This is the beginning of a book that is in-progress titled Salvation by Being Good. I have published several chapters as blog posts which are listed at the end of this article. Any work of this nature which is a…
Category: Theology
Salvation by Being Good
Let’s put this salvation issue as succinctly as possible: If God judges based on a person’s faith, then a good non-believer goes to Hell. If God judges based on conduct, then a good non-believer is saved. If the latter is…
God Really is Just – Justice Demands Forgiveness
In my hundreds of conversations about Salvation by Being Good there are two objections that are raised almost every time. One objection that I have already addressed in a previous blog post is that no man can by his own…
There Are None Righteous – Except For Everyone Who Is
A group of young men from the local Baptist megachurch were at Starbucks having a Bible study. As they broke up and were preparing to leave I told them I was writing a book on salvation and asked if they…
Scriptures That Teach All Men Will Be Judged by Their Conduct, Not Their Belief
On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” He answered:…
Did the Lamb Sacrifice Save the Jew?
If I led a group of believers and I told you we were practicing ancient Jewish rituals such as lamb sacrifices you might have one or more of the following reactions: “Why on earth would you be doing that?” Or,…
Loyalty to “God’s Chosen People” Does Not Mean Running Palestinians Into the Ground
What some of my Christian friends believe to be loyalty to “God’s Chosen People”, many of us Christians see as a cruel trashing of everything we believe Jesus stood for. The comments from Christians to Pres. Trump’s tweet about withholding…
Righteousness by Self-Effort is Good, Expected, and Attainable
Understanding what Self-Righteousness actually is will go a long way in understanding what Paul is getting at in Romans and help to dispel the myths of Original Sin and Imputed Righteousness, as they are commonly understood. Self-righteousness has gotten a…
Were Jesus and His Apostles Mistaken About Jesus’ Soon Return?
It’s hard to imagine Evangelicals saying that Jesus and his apostles were wrong about one of the most important doctrines of the church but that’s exactly what many believe about the return of Christ. Peter, James, John, Paul, the writer…
Wrong Assumptions About the End Times
Hal Lindsey’s book The Late Great Planet Earth popularized the idea that mankind’s future is all laid out in the prophetic portions of the Bible. This is called Futerism, and for many of us Christians it’s the only paradigm we…