The first thing to say is that the existence of God is different from the existence of, say, trees or chairs. The existence of a tree is usually so obvious that you don’t need to present arguments — almost nobody would dispute the existence of tree that was right in front of them. God is [...]
Answers about faith
When we think of doubt and scepticism, we often think of something that is incompatible with faith. However, the Bible has a positive attitude towards being sceptical — in fact, it commands us to be! For example, in 1Thess. 5:21 (NIV) Paul says: Test everything. Hold on to the good. God knows there are a [...]
They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways. Psalm 95:10 God uses these words to describe the behaviour of the nation of Israel as they wandered in the wilderness. It shows us the primary reason why they fell away so easily and frequently. If they had [...]
The Bible says that you need to believe to be saved (e.g. Eph. 2:8). Animals are not able to believe, so animals cannot be saved. However, there will be animals in God’s kingdom. The prophet Isaiah has several description of God’s kingdom that include animals: 6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the [...]
No. Part of the basis of salvation is faith in the Lord Jesus (John 3:16; Acts 4:12) so, to be saved, people — including Israelites — need to believe in him and what God did through him. Rom. 9:30-10:21 talks about this in some detail. (Also see, ‘Will God save Israelites simply because they are [...]
There is no difference between ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ — they are the same thing. Although the words are different in English, the New Testament, for example, only has one family of words (from the root peithō (Strong’s #3982) in Greek) that are translated as both ‘faith’ and ‘belief’. Part of the reason why the Greek [...]
In essence, faith is trusting someone or something. In Gen. 15 God tells Abram that he will give him a child and that Abram’s descendants will grow in number to become a nation: …the word of the Lord came to him: “…your very own son shall be your heir.” And he brought him outside and [...]
This is a quite complicated question, not least because of the very nature of the book. The Bible is often described as a library of books and this is very true. It was written over a period of about 1500 years with around 40 different authors making contributions. So to answer the question properly we [...]
Well, Hebrews 11:1 says Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. So, faith is the next step up from hope: being really sure. You can certainly hope for things without being sure they will come to pass, but having faith means being sure. (Bit [...]
For the Jews, salvation was by obedience: your works showed that you believed in God, and that earned you salvation (see, for example, Proverbs 11:18). But when Jesus came, he taught them something new: salvation by grace and faith. A key verse in this regard is Luke 17:10 (NIV): So you also, when you have [...]
