Understanding the Bible
Jesus calls people out of the world to be his disciples. He told the apostles, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20) A disciple is a student. Without a serious attempt to understand Jesus, his attitude, his teachings, his way of life, one is not properly a student. One may be in some distant way a follower, but one is not a student unless there is studying.
On one occasion Jesus came to the
The subject of study for a disciple is first and foremost the Scriptures. Bible study begins and ends with Scripture. There are other books that may be studied with profit and we will consider some of these later, but first of all a disciple is a student of the Word of God. Above all else a disciple needs to know what the Bible says. Often I have had the experience of someone justifying a position by quoting from the Bible yet in the quotation there is a word missing or added which changes the entire meaning of the quotation. Sometimes verses from separate passages are combined together to give a meaning that cannot be found in either passage alone. We need to know exactly what the Bible says. “Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.”
There is nothing that can take the place of memorizing scripture. When a scripture is memorized you have every word right. I know that many people find memorizing difficult. It may be difficult, but not impossible. And there are great rewards in committing scripture to memory. When a scripture is memorized it is always available whether there is a Bible handy or not. When reading other scriptures, connections with the memorized scripture may become obvious. Without the memorized scripture these connections might never be noticed. We memorize all kinds of personal data. These are memorized through constant usage. In the same way the Bible may be memorized through constant usage. Some scriptures I remember because I memorized them. Other scriptures are remembered because I have read them so often.
Years ago, I wrote scriptures I wanted to memorize on index cards. The scripture quotation was on one side and the location on the other. When the cards have been filled out they may be carried in your pocket or purse. In spare moments while stuck in traffic or waiting for a doctor appointment you may take out the cards and review the scriptures you want to commit to memory. I sometimes used spare time during my lunch break at work to memorize scripture.
The writer of Acts commends the people of
Paul gave instructions to Timothy for success in the work to which he had been called. “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth.” (2 Tim 2:15) We will have more to say later about “handling accurately the word of truth.” Careless handling of scripture may lead to all sorts of difficulties. Studying the scriptures is not always an easy task. It often is work. There are great blessings in doing the hard work of studying diligently the scriptures.
A good place to begin studying is to read the Bible through. There are many plans that have been put together for reading the Bible through in a year. Any plan is good if you follow it. No plan is good if it is not followed. With most Bibles, a simple plan is to read about four or five pages a day. Keep a book mark in your Bible indicating the page you are on. End your reading at the end of the chapter carried over from the previous page. If you do that you may easily find your place and you will finish reading the Bible in about a year. It would be surprising if you did not miss a day here and there through the year. That is no reason to be upset. Even if you should miss an entire month of reading, you may just go back to where you left off and take up your reading again, covering about four or five pages a day. All you have to do is leave the book mark in your Bible where you left off each day. If it takes you two years, or even three, it does not matter; you will eventually complete your reading. It is more important to read the Bible than to do it in a particular time span.
When reading the Bible through you will not remember everything that you have read. In fact, you will forget most of it. That is not important. The purpose of reading the whole Bible is to gain some familiarity with the books in the Bible and the people who are mentioned in those books. The purpose is not to remember or gain a great understanding of everything which you read. That will come later in another plan. Names will be familiar to you from your reading when they come up in Bible classes and sermons. You will not remember all the details, but you will remember having read something about them. Bible classes and sermons are more interesting if you already know something about the passages and people mentioned. You are not going to get everything possible from the Bible with one reading. I have read the Bible through most years over the past 35 years and I still notice things as I read that I do not remember having noticed before.
While you are reading through the Bible, you may notice something that you want to remember. Keep a pen handy as you read and you can simply underline it in your Bible. Your Bible will become more useful to you as you underline the things that you want to remember. One caution that I would offer is that you use underlining sparingly. It will not help you to find things later if you have half the verses in the Bible underlined. This works well if you only underline those things that are really important and you want to be able to come back later and find. Highlighters may work well for you, but with most Bibles the paper is too thin and the color will bleed through to the back page. Even with some pens you may have this problem with underlining so use some care in the selection of the tool you use to highlight verses.
