Book Review

BIOGRAPHICAL ENTRY

Johnson, Barry O., Teaching the Foundations: A Journey to God’s Heart. Lehigh Acres, FL: Jeanius Publishing LLC, 2020, 183 pp.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF AUTHOR

Barry O. Johnson’s ministry calling in the Body of Christ is that of a teacher. When only 8 years old he began reading the Old Testament. He accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior when he was 10 years old. Barry was nurtured in his love for the scripture by his grandfather Rev. John Raymond Lockridge. Barry is ordained through Jim Martin Ministries based in Dayton, Ohio. He attends and ministers at Grace Christian Center in Beavercreek, Ohio which is pastured by Dr. Jim Martin, the president of Jim Martin Ministries. Barry also holds degrees from University of Tennessee, Tennessee State University, and Tennessee Technological University.

Barry is married to Dr. Doris G. Johnson, an associate professor in the College of Education at Wright State University. They have two grown sons, Barry Ephraim Johnson and Stephen Orlando Johnson, who also live in Ohio. Their daughter Candace Natae Johnson went home to be with the Lord in 2012.

SUMMARY OF CONTENTS

Barry O. Johnson begins publishing a monthly teaching lesson in January 2016. This book is based on a portion of those teaching lessons with revisions as needed. The teaching lessons seek to take the Christian reader beyond the preaching of the gospel to teaching the gospel. The preaching of the gospel stirs the emotions and motivates one to give their life to Jesus. The preaching stops short of carrying out the commandment of Jesus to make disciples of the believers by teaching all things. It is through our abiding in His word that we are made free. These twelve lessons are written to help the believers to know who they are and how they are to live a life that pleases God; resulting in a life filled with the blessings that God has for us.

LESSON 1: Why We Need a Savior: God created mankind in His image and likeness—with His DNA. Man would rule earth just as God rules heaven. Man was living having the Spirit of God in him. Man disobeyed God and immediately became spiritually dead because the Spirit of God left him. All of Adam’s descendants are “walking dead” enslaved in sin. Jesus paid the price for our release from the prison of sin ruled by Satan. We can be free if we choose to make Jesus our Lord and Savior.

LESSON 2: Who Are We Really?: Barry uses the conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus (John 3) to explain the difference between birth by our human fathers and birth by our Father in heaven. We are born with the sin nature of our earthly father. Likewise, when we are born again, we are born with the nature of our heavenly Father. We have His spirit living inside of us. We can do the same things that Jesus was able to do when living on the earth.

LESSON 3: A Killer in Our Midst, Part 1: Lucifer (Satan) was created perfect and had the highest position among all the other angels. Lucifer misinterpreted what was said about him and the things that he did. He decided that he could be above God. Lucifer lived with pride and he deceived one third of the angels and the woman (Eve) to follow him. When the man and the woman disobeyed God they died spiritually. The Body of Christ can be deceived if it listens to the words of Satan instead of living according to the words of the Father.

LESSON 4: A Killer in Our Midst, Part 2: Satan was able to get Eve to voice her understanding of what God had said. Eve had her own interpretation of what God had said. Satan knew that Eve did not know what God had said; he was able to get her to act according to her own way of thinking. God’s commands are direct orders; not suggestions and guides. Satan leads us to the point of disobedience, but we alone can make the decision to disobey God’s immutable word.

LESSON 5: Genesis 3 Made Us “Smartphones,” Part 1: Barry compares the original cell phone (dumb phone) with the Smartphones invented later and became more popular. Smartphones have an auto correct function. Satan was created dumb phone. He did exactly what God told him to do. Then Satan became a Smartphone changing what God had said to what he wanted the word to say. Adam and Eve were created dumb phone, bur Satan convinced them that a Smartphone was an “upgrade.” Their children were born a Smartphone. When a person is born again they become a dumb phone. Like Jesus, they do nothing except what God tells them to do.

