(This week I begin another series from my web site, dealing with Kingdom Living.)
The promises made to Abraham included land, material blessings, and protection. Those who are Christ’s now have the hope of partaking of those promises, and of ruling the world with Jesus Christ. That rule will be a perfect and righteous rule, and in order to enjoy all those things one would need to be given life in the Age To Come. Yet Jesus said that unless our righteousness exceeded the righteousness of the Pharisees, we would in no wise enter the Kingdom of God (Matthew 5:20). This hearkens back to verses like Psalm 15:1-2, that the one who would dwell in God’s holy tabernacle is the one who works righteousness and speaks the truth in his heart.
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It is a common assumption among both Christians and non-Christians that “faith†is some kind of mystical quality that enables us to believe in things that have little or no foundation. It is commonly referred to as “blind faith.â€Â In a recent discussion on his late night talk show, Craig Ferguson made the following observation:
I always feel that people who are certain give me a problem. And I’ll tell you what I mean by that: people who say “I absolutely know what God wants.” And I say, “Well, if you absolutely know about God–that He exists and you know what He wants, and you know all this stuff, then you don’t need faith. Because faith is only for people who experience doubt. Because if you have no doubt, then you can’t have faith. You have certainty. Or…pathology. In order to experience faith, it is necessary for you to experience doubt.
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the following email was sent to me a couple of weeks ago by Patrick Navas, author of Divine Truth or Human Tradition? and recent guest on Truth Matters, in which he discussed the issue of justification by faith alone. I thought his way of harmonizing Paul and James was helpful.
Hello Everyone,
Recently I had an email discussion with an evangelical friend on the subject of the doctrine of “justification by faith alone.” Can you read my short response to him and offer some feedback from your perspective?
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This is the original question to my friend:
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