The Bible Answers

Posts Tagged ‘Timothy’

Answer:

The most important thing is to believe in Jesus Christ as your only hope of redemption before God. We cannot do anything to save ourselves. How many times have you heard people say “I’m not so bad” and then go on to explain to you how they believe God will only send people like Stalin and Hitler to Hell. Others say “well, I go to Church” or “my uncle is a pastor” or any number of things. It makes me shudder to think of the ignorance about the most important thing of all in relation to Christianity.

Nowhere in the Bible does it say to “be good”, “go to Church” or “have a relative that is a pastor” and you will be saved.

See:

John 5:24 (New International Version)

 ²⁴“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.

John 6:47 (New International Version)

⁴⁷I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.

John 10:9 (New International Version)

⁹I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.^[a] He will come in and go out, and find pasture.

John 14:6
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
John 14:5-7 (in Context) John 14 (Whole Chapter)

Acts 2:21 (New International Version)

 ²¹And everyone who calls
      on the name of the Lord will be saved.’

Romans 10:9 (New International Version)

⁹That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

 2 Timothy 1 (New International Version)

⁸So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, ⁹who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, ¹⁰but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

2 Timothy 2:22
So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

It would appear from this passage that not much has changed in 2,000 years. The young among us still need to be encouraged to “flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness”.

I hear a great number of people openly wondering how our society got so far with teen pregnancies, drug use, the high school drop out rate and on and on. The passage above gives us a clue. No longer does society judge people. There are excuse makers among us that have gone too far.

To fix this we need to start holding our children to account for their actions. If they get pregnant before they are ready Christian parents say “well, at least they didn’t get an abortion”. Since when was the measure of morality not killing a child? It is still a shame for them to get pregnant in the first place.

When they do drugs I hear parents and others saying “It is just a phase, after all I had a wild youth”. Since when did our bad behavior as young people justify more bad behavior. When did that ever make bad behavior acceptable.

When our children tell us they are going to drop out of school we tell them it is OK and we still love them. Since when was punishing your children showing a lack of love? To the contrary. The Bible tells us Proverbs 13:24 He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.

Let us first encourage our children to flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace. Let us agree as a nation to bring our children back to some semblance of sanity through discipline.