If your Bible has a center column reference, margin reference or bottom of the page reference, there is an interesting exercise that you can try. Pick a verse that has such a cross reference and go to that reference. The reference is given because there seemed to be (to the author of the references) some similarity between the two verses. Then go to the reference from your second verse and continue in this fashion, each time selecting a reference from those that are given to the verse to which you have been referred. You will notice after following the references through four or five referrals that the subject of the verse will probably have nothing to do with the verse with which you began.
The conclusion is that just because there is a similarity between verses there is not necessarily a connection in ideas. Just because two verses contain the same word or expression does not mean that they are addressing the same topic. The context is usually more important in determining the meaning of a particular verse than some verse from another book in the Bible.
The cross references are especially useful in the case of prophecies. They will quickly refer you to the Old Testament source of a New Testament prophecy or, in reverse, can help you to quickly locate the New Testament fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy. In some cases you will find several New Testament quotations of Old Testament prophecies or statements. You might also notice the extensive use that John makes in the book of Revelation of ideas and symbols from Old Testament books. In some cases he uses similar language to refer to quite different events. The similarity is in language only.
For the serious Bible student there are several types of books that can be helpful in seeking a better understanding of God’s word. Some of these are concordances (complete or abridged), topical Bibles, Bible dictionaries, Bible encyclopedias, commentaries and other religious books, magazines and journals. There is also a great deal of computer software that has these materials and can be used to great profit in studying the Bible. One advantage of the computer software is the ease with which it can do word searches and the ease of following through the references found.
A complete or unabridged concordance will give you every instance in which a particular word appears in the Bible. If you know one word in a verse you are trying to find, then a concordance will be an invaluable aid in finding that verse. Looking up every instance in which a word or phrase is used in the Bible can also be invaluable in understanding that word or phrase. Again, the computer software can be helpful in narrowing the search by using multiple words from the same passage or phrases in searching.
A topical Bible will give you many references in the Bible for a particular topic. For example, if the topic is communion, the topical Bible will give you references that discuss that subject, but may not have that particular word. On the subject of faith, the topical Bible will include passages using faith and will also include references using belief and the verb form, believe.
A Bible dictionary will give a definition for a word as it used in the Bible. It differs from an ordinary dictionary in that it gives evidence for the usage of a word in the Bible as opposed to ways in which it may be in common usage by people today. There are many Bible words that are used in different ways today than they were used in the Bible. Some of these are baptism, bishop, pastor, church and witness.
A Bible encyclopedia differs from other encyclopedias in that it discusses only Biblical topics. Topics include discussions of books of the Bible, by whom written and the circumstances of their writing, countries mentioned in the Bible and their history as it relates to the Bible and much more. Generally you will find that the articles written in general encyclopedias about Bible topics are written by people who do not believe the Bible was written by the inspiration of God. Their comments about the Bible need to be taken with a great deal of skepticism. They do not write to encourage faith in the infallible word of God, but rather to destroy such faith.
Commentaries discuss the text of the Bible and give the authors views on what particular passages mean while also giving background information on various aspects of the Biblical writings. Other books, magazines and journals will often contain useful information and raise questions in the mind of the serious Bible student for further investigation. With all of these one must keep in mind that it is not the word of God that is being read, but the word of men. There is a difference!
While the books mentioned above may be helpful in understanding the Bible, it might be well to remember that first century Christians as well as the Jews before them came to an understanding of God’s will for their lives without such aids. The Bible is a book written for common people, not for experts. It was written in a language that common people could understand. The letters of the New Testament were written to common people, in most cases being addressed to the entire congregation. Most of the authors of the Bible were simply common men with an uncommon devotion to the Lord that caused them to be chosen by God to write scripture. They were not writing theological treatises for study by university students, but the Word of God to be read by fishermen, farmers, carpenters, soldiers, seamstresses, homemakers and other common people.
Certainly there are difficult passages in the Bible. There are all sorts of reasons that lead to these difficulties. But that does not change the basic fact that those things necessary for salvation are simple enough that a child may understand them. In fact, a child may be more apt to come to a correct understanding than an adult. Most of us have been prejudiced by indoctrination over many years with the teachings and commandments of men. It is hard to break the ways in which our thinking has been molded. We often need the spur provided by questions that others ask. We have often learned to ignore the obvious in scripture and have forced scripture to conform to our opinions rather than letting our opinions be formed by scripture.
