Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 11063 The idea that Christians should be poor, or that poverty is somehow more spiritual than financial comfort, has deep roots in church history and continues to shape how many believers think about money. Monastic vows of poverty, the example of Saint Francis, and the powerful imagery of Jesus with “nowhere to lay his…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 11064 The word “stewardship” appears regularly in Christian vocabulary, often in the context of annual giving campaigns or building projects. But biblical stewardship is a far richer and more comprehensive concept than fundraising language suggests. It touches every area of life, from money and possessions to time, abilities, relationships, and the gospel itself. Understanding…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 11093 The question of how Christians should give to the church touches on stewardship, worship, gratitude, and the practical reality that local churches need financial resources to carry out their mission. It is also a question where popular teaching has often imported assumptions, whether from the Old Testament tithing system or from the prosperity…
Reading Time: 7 minutesQuestion 7004 Few experiences are more distressing for Christians than the absence of spiritual feeling. You’ve trusted Jesus, you believe the Gospel, you’re trying to follow Him—yet something is missing. There’s no warmth, no joy, no sense of God’s presence. You go through the motions but feel nothing. You wonder if you’re even saved at…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 7007 Philippians 2:12-13 is one of those passages that has puzzled believers and been misused by those who want to introduce works into salvation. Paul writes: “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 06035 The word “backsliding” has an old-fashioned ring to it in some quarters, but the reality it describes is anything but historical. It names something that believers in every generation have experienced and that the biblical writers addressed with both pastoral honesty and theological seriousness. The Biblical Origins of the Term The word comes…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 11087 The phrase “forgive yourself” is frequently offered as pastoral advice to people struggling with guilt, shame, or regret. Its absence from Scripture is not a trivial observation. The framework a question uses determines the answer it receives, and the question of whether you need to forgive yourself places you as both the offended…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 07082 If legalism is the error of adding to what God requires, antinomianism is the error of subtracting from it. The word comes from the Greek anti (against) and nomos (law): the view that Christians are so thoroughly freed from the law by grace that the moral law has no ongoing relevance or binding…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 07071 The word legalism gets used in at least two quite different ways in contemporary Christianity. Sometimes it means what it should mean: the error of trying to earn righteousness before God through law-keeping, or of adding human rules to Scripture and binding consciences where God has not. Other times it is used as…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 4082 Romans 8:26-27 describes one of the most intimate and remarkable ministries the Holy Spirit performs on behalf of every believer: He intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words, and He does so according to the will of God. This intercession is not an occasional intervention but a constant reality — the…