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Question
I am doing a paper on a characters in the bible that had been healed. I chose the woman with the issue of blood. I was told I could go to I Kings where Elijah prayed for the widow son. Can I make a comparison? Is faith the only thing these two characters have in common? If I am on the wrong track, please point me to the right direction
Hello Gloria.
First, you should understand that the person heald did not need to have any faith at all. The one that had to have faith was the person doing the healing. God's power is not restricted to those who have faith. Dead people don't have faith and God can raise the dead. Adam and Eve had no faith before God breathed life into their bodies and created them immortal beings. It's true that some of the people who were healed had faith, but their faith was not what caused them to be healed miraculously.
However faith, the kind that is fulfilled by actions (works), is an absolute requirement in order for one to receive forgiveness and therefore be saved.
Now, be careful that you make a distinction between works of faith and works of merit. Works of faith are the actions a person takes in obeying God's commandments because they trust him to be faithful to his word. Works of merit are those actions a person does in a vain attempt to earn forgiveness as if God owed it to them for doing more good than bad. This is the reason that baptism is absolutely required in order for a person to have their sins forgiven. It is commanded by God with the promise that he will forgive those that do it with the full intention of continuing to obey him in all things 24/7 from that point forward. Baptism is a work of faith if done not thinking that forgiveness is being purchased in doing it. Baptism is simply one of the things God requires in order for people to obtain the free gift of salvation. Every promise made by God has conditions that go with it that a person has to accept if they are to have the gift. Acts 2:38, after the people Peter preached the gospel to had believed, they asked "What must we do?" Peter told them and about 3,000 of them entered into the kingdom of God that day as soon as they had obeyed what God had told Peter to tell them to do and not one second before. Those people were saved by real faith, and not by the hypocritical kind that refuses to obey one of the plainest stated commands in the Bible. Millions and millions of people who think that they are saved are just as lost as they ever were because they've accepted the false doctrine of false teachers that say baptism is not necessary for salvation. Those false teachers are going to receive a more severe judgement than other people for misleading them and causing them to follow their false Christs.
I hope this helps clearify it for you and for anyone else who reads this.
Sincerely,
Mr. McClellan
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Mr. McClellan
Expertise
I can answer questions concerning Christian doctrine as well as other kinds of questions relating to religion. One important thing, among many, that needs clearing up is the meaning of religion. Religion is any system of belief that tries to explain how people should think and behave so that life is the best it can be. The definition found in the dictionary is seriously in error being based on popular but wrong ideas. Email me at and.the.truth.is@GMX.com for a free PDF 5 page introduction to my just completed book, "And The Truth Is?" It's uniquely different and interactive, designed to show you that you can actually know the way, the truth, and the life Jesus spoke of and what he expected people to do to participate in it as well as what to expect if they did.
Experience
My education puts me second to none in this area and I have had over forty years experience in the area of teaching Christian theology, doctrine, apologetics, hermeneutics, history, and philosophy. Publications: Among the things that I have written is a summary of the entire Bible that is intended to help people put it all together and quickly understand exactly what the writers of the Bible intended for everyone to understand. By reading it and then reading the Bible, the correct understanding should become quite clear and a sincere student will recognize that they have received an invaluable aid to knowing how to correctly interpret the Bible so that they can know, with certainty, that they are understanding it correctly. At the same time, they will be able to recognize the vast number of false doctirnes that are being called Christian doctrines but are only the teachings of men and have no more authority than any oridinary man can give them.
Organizations
I belong to no officially recognized organizations. I'm simply a person with a deep and lifelong desire to know the truth, a desire so strong that I have, for more than 50 years, poured myself and a lot of money into finding it and making sure of it. I believe that life is too short and valuable to waste it believing a lot of stuff that isn't true. Everyone can't be right and be in disagreement at the same time and the claims made by the writers of the Bible are simply too serious to guess about.
Publications
It's quite obvious that the Bible is not easy to comprehend thus all the divided opinions about what it teaches. I am finalizing a short treatise on the Bible that I believe will help a lot of people who seriously want to get a clear understanding of what the Bible actually has to say to everyone, a treatise that should take the mystery out of it and show that it really makes sense. People deserve help in recognizing the truth about what the Bible says because there is so much false teaching about it that is actually leading people away from God instead of to God. It should be ready to send out by the end of this year, 2011 or before.
Now, you can purchase a PDF copy of my book "And The Truth Is?" on CD. It's very unique and it's interactive. If you're tired of living with a best guess and want to learn for certain what the truth is, this, the result of over 50 years of research and serious study, is what you're looking for.
Education/Credentials
I have two degrees in education, including religious belief systems. I also have many years of experience and many thousands of hours of study and research on which I've based my new book, "The Bible Actually Makes Sense."
Awards and Honors
All of my awards and honors are in the form of compliments from people who've read or listened to my attempts to help them understand what the Bible is about and how to comply with what it actually says. So many have said, in one way or another, that I helped them more than anyone they had ever met. It's comforting to know that my efforts to be of value to others is appreciated.
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