The Bible is not written in “code.” There are no mysterious messages that are hidden in the text. There are prophecies that relate to the future. The prophet who wrote may not have been fully aware of the meaning of the passage he was writing. This does not mean the passage cannot be understood after the fulfillment has occurred. Peter refers to this in 1 Peter 1:10-12 . Books have been written alleging to have found the “code” for deciphering hidden prophecies in the Bible. By selecting every 50th letter or some other combination, names of people and current events have been found in the Bible. The same method applied, for example, to the writings of Shakespeare will yield similar results. By using a computer and varying the combinations these results become possible. The codes are not in the Bible, but rather in the imagination of the one who “finds” the secret messages.
The Bible is a book written by common people (inspired of God) for common people. The message of the Bible may be understood in the same way that any other writing may be understood. The rules of common sense apply to the Bible just as they would to a letter written to you by a friend or a textbook on geography. Except for Proverbs, the Bible was not written as a collection of disconnected verses to be pulled from their context and used to prove some obscure theological point. In fact, the Bible was not originally written in chapters and verses at all. Chapter and verse divisions were added hundreds of years after the original writings appeared. The divisions were added for ease in locating things, but are sometimes distracting by separating ideas that should remain joined together.
The meaning that first appears to you in reading a passage of scripture is probably the correct meaning. The literal meaning is probably what the writer intended unless there is something in the passage that forces you to understand the words in a figurative, rather than a literal sense. For example, when John refers to Jesus saying that he is a door, that word is figurative. Jesus is not literally a door. Or, when Jesus says that his story is a parable, that story is figurative. Parables were illustrations of truth. When Jesus told the parable of the sower, for example, he did not intend to teach us how to be farmers. It would be a rather careless farmer who planted his seeds on the road instead of the field! Sometimes Jesus explained his parables. At other times he left it up to the hearers to figure out the meaning. In most cases, those he did not explain have an obvious interpretation.
There are other sections of the Bible where the writer records a dream or a vision. These differ from events actually seen. They represent something other than what they are. They are not literal. For example, when Pharaoh dreamed of fat and skinny cows coming up out of the Nile River he did not expect to go down to the Nile and watch the cows come forth. (Genesis 41) Joseph interpreted the dream. The dream was not to be taken literally but figuratively. The cows represented years and their fatness or skinniness represented the produce of those years. Joseph explained that it was God who gave him the interpretation of the dream. The book, “Chariots of the Gods,” was written on the assumption that Ezekiel’s vision is to be understood literally rather than as a vision representing something other than what is presented in the vision. Later in Ezekiel we read of the vision of “dry bones.” (Ezekiel 37) It is obviously not intended to be understood literally. Likewise we should not understand literally the visions recorded in the early chapters of the same book. Truth may be revealed by means of a vision, but that does not mean that the vision is literal.
There is often a tendency when we encounter something in the Bible we do not want to do, to say, “It’s figurative.” Nothing in the context will justify the assertion. It is not something that is impossible. It is just difficult. It might involve sacrifice or it might involve going against what the world generally would consider right. Labeling it figurative is an easy way to avoid a responsibility. Just as we cannot arbitrarily interpret our employer’s orders as figurative, neither can we interpret God’s orders as figurative. In fact it is tempting to simply assert that no commands are figurative. All are literal. If there is an exception, I am not aware of its existence.
Another common tendency is to take references to “you” as personal instructions to the reader. This is done with both commands and promises. For example there is a long discourse of Jesus recorded in John, chapters 14 through 16. The audience was the twelve whom Jesus had chosen to be apostles. They were the special witnesses that Jesus had chosen and they would form the foundation for the church. (See Ephesians 2:19-22.) The promises made to them were not inclusive of all Christians. At least that cannot be inferred from the context. Some of what Jesus said to them applies to others, but it cannot be applied from the passage in John. It applies because elsewhere in scripture it is applied to all Christians. Jesus gave the apostles special help and gifts to enable them to accomplish the special mission that he gave them. We do not have the same promises and gifts because we do not have the same responsibilities. The apostles had a ministry that was unique to their role as witnesses of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. They were chosen and equipped for a task that was completed when the New Testament was written. We have not been chosen to add to the scriptures. In fact adding to the commands of God is expressly prohibited. Jesus’ covenant is final. The Old Covenant contains a promise that God would make a New Covenant. The New Covenant contains no such promise. The New Covenant will remain in force until Jesus comes again.
