Look at the Book

Faith results in two wonderful blessings for the believer: a new standing before God and a new life empowered by the Spirit.

Why should Christians boast only in the cross? Because everything that we have as believers comes through the cross.

Only Christ can take an instrument of death and make it the place where a new creation comes into being. The way of life runs through the cross.

What does Paul mean when he says that the world has been crucified to him and he to the world? He no longer trusts and treasures the world. He trusts and treasures Christ.

Legalism in Paul’s day and legalism in our own day share a similar root: the desire to impress fellow humans.

We may think that what we do with money matters little, but Paul teaches that where we choose to invest has eternal consequences.

The New Testament treats much boasting as sinful, but it also calls us toward a holy kind of boasting. So, how should Christians boast?

Do not determine the value of your work by comparing yourself with others. God calls each person to unique acts of faith, and comparison sours and spoils that calling.

What is “the law of Christ” — and how does our fulfilling of this law relate to justification by faith alone?

Christian love is not passive. When love sees a brother or sister caught in sin, it does not shrink away but confronts in order to renew and restore.

If Christians have the Spirit of God leading and guiding them, why does the New Testament issue over four hundred commands to obey?

Those made alive by the Spirit will keep in step with the Spirit. They will walk by the Spirit, sow to the Spirit, bear the fruit of the Spirit.

If the fruit of the Spirit is a miracle that God produces in his people, what can we do to cultivate that fruit?

How do Christians inherit the kingdom of God? Not by our work or merit, but by our union with the Son of God and offspring of Abraham.

If you live in sin, practice sin, and die in sin, you won’t go to heaven. You won’t be happy with God forever.

How does God give us victory over the desires of the flesh? He reshapes and reorients our desires by his Spirit.

Competing desires war within every Christian — desires of the flesh and of the Spirit. How can we refuse to gratify what our flesh wants?

If Christians are indwelt by the Spirit of God, and if he guides and controls us, are we simply spiritual robots?

All Christians should walk by the Spirit. But how? How do we experience the powerful, omnipotent, merciful, all-wise leading of the Spirit of God?

Paul says that the law is fulfilled in the command to “love your neighbor as yourself.” But how does such love fulfill the whole law?

What does it mean to love your neighbors as yourself? It means you seek their good with the same passion with which you seek your own, and you find your joy in theirs.

What prevents us from using our freedom in Christ as an opportunity to indulge the flesh? A life of faith is the opposite of a life in the flesh.

When God sovereignly calls us, he opens our eyes to see and embrace the beauty of Jesus. And that call grants freedom from obeying the law as a means of being justified.

Why does Paul use such shocking language against the false teachers in Galatia — and how should his rebuke inform the way we speak?

Why is the cross so offensive to fallen man? Because the cross declares that no amount of human effort or law-keeping can make us right with God.

More than once, how Paul feels toward certain Christians increases his confidence in their salvation. How does that kind of confidence work?

A little leaven, even just a little, leavens the whole lump. Mix a little law with the gospel, and you surrender the ground of grace.

What kind of faith unites us to Christ so that we are counted righteous before God? The faith that bears the fruit of love.

The church may be mocked, accused, and slandered now. But a day is coming when God will silence any doubt about his people’s righteousness.

When Paul talks about being severed from Christ, does he imply that true Christians can lose their salvation?

Those who seek to be justified by the law sever themselves from Christ, fall away from grace, and commit eternal suicide.

The law cannot be divided — break but the smallest commandment, and you are guilty of all. We cannot be right with God through the law.

If you claim works as part of the basis of being right with God, you trade grace for law, and you cancel every blessing of Christ from your life.

If you try to be justified under the law, you will remain under the curse. But if you stand firm in the grace of the gospel, you will enjoy true freedom.

Through the gospel of grace, Jesus Christ sets Christians free in order that they may remain free. Don’t turn back to slavery.

Christians are not slaves, but free. We are right with God not by works of the law, but by faith. We are born not of the flesh, but of the Spirit.

Children of promise are children born as the answer to a promise. Every Christian is a child spoken of beforehand, a fulfillment of God’s promise.

Abraham’s wife, Sarah, spent her childbearing years barren — but God fulfilled his promise to her. What can this experience teach us about Jesus’s work on the cross?

According to Paul, the Christian’s true home is the Jerusalem above — a heavenly city whose citizens are born of God and utterly free.

Hagar represents the effort to be right with God by keeping the law. But human effort can never bring forth the children of God. Hagar only begets slaves.

The children of God are not the product of human effort. Like Isaac, they are brought forth by divine promise based on divine prerogative.

When Paul read his Old Testament, what implicit meaning did he see in the characters of Hagar and Sarah?

What is Paul’s main point in the allegory of Sarah and Hagar? What truth does he want his readers to see from this Old Testament story?

Children of God come into being when Christ is formed in them through faith. Paul compares his whole ministry to a matchmaker and a mother.

If you leave the gospel for the law, you are under an enchantment. To break the spell, remember the blessings that the gospel brings.

If God knows everything and everyone, what does Paul mean when he describes Christians as those who are known by God?

Even though people can know about God through creation, hard hearts suppress that knowledge. Thus, sinners do not know God.

For Paul, pagan idolatry and reliance on the law to get right with God amount to the same thing. Neither can offer any help to save our souls.

When Paul describes the Spirit’s witness in the heart of believers, he says the Spirit cries, “Abba!” Why is that name so significant?

Why did Jesus need to be born of a woman as a human being in order to redeem those under the curse of the law?