What must I do to gain eternal life? What do we have to do to inherit eternal life? What good things do we have to do to inherit eternal life? Do we have to keep the commandment to enter the kingdom of God? Do we need to keep the commandment? Do we need to be perfect to gain eternal life? Do we have the capability of being perfect? What does it mean or what did Jesus mean when he said: “it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven?”
I will be dealing with the above questions when I write my sermon and on “salvation by grace through faith” when I unpack the questions.
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So are you re-working the sermon you did on this text for Dr. Hedahl's class? My question after reading your questions is: How much do we do for the sake of doing and how much do we do because of what has already been done for us? Is it an "if/then" or a "because/therefore" way of living?
ReplyDeleteI think it would also be important to address (or at least raise) the issue of "what is the kingdom of God"? Why is it something we want to inherit? What does it mean to "inherit" something anyway? (I think it implies a relationship with the giver--this case, God--what implications does (or can) this relationship have on our present lives?) Perhaps this relationship that we must have with the giver can help flesh out Cassandra's comment about it not being a "if/then" but "because/therefore" way of living.
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ReplyDeleteI also wonder how much we do is selfish because we think we need to in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, or to be a good Christian, or because it's right.
ReplyDeleteI think it's really interesting that Jesus follows up "it will be hard for a rich person to enter heaven" with "for mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible." We can't seem to earn this by ourselves.