In Genesis
Consider another example where it is
important to note to whom the passage was written.
In Ephesians
For the husband, his instructions are found a few verses later in Ephesians 5:25. If the wife does not submit (or if she does), the husband is to love her as Christ loved the church. That is, he must be willing to die for her whether she submits or not. Many marriages could be improved by husbands submitting to the will of the Lord. In Colossians 3:19, Paul adds a further admonition for husbands, “Husbands, love your wives, and do not be embittered against them.” Perhaps he is suggesting that embitterment might be the result of a wife who does not submit. Instead of becoming bitter, the husband should continue to love his wife. It is still not the husband’s responsibility to make the wife submit.
People often find it easier to show others what their responsibilities are than to accept what God has said about them. It is easier to point the finger at another person than to accept personal guilt and the responsibility for change that will please God.
Another important question to answer in studying the Bible is the question, “Why was this written?” This question allows us to separate between what is in the Bible as a result of culture and what is in the Bible because it is of eternal consequence.
Some of the issues that are impacted are such things as foot-washing, women wearing hats in worship, the roles of women in the church and music in worship. The Bible addresses all of these issues and our understanding must be consistent with what God has said. Personal likes and dislikes are not to be used in deciding these issues. We must decide based on a correct understanding of scripture. There are probably no issues that can be decided without correctly separating between culture and commands that are independent of culture.
Obviously, when a command contradicts the culture in which it is given, then it is not culturally biased. The command is given to let God’s people know that they are not to follow the culture, but to fulfill the will of God. It is easily determined in such cases that the instruction is not written to support the culture, but it is there because the culture is contrary to the will of God and the Christian must go against the culture in order to please God. For example, many pagan temples provided prostitutes for the worshippers. In writing to Christians from a pagan background, Paul wrote, “But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints.” (Eph 5:3, KJV ) What was an act of worship in their culture is thus condemned and excluded from their lives as Christians.
“The Life and Times of Jesus, the Messiah” by Edersheim is a useful book in understanding first century culture. The writings of Josephus provide further insights. There is also much that has been discovered in the field of archaeology that helps us understand the culture at various times during Bible history. The Bible itself provides much information that is useful in determining the culture of the time. For example, Jesus’ presence at the wedding feast shows us a different culture for weddings from that which existed in the days when Isaac and Rebekah were married (Genesis 24:61-67) .
Concerning the role of women in the church , it is argued that the lack of women in leadership roles simply reflects the culture of the time. Since times are different there should be no hesitancy in putting women in leadership roles in the modern church. It is argued that it is only culture that prevented women from being used as preachers, elders, pastors, apostles and deacons (to name a few).
There are a couple of things that need to be considered in determining whether this is true. First, there is the example of Jesus in choosing 12 men to be apostles. (Luke 6:12-16) Certainly tradition would have dictated such, but Jesus never hesitated to overturn tradition where principle was involved. The choice of just one woman among the 12 would have settled the issue. There were many women who followed Jesus. The women were more faithful in attending Jesus on the cross than the men were (so far as we may learn from the Bible record). Still, there were no women among the twelve. They were all men.
Second, there are the instructions of Paul in the second chapter of his first letter to Timothy. He contrasts the roles of men and women in the assembly. He then buttresses his argument by an appeal to the creation as recorded in Genesis. In other words, his argument is not based on first century culture, but on the creation. The same may not be said concerning his argument for women wearing a covering in 1 Corinthians 11 . There he argues at the end (verse 16) that the churches have “no other practice” (custom) than that being urged. The argument for the covering is based on culture rather than eternal principles or New Testament law.
There are much fuller discussions of the roles of men and women in the church. The arguments offered above are simply indicative of the work that one needs to do in order to sort out what is cultural from what is eternal. It is not enough to simply make the claim, “The Bible says so.” In the Bible people rode on donkeys or walked. “The Bible says so and so we should not use automobiles.” Some would argue such, but that is to ignore the affect of culture on what is written in the Bible.
