Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09018 The doctrine of apostolic succession is one of the foundational claims of Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and some Anglican ecclesiology. It asserts that the authority of the original apostles has been transmitted in an unbroken chain through the laying on of hands from bishop to bishop, from the first century to the present…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09016 The sheer number of Christian denominations is one of the most frequently raised objections to the faith, both by sceptics and by sincere believers who find it troubling. If Christians worship the same God and read the same Bible, why are there thousands of separate organisational structures, each with its own confession, polity,…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 7051 Repentance is one of the most misunderstood concepts in Christianity today, yet it’s absolutely central to the Gospel message. The confusion often comes from our modern understanding of the word versus what Scripture actually teaches. Is repentance merely feeling sorry for sin? Must we turn from all our sins before God will save…
Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 7052 Of all the words we use in the Christian life, faith is surely one of the most common and yet one of the most misunderstood. We sing about it, we preach about it, we’re told we need more of it, but what actually is it? Is it a feeling? A leap in the…
Reading Time: 8 minutesQuestion 7000 Few passages in Scripture have generated as much theological discussion as Ephesians 2:8-9. The debate centres on a grammatical question with enormous theological implications: when Paul writes “and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God,” what exactly is the gift? Is it faith itself that God gives us? Is it…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 07050 This question touches the foundations of Christian assurance, and it deserves a direct answer: no, a genuinely born-again believer cannot ultimately and finally fall away from salvation. But reaching that conclusion responsibly requires engaging honestly with the passages that have led many sincere people to a different answer. The Foundation of Eternal Security…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 07012 Salvation is the word Scripture uses for what God has done about the human predicament. It is not a religious concept invented by the church; it is the great answer to the great problem that runs through every page of the Bible from Genesis 3 onwards. The word itself means rescue, and it…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 07018 Grace is perhaps the most distinctive word in the Christian vocabulary, and also one of the most misused. It is not a vague spiritual niceness, nor a technical system requiring specialist knowledge to access. In Scripture it is something breathtakingly concrete: the favour of God given freely to those who have no claim…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 07019 Few theological questions carry more pastoral weight than this one. For many believers, the fear that salvation might somehow be lost produces an exhausting, joyless religious life in which assurance is always conditional on recent performance. Scripture, read carefully, addresses this fear with remarkable directness, and the answer it gives is not a…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 07017 Regeneration is the miracle at the heart of conversion. It is what makes the entire Christian life possible. Without it, there is no genuine faith, no real repentance, no lasting change, and no spiritual perception of God. It is the point at which God acts to bring spiritually dead people to spiritual life,…