Salvation is a word used by the Apostle Paul to describe our relationship with God. The word salvation is a word that implies rescue. By choosing to use this word, Paul is therefore describing a one-sided relationship. God is the rescuer and we are...

Christianity is called by that name because it’s all about Christ. This may seem obvious, but Christians need to be continually reminded that it’s not about them. In other words, it’s not about you and how good you can be. It’s about Christ and how g...

In Titus 3:5 the Apostle Paul writes, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us …” The language of “saved” and “salvation” is the language of rescue. Imagine for a moment that you are on the Titanic....

John 3:16 is probably the best known verse in the Bible. However, because it is so well known, the risk is that it becomes easy to quote without giving much thought to what it is actually saying. It begins with words that overturn a common misconcept...

Many Christians begin to feel anxious, insecure and confused due to a failure to keep in mind some fundamental facts about the nature of Christianity. The first fact is that it’s all about Christ, it’s not about you. Paul confirms this when he wri...

Jesus was asked this very question in the sixth chapter of John’s gospel. The people asked him, “What shall we do that we might work the works of God?” The Amplified Translation makes their question even more clear: “What are we to do to carry o...

The first thing you should notice about the Bible is that it is divided into two parts labeled “old” and “new.” This distinction is important because it suggests that there is a difference between what is old and what is new. If there were no diff...

During the season of the Thanksgiving holiday, we are often encouraged to “be more thankful.” However, there is no need to exhort Christians to be thankful if Christianity is rightly understood, not as something we do for God, but rather, som...

We live in a world driven by performance. In everyday life your worth is determined by your work. If you don’t work, you don’t get paid. The more you work, the more you’re worth. Who you are and what you have is defined by what you do. In other...

One of the many mistaken notions of the modern church is that the goal of Christianity is to change the culture; that the culture should somehow be forced into conformity with Christianity. However, this is certainly not the message of the New...

A few years ago, I was walking out of a church when a man said to me, out of the blue, “Well, I know we all have to pay for what we've done ...” I don't know what he was talking about, or what specifically was on his mind, but it struck me that thi...

The great mistake of the church is that it has preached to people about their sins and bad behavior, instead of preaching about God’s remedy for sin and bad behavior. The church has specialized in telling people what they should have done, but haven...

I regret to say that I once read a book by a theologian. The subject was the theology of the Apostle Paul. Commenting on Paul’s emphasis on the death of Christ, the author said, “I fail to see how the death of one man 2,000 years ago has any rel...

It could be argued that mankind has an instinctive knowledge of God as demonstrated by the universal religious impulse that is a characteristic part of every culture. This instinctive knowledge of God usually consists of two related ideas: that...

Having recently passed through a presidential election, everyone is aware of the fact that a change of administration is underway, and we understand what it means: a new leader with new policies and new ways of dealing with old problems. While these...

I think that many people visualize God as a grey-bearded old man sitting up in heaven with a feather quill pen writing down all our sins and transgressions on a huge scroll, with the thought in mind that even though we might have thought we “got b...

It is commonly assumed by many that we are living in the last days and that the end of the world is just around the corner. However, if you take the Bible seriously, it is impossible to hold that opinion. The reason is that the writers of the New Tes...