Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 07057 There is perhaps no account in the Gospels that more plainly displays the grace of God in salvation than the exchange between Jesus and one of the criminals crucified alongside Him. It has been used in Christian preaching and pastoral care for two thousand years, and rightly so, because what takes place in…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 07058 The question of deathbed conversions tends to provoke two quite different reactions. For some, the thought that a person can turn to Christ in the final moments of life and receive full forgiveness and eternal life is an expression of the gospel’s astonishing generosity. For others, it raises uncomfortable questions about fairness, about…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 7084 The question is designed to be uncomfortable, and that discomfort is itself theologically informative. By naming the most notorious mass murderer of the modern era, it is really asking something else entirely: is there a limit to grace? Is there a category of human evil so profound that the gospel cannot reach it?…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 7069 The question of salvation divided Western Christianity in the sixteenth century and has not been formally resolved since. The Protestant Reformation turned fundamentally on the question of how a person is justified before God, and the Council of Trent, convened by Rome between 1545 and 1563, responded by issuing specific condemnations of the…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 13013 The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century was not a theological invention but a recovery. When Luther posted his theses and Calvin worked through Geneva, what drove them was the conviction that Scripture’s teaching on salvation had been buried under layers of tradition, sacramentalism, and institutional authority. The Five Solas that emerged from…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 02044 Mercy is the attribute of God that most people instinctively reach for in moments of crisis. When things go badly wrong — when the weight of failure, guilt, or fear becomes acute — the prayer most naturally formed is a cry for mercy. Understanding what mercy actually is, how it relates to justice,…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 06076 The question of what Paul’s thorn actually was has occupied readers for centuries, partly because Paul is deliberately vague and partly because the passage sits within one of the most extraordinary sections of personal disclosure in the entire New Testament. In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Paul describes having been caught up into the third…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 02085 The term “common grace” describes the benefits God extends to all people regardless of whether they are in a saving relationship with Him. It is distinguished from saving grace, which transforms the soul and brings about new birth, and it raises a genuine question: can someone who has never trusted Christ still perceive…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 6005 You have probably heard it said that “all sins are equal in God’s eyes.” It sounds humble and is often used to prevent us from looking down on others whose sins seem worse than our own. But is it actually true? Does Scripture teach that telling a white lie is the same as…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 6010 In Psalm 19, David prays, “Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me!” (Psalm 19:13). This suggests there is a category of sin that is particularly dangerous, something beyond the ordinary sins we all commit. What are presumptuous sins, and why should they concern us? Understanding…