Category Faith

Faith is not based on ‘facts’, but faith is in facts because of our faith in the Person who spoke those facts.

We can have faith before we know ‘all the facts’, but many believe they have facts that refute our faith, accusing us of having faith despite or contrary to the facts. These people need to see that facts support faith. We have not chosen faith over reason, but rather our faith is also reasonable. Reason supports faith:

2 Peter 1:16-18: “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased...

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Beloved, doing all diligence to be writing to you concerning the common salvation, I have had necessity to write to you entreating to be contending for the faith once being given to the saints." Jude was pressed also, that urging them to “contend earnestly” for that faith was imperative.Read More

Repentance is part of the “process” of faith. We not only “believe” Jesus – affirm that He and His words are true – we also “trust” Jesus (interesting that Greek has a verb for “faith”, but English does not; we’re stuck with “trust”) as He Who has borne our sins upon His cross so that we may be forgiven, Who has risen from the grave, opening the graves of men, that we may have everlasting life.

We aren’t going to do that, until we have come to understand:

1. Who God and Christ are,
2. what our condition and position before God is,
3. that we have no remedy in ourselves to overcome our lostness, our guilt, and our condemnation, BUT
4. that in Christ, that remedy has been fully provided, through His death & resurrection,
5. that we must come to Christ, acknowledging our sin, our powerlessness to remedia...

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Nearly every presentation of the gospel in the New Testament includes a call to repent(ance).

Most do not specify in the text what is meant by repent(ance) nor specify to or from what a person should repent.

The majority of passages that do specify, refer to repenting from sinful actions.

One refers to repentance toward God.

Several other passages make reference to turning from sinful actions.

A few passages make reference to turning to God.

Those who argue that because repentance means a “change of mind”, it does not refer to repentance from sin, are imposing their personal doctrinal bias and making assumptions not provided in the text.

Because most references to repent(ance) do not qualify to or from what, we must refer to the passages that do qualify what has been or is to be repented t...

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Ephesians 2:8-9

8 (AV) For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God:

8 (ignt) τη γαρ χαριτι εστε σεσωσμενοι δια της πιστεως και τουτο ουκ εξ υμων θεου το δωρον

9 (AV) Not of works, lest any man should boast.

9 (ignt) ουκ εξ εργων ινα μη τις καυχησηται

(for full parsing, please see the following link: https://scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/NTpdf/eph2.pdf)

To what does the word “this”, touto  in the Greek, refer in Ephesians 2:8-9? Every pronoun must refer to a noun used in the same context, usually prior to the use of the pronoun, though not universally so, or to a concept expressed in relationship to its use...

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John 5:37-43:

And the One sending Me, Father Himself, has witnessed concerning Me. Neither His voice (sound) have you ever heard nor (a) glimpse of Him have you seen. And His word you have not abiding in you, that Whom He commissioned, This (one) you believe not. You search the Scriptures, that you suppose in them to have eternal life, and those are the testifiers (testifying ones) concerning Me! And you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life. Glory from people I receive not. However, I have known you, that you have not the love of God in yourselves. I have come in the name of My Father, and you do not receive Me. If another comes in his own name, that one you shall receive.”

“I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me...

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God's purpose for mankind is to bear His image in His creation. Adam's sin tarnished that image, but through salvation and the Holy Spirit's work in the life of a Christian, God restores the image of Christ in us as we await the fulfilment of our eternal restoration.Read More

or “What Must I Do To Be Saved?”

Nothing is of greater importance than to know the true God and to know what is required for us to be on good terms with the true God. The only way to know God and to know what God has said concerning our condition and relationship with God, is to study from the Bible what God has revealed concerning our sin and His salvation.

With every discussion of what we must believe, the answer to what constitutes the message of the gospel of salvation must begin with what the Bible says about The Gospel, so we will look first at those passages in which the Bible writers used the specific word “gospel”...

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God could have built one people from Isaac making of both sons one holy nation. But it was His purpose to make a distinction between the two men. Esau sold his birthright. Jacob sought a birthright he did not possess.

Why did God choose Jacob? The Bible does not say, it only states that He chose him to make a people of him. Jacob desired a blessing to which he was not naturally entitled. The Bible does not say that God placed that desire in Jacob’s heart, nor caused him to seek the face of God. In fact, Jacob’s desire was motivated by sin, and empowered by sin – deception and supplanting of the natural heir.

Esau, on the other hand, was unfaithful and ungrateful, despising his birthright for the immediate satisfaction of his natural desires...

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“…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God….” Romans 3:22 

“the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:23 

“for God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life….He who believes in Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the Name of the only begottenSon of God.” John 3:16,18 

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by Me.” John 14:6 

“He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” 1 John 5:12 

“Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is no other name under heav...

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