Doctrine is built upon doctrine. Often a single word can bring to mind eternal principles of God’s wisdom and grace. For this reason, Pastor Thieme’s approach to doctrinal teaching always emphasized the power of vocabulary. Rebound, faith-rest, hypostatic union, divine dynasphere—these are words designed to be learned and integrated into the Christian’s thinking.

Thieme's Bible Doctrine Dictionary presents over eight hundred such terms and related doctrines. Within the 320-page dictionary are concise explanations of vocabulary, biblical metaphors, and practical illustrations taught in Bible class. Cross-references and recommendations for further studies are shown throughout, making this a valuable companion to his entire ministry.

The Angelic Conflict rages around us. This is not a world war. This is a war beyond the world—an invisible warfare between the forces of Satan and the forces of God. Ultimately God will win.

Long before the advent of human history, Satan arrogantly rebelled against his Creator. He wanted to make himself “like the Most High” and recruited one-third of the angels to follow him. God justly condemned Satan and his fallen angels to spend eternity in the lake of fire. Satan appealed the sentence, claiming unfairness—questioning how a loving God could cast His creatures into hell. Planet Earth is now the battleground where Satan seeks to outmaneuver God, prove the judgment unfair, and foil the execution of his sentence. Satan will not suffer defeat without an intense struggle.

God created man to resolve this angelic conflict. Human volition is the focal point of the firestorm. Will man choose God’s grace plan of salvation or follow the arrogant system of Satan? Through the freewill decisions of mankind, God proves to Satan His perfect justice and love again and again.

As believers, it is imperative we understand this spiritual warfare that surrounds us. Satan uses every ruse at his command to derail and discredit those who are in Christ. For our defense, God has provided an overwhelming advantage in a powerful suit of spiritual armor. With it we can withstand the “flaming missiles of the evil one” and become heroes in the invisible war. God is glorified as we lock shields and stand firm on His power and Word.

The Barrier is impassable and insurmountable. No human being can break through this obstruction. Mankind is born on the wrong side of the barrier hopelessly separated from any relationship with God.

God always knew that man, through negative volition, would alienate himself from his Creator. Consequently, in eternity past God the Father designed a perfect plan to remove the barrier. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to be judged for our sins on the cross to bring man from enmity to peace with God. Even though Jesus Christ removed the barrier, your relationship with God depends on you. Only one issue remains: What do you think of Jesus Christ? Only one decision separates you from God. If you believe in Christ you cross the line of separation and receive God’s gift of eternal life.

Divine Guidance is the doctrine of determining God’s will for your life. God guides you by communicating His will through divine revelation. No believer can know or do the will of God apart from knowing the Word of God.

The Bible reveals numerous mandates that universally declare what the will of God is and is not for every believer. The other intentions God has for your individual life that are not directly stated in Scripture must be determined from Bible doctrine in your soul. From the application of Bible doctrine you will resolve what God wants you to think, what He wants you to do, and where He wants you to go.

As the personal emissaries of the Lord Jesus Christ, you represent Him effectively after salvation only by obeying God’s will for your life. Learning the mandates, categories, and mechanics of divine guidance gives you the basics for doing His will. As you continue to grow to spiritual maturity, you will become confident that you know God’s will for your life at any time and under every circumstance.

Faith-Rest is the life of peace designed for you as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. This life is characterized by a moment-by-moment tranquillity, happiness, and stability. But how can you have this perfect rest when you are surrounded by pressure, adversity, and disaster?

God wants you to do only one thing—trust Him! Believe His Word! Mix the promises from the Bible with faith! If you trusted Him for the greatest thing He could ever provide—salvation, then, you can trust Him for the lesser thing—solutions to your problems.

When you use the faith-rest technique, you stand on the solid ground of the Word of God. Bible doctrine becomes a living reality in every experience. No matter what happens to you, no matter how difficult your problems, you have “the peace of God which passes all understanding.”

