Grace in Focus – September/October 2017
Q&A
By Staff Are Believers Under Law Today? Q: Galatians 2:19 and Rom 7:14 seem to be saying that believers are no longer under the Law of Moses, or any law. When we become believers, we are set free from law. Have I missed the boat? ~RE, email A: I think you have one leg in
The Bread of Life: Why Faith Precedes Regeneration (John 6:35)
By Bob Wilkin A chapter from Crushing Calvinism: Twelve Key Verses One of the main aspects of the Calvinist understanding of total depravity—the T in TULIP—is that regeneration precedes faith. Unfortunately, most Evangelicals do not know what that means and so they are likely to accept the first point of Calvinism, thinking that total depravity
A Sad Day of Reckoning (Matthew 24:45-51)
By Ken Yates At the end of Matthew 24, Jesus gives a parable about a servant. The point of the parable is that a servant can either be a good and faithful servant or an evil and unfaithful one. The good servant does what his master tells him by serving his fellow servants. The evil
Chosen to Bear Fruit: Election in John’s Gospel
By Shawn Lazar A chapter from Chosen to Serve: Why Election Is for Service, Not for Eternal Life Do you remember when it was time to give oral presentations in class? It was always nerve-wracking for me. When the teacher picked up her list of names and started randomly choosing who would go next, I
God’s Sovereignty in Missions (Acts 18:1-28)
By Zane C. Hodges Introduction This section (Acts 18:1-17) concludes the second missionary journey. The first missionary journey (13:5–14:28) gave prominence to the worker; the second (16:6–18:17) to the work. In the first, we are occupied with God’s choice for His work; in the second, with God’s control of His work. That is, in 13:5–14:28,
God Was at Work
By Bud Brown I was born again in my twenty-fourth year on this planet. That moment concluded the first leg of my spiritual journey and marked the beginning of the next. The journey began many years earlier. The First Leg Ours was not a Christian family, but I occasionally encountered church as a child. I
Hang Out in the Light
By Ron Rosso The Apostle Paul said, “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief ” (1 Tim 1:15). Notice Paul used the present tense (“I am”), as opposed to the past tense. Thus, his being “chief among
Do You Make a Good Impression?
By Bill Fiess The Greek word typos, from which our English word “type” derives, is an interesting term. Typos comes from a root which means “to strike,” and thus the Greeks used the word to denote an impression made by a blow in wax or metal. They also used typos to refer to a form,
Hagar Does Not Deserve Her Bad Rap
By Marcia Hornok Hagar the Heroine? Christians don’t usually think of Hagar as a Bible person to emulate. Rather than submit to Sarai, she became antagonistic and ran away like a rebellious teen—a pregnant one. Yes, she brought some of her suffering on herself, but consider that she had been exiled from her people and
Grace Goes to Zambia
By Ken Yates I just got back from Zambia, Africa and wanted to give an update. The trip was outstanding. My daughter, Kathryn, son-in-law Dewey, and I were gone about two weeks. I taught at a Bible college there. One of the professors is a young man from Zambia that I tutored in Greek while
What Does it Mean to Walk in the Spirit?
By Bob Wilkin Preachers and Theologians Sometimes Make Up Stuff Preachers and theologians tend to be careful when explaining fundamental Biblical truths like the deity of Christ, substitutionary atonement, Jesus’ bodily resurrection on the third day, the Second Coming of Christ, and the inerrancy of Scripture. By careful, I mean that they will quote Scriptures