LESSON 6: Genesis 3 Made Us “Smartphones,” Part 2: In Lesson 6 Barry gives two examples of people being Smartphones; auto-correcting the words of God to say what they believe. We often use rationalization because we do not have faith in what God says. God promised Abraham and Sarah a son, but they rationalized that God could not keep His promise because Sarah was barren. Moses sent out twelve rulers of the tribes of Israel to spy out the land that God already promised to give to them. Ten of the spies said that they could not take the land. They quickly forgot what God had already done in delivering them from Egypt. They persuaded the people that God was not able to give them the land as He had promised. They spent forty years wandering in the wilderness.

LESSON 7: Genesis 3 Made Us “Smartphones,” Part 3: In Lesson 7 Barry uses the reign of Saul, Israel’s first king to give us four reasons that we auto-correct God. People as individuals and as the church uses these reasons to disobey the commands of God and do things that they believe to be more beneficial to themselves and the people that they represent than obedience to the Lord’s commands.

LESSON 8: Genesis 3 Made Us “Smartphones,” Part 4: God ways and thoughts are not our ways and thoughts. Barry corrects himself saying that we were created as Smartphones with the auto-correct function—we were created with free will to make choices. Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1f) failed the stewardship test by lying to the Holy Spirit and holding back money promised to the church. Ananias and Sapphira was a power couple in the church; respected and followed. Their lie was not to the people but was made to God. They were unrighteous and the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

LESSON 9: Christians: Do We Really Trust God? We elect a president and give him a “Fix This” list. Christians are continuing to put more faith in what man can do for them than what Jesus has already done for them through His completed work on the cross. Satan has stolen the Word of God from us through what we see, hear, and experience. The sheep know the voice of the shepherd and will not follow a stranger because they do not know his voice. The church today is filled with various worries, divisions, and issues of concern and debate because we do not really trust God to be the answer to our problems. Satan is deceiving the church so that the people do not trust God. Instead the message and the work of the church are following the leaders that do not really trust God.

LESSON 10: What Most Christians Don’t Know: The church has taught us wrongly that Jesus is our “fixer” for all of our problems. God’s grace is sufficient for us to live for Him. We are given the resources of Heaven to introduce men and women to Jesus so that they have faith and God works miracles in their lives. When we are born again we have God’s nature in us, and we can exercise responsibility, power, and authority to do the same works that Jesus did.

LESSON 11: Grace: It’s So Much More Than God’s Favor: Grace is more than God’s unmerited favor so that He forgives us our sins. Grace is a spiritual force given by God to people of faith to help us accomplish His will. Grace is the power that gives us new birth in Christ—life with Christ in the present age and in the age to come. Faith and love gives us access to more grace.

LESSON 12: Unbelief and Faith: We may have faith—acknowledge that Jesus is, but not enough faith to do what Jesus did. Our faith like a mustard seed must grow so that we accomplish great things as the mustard seed grows into a large tree. We grow our faith by reading the Word of God, believing and adhering to what we read, and by praying in tongues. Our faith must push out our unbelief.

CRITICAL EVALUATION

In Teaching the Foundations, author Barry Johnson examines the sin problem in humanity. God created humanity with the ability and the freedom to make choices. The man and the woman in the garden chose to follow the suggestion of Satan instead of obeying the commandment of God. The first couple had their own ideas about how they should live their lives. We, the people living in the world today also have our own ideas. We must choose whether we live by the Spirit; God’s word or we will live by the desires of our flesh. The flesh without the Spirit makes decisions according to our own desires. We become Smartphones that correct what God has said so that we do what we want to do.

When we live according to our own ideas, we suffer the power of sin. Jesus died so that we could be forgiven of the penalty of sin and the power of sin. The power of sin causes the Smartphone in us to auto correct the word of God. If we yield to the Spirit we will be able to do the same things that Jesus did while He lived on earth. It is common for people to confess faith in Jesus. They believe that there is a God and Jesus is His Son. They do not, however, believe that Jesus is who He says that He is. We must study our bible, meditate on the word, and pray so that we know who Jesus is and what we can expect from Him as well as what we can do through Him.

This book is well organized so that the reader is able to follow the logic and reasoning of the author. In twelve lessons the reader is led from humanity’s original state to the present situation that mankind lives in today. The author challenges the reader to follow God’s word and be blessed, because when we use our Smartphones to auto correct the word of God we suffer the consequences that are hurtful and destructive to our relationship with God and the life that God created man to live.