God's Spiritual Prescriptions
For Healing, Liberation and Salvation
by
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This book has evolved over a period of three and a half decades of serious Bible study. It is the culmination of decades of teaching Sunday school, Bible classes, preparation and preaching sermons and reading scripture lessons from the pulpit. For a period of twenty years at the Wheat Street Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, and for four years at the Foundation Baptist Church in Atlanta, I made preparations to read the scripture, pray and preach each Sunday with very few exceptions. This gave me an opportunity to become spiritually attuned with many scriptures in the Bible. I had the good fortune of being introduced to the Bible as a youth. One of my earliest recollections as a preschool age child was being in church at a revival meeting with my mother in a small rural township in Alabama. It was my mother who taught me to kneel and pray along with her by the bedside at night. It was my oldest sister who started reading the Bible to me at about the age of five or six. During my elementary school years, I had the good fortune of walking about a mile and a half to Sunday school each Sunday with a young man by the name of Frank Crittenden who was about six years older than I. Frank became the Superintendent of the Sunday school and I started teaching a Sunday school class as a teenager. Additionally, during my adolescent and early adulthood years, I had about seven summers of very enriching religious exposures in a Boardwalk Chapel in Wildwood, New Jersey. I lived and worked in a summer resort hotel about three blocks from the Boardwalk Chapel along the Atlantic Ocean. This Chapel, operated by the Presbyterian Church was open seven days a week with many trained ministers who preached, taught and showed many religious and scientific films. I also attended a Billy Graham Crusade in New York City during these summers. The Boardwalk Chapel experience was significant and valuable for me for a number of reasons. I was from the rural racially segregated south and most of the pastors and preachers of my church did not have a high school education. They all were Black. At the Boardwalk Chapel, all of the ministers were White and seminary trained. In their Witness for Christ, they utilized films and other audio-visual equipment. They also displayed and sold many books and other religious literature. The seven summers that I spent in Wildwood, New Jersey, contributed greatly to my early Christian education and my appreciation for the beauty and power of scriptures. It was at Morehouse College in Atlanta where I started my formal education for the ministry. In addition to receiving an undergraduate degree in Sociology and Religion, Morehouse College offered and required daily Chapel for all students. The daily Chapel for four years at Morehouse College was a most enriching, inspirational and educational experience. I was blessed with the teaching, preaching, singing and messages from well prepared educators, including scholarly, Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, who was president of Morehouse College for 27 years. Upon graduation from Morehouse College, I received the M.A. Degree from Atlanta University and the M.S. Degree from Georgia State University 6 years later. This is the general background that I took into the professional world of work in Criminal Justice for twelve years, Mental Health for sixteen years and Substance Abuse Counseling and Education for seven years along with the commensurate continuing education. I returned to academics and completed the Master of Divinity Degree from the Interdenominational Theological Center at the Morehouse School of Religion May 13, 2000. I am indebted to many of the professors at I.T.C. and also the staff at St. Luke Counseling and Training Center, where I completed my residency in clinical pastoral education by working with the Homeless people in Atlanta. I am also indebted to the many clients and students that I have worked with for the past 36 years), as well as staff members. I am indebted to many people, relatives and friends in the production of this book. I am indebted especially to my wife, Wilma, and daughter, Karen, who offered not only their constructive criticism, but also allowed me time and space to write and compile this volume. Overall and through all it is the Holy Spirit. I have been a student of life and religion as far back as I can remember. I cannot think of any experience that did not contribute to this book. My own personal trials and adversities also contributed significantly. As one who is a part of fallen humanity, a sinner saved by Grace, I have experienced over and over again, God’s compassion, mercy, grace, forgiveness, healing, deliverance and restoration. His Word has been and is my Light, my Guide, my Comforter, my Hope and my Salvation. I have never experienced nor witnessed any human feeling or human situation where there was not a current relevant correlation in the Scriptures. This is the primary basis of God’s Spiritual Prescriptions. During my journeys through the Word of God from Genesis through Revelation, I have seen my failures, weaknesses and sins along with the rest of humanity. However, and most significantly, I have also seen the love of God, my Redeemer, my Lord and my Savior. It is my hope and my prayer that millions of others will experience this revelation through God’s Spiritual Prescriptions.
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About the Book
This book contains illuminating core Scriptures with plain and yet vital messages that shed light upon our personal and cultural crises and the solutions to overcome them. These Scriptures were reverently selected to sharpen and simplify the core messages of the Bible that are relevant for our understanding and deliverance from our precarious human predicament. Relevant themes and subjects were selected and guidance of the Holy Spirit supplied the spiritual prescriptions. This book represents precious diamonds and golden nuggets from the inexhaustible riches of the revealed Word of God. It is not necessary to dig and search for these invaluable treasures. The message is so plain that "he that runs can read it." The major themes, such as spiritual illness, spiritual guidance, rewards, salvation and deliverance, are simplified and profoundly disclosed from the contextual wrappings and exegetical interpretations. Each page of this book, expressed in few words, contains a significant core message of spiritual knowledge, understanding and enlightenment. Each page and each framed Scriptural expression are designed for continuous study, nurture, display, and publication throughout our social and physical environment. The selection and concentration of these precious Words of God makes for potent spiritual prescriptions for our personal lives and cultural crisis.
About the Author
The author has spent the greater portion of his life being intimately involved in studying and living in the human conflicts and cultural crisis of our time. In his search for answers he has earned a B.A. degree from Morehouse College, a M.A. degree from Atlanta University, a M.S. degree from Georgia State University, and a Master of Divinity degree from the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Additionally, he has over twenty-five years of continuing education at various educational institutions, including the University of Georgia. He is a certified addiction counselor and criminal justice specialist. He has over thirty years of experience as a mental health and criminal justice professional, pastoral counselor, a Christian minister, pastor, and educator. He has worked the full gamut of social services, remediation, sustenance, prevention, and growth. He has worked effectively with unruly, neglected and delinquent children, dysfunctional families, clients in mental health, criminal justice, geriatrics, and the homeless. The author has designed, established, and directed social service programs in correctional institutions as well as in the community. He has done extensive social research and has written two masters theses in regards to juvenile recidivism and management of community based social service programs. He is the author of Psychotrauma. Webb was born in Macon County, Alabama, where he graduated from Tuskegee Institute High School as the president of his senior class, on the campus where Booker T. Washington founded Tuskegee Institute in 1881. He graduated from Morehouse College as the most outstanding student in religion. He was licensed and ordained to preach at Macedonia Baptist Church, his home church in Notasulga, Alabama. While in Atlanta, Georgia, he served over twenty years as assistant pastor and later as interim pastor of the historic Wheat Street Baptist Church. He is the founder and pastor of Foundation Baptist Church in Atlanta. The author is currently an adjunct professor of theology at the Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC) through its Continuing Education Program. Through the Certificate in Theology Program at ITC, Webb hopes to provide theological exposure to many pastors, ministers, and lay persons who for various reasons do not go to seminary, but can benefit significantly from education in theology. The author is convinced by his long years of intense life experiences and top level academic and professional exposures that ONLY THE WORD OF GOD IS SUFFICIENT TO SAVE HUMANITY AND HUMAN CULTURE FROM SELF-DESTRUCTION. This book is designed to make God’s Word plain and to stimulate true religion, art and science in making the Word of God a concrete reality in the social and physical environment, human culture, human hearts, minds and spirits.