The matter of foot washing is different from the examples we have already considered. The question is whether Jesus intended that foot washing be a ritual performed on a regular basis by his disciples after his return to heaven. The issue turns on one’s understanding of John, chapter 13 . There is no disputing that Jesus washed the feet of his disciples before they observed the Passover feast and before he gave instructions for the Lord’s Supper. There is also no question about the fact that Jesus gave a command in the passage cited. Jesus said, “For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you.” (Verse 15) The question that must be resolved is, “What is intended in Jesus example?” Is it foot washing that Jesus makes important or is there another command that is being emphasized.
As Jesus came to Peter, Peter said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” To which Jesus replied, “What I do you do not realize now, but you shall understand hereafter.”
Certainly there could be no misunderstanding that Jesus was washing feet and fully intended to wash Peter’s feet. What is not so clear on first sight is the reason that Jesus chose to do this. Is he giving them a ritual to be observed down through the centuries? Is he teaching a lesson on some eternal principle with which they were struggling? Was there some other reason for what Jesus was doing? One’s understanding of the passage depends on the answer to these questions. It is only if one concludes that there were no other issues involved that foot washing becomes a matter for churches to observe today.
If one begins by assuming that Jesus is giving a ritual to be observed down through the centuries, there are some questions that remain to be answered. How often did Jesus intend that disciples do this? Every time they met? Every Sunday? Once a year? Once a month? One time after they became disciples? There is no answer to this question in the New Testament. The Lord’s Supper which was instituted on the same occasion was observed weekly by the disciples as shown in Acts 20:7 and 1 Corinthians 16:2 with 11:17-34 . The only reference to foot washing after the last supper is found in 1 Tim 5:10 . There it is listed among the qualities that commend a widow to be supported by the church.
Someone has said that foot washing has no
relevance outside of a culture of sand and sandals.
It is easily established that it was customary in the culture in which
Jesus moved for a host to provide a servant to wash the feet of his guests.
It was as refreshing to those people as a cold glass of ice tea to a
guest in
Therein lies the explanation for the passage in John 13. The disciples had argued about who was greatest. James and John had sought the principle places of authority (the right and left hand of Jesus) in the coming kingdom. Jesus had rebuked them as well as the rest when he said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:25-28) This had happened just a few days before the last supper.
With such a strong statement of Jesus, one might reasonably have expected that one of the 12 would have noticed the bowl and towel in the corner and gotten up to perform the task of washing feet. None of the disciples moved. None were seemingly impressed with the fact that Jesus had told them the greatest among them would be their slave. None of them apparently wanted to be the greatest if it meant washing feet! Jesus washed their feet.
Jesus told them that they did not understand what he was doing. In washing their feet Jesus was showing them how to be a leader. Later they understood. They did not begin the practice of regular foot washings in their meetings. They did teach the necessity of being a servant, even to the matter of recording the story that illustrated their own failure to understand at first. It is not the first century culture of foot washing that Jesus commanded, but the eternal principle of leaders being servants to others in the church.
Another point that is often overlooked is that not everything, commanded the twelve apostles, is bound on every disciple. For example, in Matthew 10:5 Jesus commanded them, “Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans.” And again, in Luke 24:49 , he commanded them, “And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”
If we cannot “go in the way of the
Gentiles,” must we separate from our families and friends and live in separate
enclaves, shutting out the world except for Christians and Jews?
If we are to “stay in the city until” clothed with power and since
the city is
Another
question that is important sometimes in understanding scripture is the question,
“When was this written (or spoken)?” This
is important particularly concerning prophecies.
A prophecy that is given and then fulfilled cannot be presumed to apply
to some future time for another fulfillment.
There are cases where prophecies have a double fulfillment but that is a
matter to be determined by inspiration, not by interpretation.
In other words, a prophet of God may tell us that a fulfilled prophecy
(for example, the virgin birth prophecy of Isaiah
An example of a prophecy that is often
applied to the restoration of
Someone has said, “A text without a context is a pretext.” If a scripture is being used to support some point it is important that the one using that scripture be aware of its context. It is only in knowing how the scripture fits into its context that one can know he is correctly applying the scripture.
