men from all corners of the earth to unite against the King of kings. Does that speak about the evil heart of man or what? They will gather around (and against) Jerusalem one last time. In fact, everything they do will be the last time because before they are ever able to wage war against Jesus, the Lord of the earth and Jerusalem, His holy dwelling place, God will send a devouring fire from heaven to burn them up. That will be the last rebellion... by anyone or anything… ever… against God.
God will also burn up the heavens and the earth. He will sit on His white throne and judge all live and dead unbelievers to determine their individual addresses in the second death, the lake of fire. The anti-Christ, the false prophet, Satan, death, and Hades will each be thrown into the lake of fire that will burn forever.
But there will be a new heavens and a new earth in the heavens and a new Jerusalem on the new earth and God will dwell there with men. God's wife Israel will be there. The bride of Christ will be there. Jesus and God will be the temple and there will be no need of light because they are the light. His people will have been made holy and will worship and serve Him forever and ever.
And beyond the horizon of eternity future, God will exist forever and ever in His Glorious Glory!!!
We believe everything God says in His Word...