God the Holy Spirit vs. The Sin Nature is a ceaseless inner conflict. Each Christian by his own volition determines who controls his life at any given moment. The sin nature is inherent at birth. As long as we live we retain this genetic distorter of our lives, with the result that we cannot fulfill the plan of God. Yet God’s marvelous plan can be fulfilled. Only the invisible ministry of God the Holy Spirit can execute the Christian way of life.

This book tells the dramatic story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19. After a powerful spiritual victory, he flees in terror because of an empty threat against his life. The spiritual hero becomes totally ineffective. This Old Testament prophet vividly illustrates a principle that applies to every New Testament believer. There is a vast difference between living under the control of the sin nature and leading a life of spiritual dynamics under the control of the Holy Spirit.

Isolation of Sin breaks the vicious cycle of carnality shackling many believers to their past failures. God’s grace solution for the believer’s sin is rebound, privately confessing or naming your sins to God the Father. Rebound instantaneously accomplishes divine forgiveness, recovery of the Holy Spirit, and restoration to fellowship with God. Yet many believers immediately fall out of fellowship, caught in reaction, guilt, and a chain of mental, verbal, or overt sins. As their frustration mounts, carnality seems overwhelming.

How do you break this cycle? Disengage yourself from forgiven sin! When God forgives a sin, it no longer belongs to you. Do not reclaim the burden! God has blotted out your sin! Feeling guilty, habitually looking backward, worrying, or chronic self-reproach only perpetuates your status in carnality. When you isolate your sins by “forgetting those things which are past,” you can “press on” to the high ground of spiritual maturity in your Christian life.

Until this moment you may not have been aware that you were born under a sentence of death. You may think of yourself as a ‘good person,’ and you feel that God would never condemn you. But you are guilty, helpless to save yourself from this death penalty. There is no ability you possess or any work you can perform to redeem yourself. Only God can provide the way of eternal life. A Matter of Life & Death, a Gospel booklet, presents the plan of salvation for the unbeliever.

Behind every face is a mental attitude, a manner of thinking. You are what you think! God mandates that you think divine viewpoint—the mind of Christ—a perspective of life based on the infallible Word of God. When Bible doctrine is the foundation of your thinking, you will have confidence and stability under all circumstances, an orientation to grace, an inner happiness that produces capacity for life, love, and blessing, and a relaxed mental attitude toward people.

This book is dedicated in loving memory to two faithful servants: Laura Kay Tapping whose spirit of service to the Lord is alive and well in this ministry and my faithful canine companion, Sassy, who spent many long hours at my feet while I studied the Word of God.

The cover, drawn by Katherine Stark Tapping, is a portrait of the personnel of R. B. Thieme, Jr., Bible Ministries in the year of our Lord, 2000. Laura Kay, who went home to be with Lord in 1998, is pictured to the left of Colonel Thieme.

The Plan of God reveals God’s provision for your salvation, His purpose for your existence after salvation, and the treasures He has waiting for your eternal future in heaven. The moment you believe in Christ you immediately share His life and destiny. But for you to attain the wonderful peace, happiness, and contentment God has planned for your life on earth, you must learn Bible doctrine and grow to spiritual maturity. The Bible communicates God’s Word to you so absolute truth becomes the measure of your conscience, the source of your thinking, and the motivation of your life.

Empowered by the Holy Spirit and armed with Bible doctrine you can fulfill your destiny to glorify God. You can receive the highest and best He has prepared for you. Your consistent spiritual growth from Bible doctrine in your soul creates capacity for life, for love, for Christian service, for blessing, for happiness.

God has devised the design of the ages, the perfect plan for you personally. All you have to do is understand His gracious offer and seize the incomparable opportunity for a life of meaning, purpose, and definition.

Prayer is the great weapon of the spiritual life! Through prayer you have instant access to the throne room of God to communicate directly with God the Father. But to pray effectively, you must know how to pray. God has established basic ground rules for you to follow. Armed with these procedures, you will be able to confidently approach the throne of grace and express your gratitude to God, intercede on behalf of others, and petition for your own personal needs.