Context is the setting for the scripture. The context has to do with the verses that go before and the verses that follow after. The chapters before and after the verse under consideration give the wider context. The circumstances under which the passage was written are sometimes important in establishing the context.
Consider, for example, the one who claims
that only faith is necessary for salvation and quotes in support of that point
Acts
Several times I have had the experience of someone quoting this scripture as the total answer to salvation. My next question is, “What happened next?” I have yet to meet someone who used that scripture and knew what the following verses of scripture said.
After telling the jailer what he must do, Paul and Silas went to the man’s house where his entire family was awakened to listen and hear the word of the Lord. If the man’s faith would suffice for his entire household, then why bother getting them up in the middle of the night? After the preaching, the jailer washed the wounds of Paul and Silas. When they had been brought to him earlier in the evening with their backs probably raw and bleeding from the flogging they had received, the jailer cared nothing for their pain. Now, after hearing about Jesus he was moved with compassion to minister to them. He had repented of his indifference to their plight.
Then scripture records this, “Immediately
he was baptized, he and all his household."” If all he needed to do to be
saved was believe, then why is he being baptized in the middle of the night?”
All of this happened after
Ecclesiastes furnishes a good example of a writing in which context is important for understanding. In this case it is the context defined by the writer in his opening statement: “’Vanity of vanities,’ says the Preacher, ‘Vanity of vanities! All is vanity. ’” Vanity, in this case, means “useless.” Is it true that everything is useless, the death of Jesus, worshipping God, etc.? Certainly not.
Everything is useless only when we
considered the matters of this world apart from God.
Then the statements made in the early chapters of Ecclesiastes are true.
The writer describes his search for meaning apart from God and reaches
the conclusion that all is useless. When
he says that “money is the answer to everything” in
Another passage that is often misunderstood because of a failure to consider the context is Psalms 51:5 : “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.” This was written by David and is generally understood to have been written after his affair with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, Uriah. The psalms are written as poetry. This is important in coming to a correct understanding of the verse. While poetry sometimes is literally true, it is often used to express deep feelings.
The question concerning this verse in Psalms is, did David intend to make a statement about original sin or was he making a statement about his own sin? Did he intend to teach us that his problem was a result of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit or was the problem that he had broken the law given through Moses? Is David making a theological statement or is he pouring out his heart in anguish to God because of the enormity of the crime that he has committed? Was his mother guilty because she conceived him or had David brought shame on his mother by his conduct with Bathsheba?
I suppose one might interpret the passage either way, but it seems more consistent to me to understand that David is writing about himself, not another. In the anguish he felt as Nathan confronted him with his sin, David, says in affect, “I am an awful person. I have always been an awful person. My soul is sunk in the abyss of sin.” David was not trying to present a great theological absolute, but he was simply trying to give expression to the guilt that he felt.
A favorite salvation verse for many people is found in John 3:16 . “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” It is often displayed on signs in the end zone at football games so that the TV audience will be reminded every time a field goal or point after touchdown is attempted. Does it tell the whole story of how one is saved?
The context of the verse is a conversation
between Jesus and Nicodemus that begins in verse one of chapter three
. When Nicodemus came to see Jesus
he made an admiring statement about Jesus as a teacher who had come from God.
In response, Jesus told him that he needed to be born again.
When Nicodemus seemed confused, Jesus repeated his statement in verse 5:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the
Spirit, he cannot enter into the
In John 1:12
, John stated that it is by receiving Jesus (that is believing in him) that one
has the “power to become” a child of God.
Faith does not make one a child of God.
It is the qualifier by which a person may become a child of God.
One becomes a child of God (according to Jesus) through a birth of water
and Spirit. It is not a birth of
water followed by a birth of Spirit, nor a birth of Spirit followed by a birth
of water. It is a birth that
involves both water and Spirit. John
A similar example is found in Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians. In Romans 10:9-10 , Paul wrote, “That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” This passage is sometimes used to prove that it is not necessary to be baptized.
Again, the context is important.
In Romans
Chapter 10 does not set aside what Paul said
in chapters one through six. There
are not two groups in
The Bible is a book from God. It must be treated with respect. The final judgment will be based on what God has caused to be written in His book. We need to be diligent, careful students of the Bible.
