In my devotions this morning, I listened in on Paul teaching something to Titus that I find very helpful for my daily walk. Paul tells Titus:
“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age… (Titus 2:11).

Observation:
Notice that Paul makes a connection between the “grace of God” in “salvation” with our “training” in how we approach life.

Question:
So, what is the connection between God’s grace in salvation and how it works to develop me in how I live today?

William Romaine (born 1714) is a helpful resource here. …

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The July 27th issue of Sports Illustrated features the two-time national champion and Heisman Trophy winner, Tim Tebow. The following is an excerpt from the whole story.

At a time when Americans are leaving organized religion in large numbers, according to a 2008 Pew Research poll, Tebow is leading his own personal counterinsurgency.

“Every Sunday we have a service for our players and their families,” says Meyer, who remembers when “three or four kids would show up. Now the room’s full.”

Since Tebow’s arrival on campus, and in large part because of him, Florida has launched a series of community-service initiatives. Even as the football program has suffered an embarrassing string of arrests, the number of hours players …

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In a previous post, I dealt with a question about the final judgment. One aspect of the question had to do with why there is a judgment if it is a simple matter of unbelievers being condemned and believers being pardoned and entering paradise with the Lord.

In that post, I covered some background on the final judgment. Now I would like to expand on the question of why believers stand in judgment if Christ has already been judged in our place. This is something that was cloudy for me before I examined it more closely and now brings a lot of things together. Much of this comes from the message What Happens When You Die? All Appear Before …

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A number of questions regarding the current teaching was submitted last week. I’d like to address one here:

Does the Roman Catholic church today believe in taking money to in exchange for forgiveness of sins?

In my understanding, this is not an overt doctrine of the RCC. However, given their system of salvation (process justification—as Dan has pointed out), almsgiving is seen as one of many “bricks” in one’s road toward justification. Whereas we believe that the Bible teaches that one’s forgiveness of sins is a one-time event (forensic justification), we would hold that giving money to the church or to the poor would be as a RESPONSE to forgiveness. Not as a means of forgiveness.

To make it more simple, the …

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When we speak that there must be a necessary change when a person trusts in Christ there is often an undercurrent of distinction between the message of Jesus and the teaching of Paul. Advocates for looking toward Paul for the Gospel (and not the messages of Christ) will appeal to the sections of Scripture like Romans 3 and 4 because it is in these chapters we see the clearest picture of justification by faith alone. The reasoning goes something like this, “if there must be fruits of obedience to express a person truly being justified, then Paul would have most certainly included that teaching in these chapters.” At this point, a citation of a teacher(s) such as …

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In teaching this passage, I noted that a fundamental issue with the church today is directly connected with our understanding of what happens when a person becomes a follower of Christ. In other words, how do we know when someone becomes a Christian and, thus, part of the church universal? To Paul, it was clear that he took great confidence that the Church at Thessalonica was real and true (“chosen” by God, v.4) because they had clearly changed and everyone knew it. In fact, they were joyfully accepting abuse from people who didn’t like the fact that they had turned from worshiping idols (see I Thess.1:6). Therefore, the change that these people underwent was obvious, radical, and complete.

Are …

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