God has mandated you to “pray without ceasing.” Wielding the power of prevailing prayer, you have the opportunity to support those in need; to participate in the ministries of pastors, missionaries, and evangelists; to sustain and deliver the nation. God answers prayer in fantastic ways, but always so that His will and plan might be fulfilled.

The Prodigal Son leaves home and squanders his inheritance in riotous living. His elder brother stays home and works hard. When the prodigal returns and is restored to his father, the elder brother becomes petty, jealous, bitter, and resentful. Despite their different paths into carnality, their sins cannot remove them from the circumstances of their birth. Once a son, always a son!

As a “born again” believer, whether you sin like the prodigal or like the elder brother, you remain a permanent member of the family of God, but you lose your temporal fellowship with God. To remedy this rift, God has provided a simple, grace procedure—rebound—so that your postsalvation sins are forgiven and you can recover fellowship and move on in the Christian life.

Jesus taught the parable of the prodigal son to an audience of self-righteous legalists who reviled the profligate prodigal and praised the holier-than-thou elder brother. Yet, they entirely missed the message! Everyone who believes in Christ by faith alone is a permanent son of God. Once a family member, any believer can reclaim his Christian life from carnality and be restored to fellowship with God.

Rebound & Keep Moving! is the key that unlocks the Christian way of life. After salvation the sin nature remains a relentless adversary, tempting the believer to sin and live in carnality. When the believer sins, fellowship with God is destroyed, the filling of the Holy Spirit is temporarily lost, and spiritual progress ceases.

Rebound is the simplest yet most incredible concept in the spiritual life. Rebound defeats sin. Guilt, anguish, remorse over past failures vanish knowing that God forgives and forgets all past sins. Rebound is our access to intimacy with the Lord, the gateway to divine power in our lives, our license to serve the Lord. Rebound opens the door to the wonderful freedom the grace of God offers to every believer in Jesus Christ.

We think of ourselves as free, but we are born in an inescapable slavery—bondage to sin. As members of the human race we exist in a slave market of sin, helpless to redeem ourselves. We enter the world with a sin nature, separated from God and powerless to establish a relationship with Him. We have no way to emancipate ourselves from the captivity of our inherited depravity.

However, the gracious plan of God for mankind calls for a savior, a redeemer—the Lord Jesus Christ—to purchase our freedom from the slave market. Christ is the only Person qualified to make such a purchase. The only requirement for eternal release from the slave market of sin is faith alone in Christ alone.

The Trinity is a doctrine unique to Christianity. No other faith, religion, sect, or philosophy that advocates one God also proclaims that God is Three-in-One. This apparent paradox does not mean there are ‘three gods in one,' but that one God exists as three persons who are coequal, coinfinite, and coeternal, all possessing the same essential nature. God is one in essence, but three in persons.

The Trinity is not abstract theology, but a practical doctrine that you should comprehend. Your understanding of the plan God the Father has designed for you illuminates your destiny in time and eternity. Your understanding of the person and work of Jesus Christ illuminates your so-great salvation. Your understanding of the Holy Spirit affects your concept of living the Christian life. Only by perceiving the true biblical perspective of the Trinity can you come to love God, grow spiritually, and fulfill your very own spiritual life.

Witnessing is the declaration of the good news of salvation, the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the unbelieving world. But is this responsibility and privilege reserved solely for the pastor, missionary, and evangelist? Definitely not! Every believer is responsible for presenting the Gospel to a lost and dying world.

What do you tell unbelievers about Christ? You must explain what He accomplished on the cross and how anyone can receive His incomparable gift. Your guiding principle is faith alone in Christ alone.

You are the point of contact in the unbeliever's search for meaning and purpose in life. Without faith in Christ and an eternal future, ultimately his life is meaningless. When a loved one, friend, or even stranger believes in Christ as Savior from your presentation of the Gospel, you will experience the inexpressible reward of serving our Lord through witnessing.