Grace Blogs

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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Today we continue focus on understanding the reasons for the Reformation by answering questions which were posed after Part 1 of this series. What is the difference between the way Roman Catholics and Protestants view salvation (justification), santification, sacraments, and Matthew 16:13-20? How do I talk with a Roman Catholic about these differences? How did the Roman Catholic church grow out of the early church to wield the level of authority that it did in the day of Martin Luther? How did Rome become a religious center and where did the name “Roman Catholicism” come from? Was Martin Luther the only one to uncover the problems of the Roman Catholic Church? …

 

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The Leadership Team answers your questions.  

Q1 (1:50): Why are matters such as leasing\buying a building put to vote by the whole church? Specifically, what issues are to be decided by the church members? Why is it biblical?

Q2 (13:30): Hi and thank you for reading this: I recently heard Andy Stanley tell a story about how they had lost one of their pastoral staff to cancer. It was a terribly sad story. The man who lost the fight to cancer was a man of God in his early 30’s and was a father of two. Mr. Stanley said, shortly before he passed away, that the church elders gathered and anointed him with oil and prayed over him. Obviously 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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There are those who would have you believe that trust in Christ is all that is needed when it comes to the foundational element in starting a relationship with God. Furthermore, if anything is added to this basic formula the Gospel message will become corrupted. Consider the following:

In the same way [as first-century legalism], the most telling modern assaults on the integrity of the Gospel do not deny the cruciality of faith in Christ. On the contrary, they insist on it. But to faith are added other conditions, or provisos, by which the essential nature of the Gospel is radically transformed. Often, in fact, a distinction is drawn between the kind of faith which saves and the kind which does

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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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What do you picture when I say the word “identity?” Most often we think about a person in terms of their characteristics, a type of mental snapshot like tall, short, loud, quiet, harsh, gentle, etc. There are times we lump the identity of people together, and they form a type of group identity. Over the last two weeks, we have been working through characteristics that form the identity of a true Church. Today, we will discuss two more features in a God-owned church from I Thessalonians 1:8-10.

 

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The Leadership Team answers your questions.  

Q1 (2:29):  Several years ago, I had an argument with my sister-in-law in which she accused me and my husband of all sorts of transgressions against members of the family.  The big problem was that not a single one of those offenses was against her.  After the argument, we received calls from the remaining siblings who were present at my toungue lashing telling me that they held nothing against my husband and me and didn’t even know what offenses the sister-in-law was talking about.  I wrote an open letter of apology to our family members and asked them to come to us in the future if they held something against us.  …

 

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God is a big topic and people have tons of questions so we asked people what were some “God Questions” they would like to see discussed. Today, we talk about “What happens to those people living on an island in the middle of the Pacific who will never hear about Jesus Christ?”

 

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The Leadership Team answers your questions.  

Q1 (1:31):  I struggle to share my faith.  I know I should and really do want to, but what are some first steps in making this hope a reality?  Also, if a person never shares their faith, how would you get them to share their faith? 

Q2 (10:57):   Scripture teaches of the Trinity that God is three persons.  It also says God is one essence.  Further, Scripture teaches that God is unchanging.  Finally, Christ took upon himself all our sin becoming sin for us and dying.  What then happened to the unchanging Trinity of the cross?  Was there a separation of the Son from the Father and the Spirit?  Or was his separation on the …

 

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