The biblical usage of the word translated “saved” is precisely the same as ours. A newspaper headline that reads “Child Saved From Drowning,” means he was rescued. To be saved is to be rescued—rescued from sin and its consequences. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (that’s what Romans 3:23 has to say about everyone, including you). When God saves someone He rescues him from the penalty of sin, which is eternal punishment in hell. He also gradually rescues him from the power of sin in this life. And, ultimately, He rescues him from the very presence of sin by taking him to heaven. That is what it means to be saved.

But, it is of the greatest importance to know how to be saved. About this matter, as I have already indicated, there is no unanimity. What does the Bible say?

In Acts 16:31, in response to the question, “What must I do to be saved?” Paul answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved and your house.” Salvation is received by faith. When Scripture says that you must believe “on” (or “in,” or “upon”) Jesus Christ, it is talking about something more than mere assent. The Bible is clearly saying that you must depend upon Jesus Christ. But, what does that mean? It means that you must entrust your entire life, here and hereafter, to Him. It means that you must depend wholly upon what He has done, to be saved.

But what has He done in order to save? Jesus Christ died on the cross, bearing the punishment that was due to all who throughout the ages will believe on Him. He rose from the dead, giving evidence that God accepted His penal, vicarious sacrifice. The wrath of God fell on Him instead of them. All who trust Him as Savior have their sins forgiven. This is the “good news” that the apostles proclaimed around the Mediterranean world and that you are now learning in this blog. If you depend upon the saving work of Christ on the cross you will be saved.

Notice, the “gospel” is good news to be believed; not good deeds to be done. News has to do with something that has already happened; not with something yet to be done. You cannot be saved by depending upon your good works, on ceremonies like baptism, or church membership. Nothing you have done or ever could do will save you. You must look away from yourself and others and look in faith to Christ alone. It is depending on the Lord Jesus Christ alone that saves. You cannot be saved by some vague invitation to “come forward,” or to “let Jesus come into your heart.” There must be an understanding of the good news that Christ died on the cross for guilty, condemned sinners like you, and a willingness to depend on His death and resurrection to save you from your sin.

And, in trusting Christ as Savior, you must be willing to admit that you are a sinner. When the Bible says that you “have sinned and come short of the glory of God,” it means that, apart from God’s forgiveness, there is no way in which you can have eternal life. He will not allow unforgiven sinners to live in His perfect heaven. You must change your mind about yourself (apart from Christ you are unacceptable to God), about God (He is not a Santa Claus who accepts all into heaven) and about Christ (He isn’t just a great man; He is God come into the human race to save sinners).

Is God at work, convicting you of your sin and the need for a Savior? Then repent, change your mind; submit yourself to Jesus Christ and He will make you a new person and change the direction of your life. Trust Christ today.

Check out our online courses, including, Introduction to Nouthetic Counseling and  The Use of Scripture in Counseling, taught by Jay Adams!

Books related to counseling others:

1. Competent to Counsel by Jay Adams
2. The Christian Counselor’s Manual by Jay Adams
3. How to Help People Change by Jay Adams
4. The Use of Scripture in Counseling by Jay Adams
5. Sanctification and Counseling by Jay Adams
6. Critical Stages in Biblical Counseling by Jay Adams
7. Check out our Bookstore for all the best counseling books!

The Christian Counselor’s New Testament and Proverbs, translated by Jay Adams

Visit our online bookstore for all your biblical counseling resource needs.
For more biblical counseling training, check out our list of INS Online Courses.

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• In the Gospels, Jesus warns against false teachers, and speaks of wolves in sheep’s clothing and the “leaven of the Pharisees.” The record of His ministry is one of conflict with those who refused to accept the teaching He set forth.
• Acts contains the record of the church’s first major controversy over whether or not a person must become a Jew before he could qualify as a Christian. A church council was called to settle the matter. Paul goes to lengths to warn the Ephesian elders about wolves who would devour the flock and schismatically draw away disciples to themselves.
• Romans is an entire doctrinal treatise about justification by faith alone in contrast to salvation by works, and how sanctification follows thereafter. In it, Paul also takes up the rejection of the Jewish church.
• I Corinthians is loaded with problems; schism, misuse of gifts, church discipline, marriage and divorce, and on, and on, on.
• II Corinthians takes on false apostles who had invaded the church and charged him with pretending to be an apostle. The place of apostolic authority is set forth, along with the qualifications of an apostle.
• Galatians is a sterling defense of Justification by faith alone over against those who taught otherwise and were upsetting the church by Judaistic legalism.
• Ephesians is less controversial, being a universal epistle rather than directed to the adverse circumstances of an individual or a congregation
• Philippians deals with a split in an otherwise good church. But it has to do with self-centeredness and sets forth a key Christological passage.
• Colossians is consumed with fighting Judaistic Gnosticism.
• I & II Thessalonians take up false teaching about the Lord’s coming and eschatology.
• I & II Timothy & Titus teach “healthy” doctrine over against many false ideas. And, in them, Paul doesn’t hesitate to name specific heretical individuals.
• Philemon is a welcome exception
• Hebrews, in its entirety, combats all influences that would cause Jewish Christians to revert to Judaism.
• James utterly destroys the idea that one can have genuine faith that does not result in good works.
• I Peter explains how the New Testament church is no longer a physical political entity, but that the church is now the spiritual people of God, the new Israel.
• II Peter warns against scoffers and libertines unsettling the church and reveals the true picture of final things.
• I John argues quite effectively throughout the book against Gnosticism of a Cerenthian sort.
• II John warns against hospitality for heretics
• III John deals with church discipline gone so far astray as to virtually destroy a church.
• Jude throughout its entirety is an exhortation to contend against the libertines who invaded the church that failed to listen to the warnings in II Peter.
• Revelation speaks of the warfare of God against apostate Judaism, the first persecutor of the church, and Rome, the second persecutor, and predicts the fall. It also mentions cults like the Nicolatians.

Now, in light of the above, if you can, tell me why we should not be prepared to detect and refute falsehood in the Church?

Check out our online courses, including, Introduction to Nouthetic Counseling and  The Use of Scripture in Counseling, taught by Jay Adams!

Books related to counseling others:

1. Competent to Counsel by Jay Adams
2. The Christian Counselor’s Manual by Jay Adams
3. How to Help People Change by Jay Adams
4. The Use of Scripture in Counseling by Jay Adams
5. Sanctification and Counseling by Jay Adams
6. Critical Stages in Biblical Counseling by Jay Adams
7. Check out our Bookstore for all the best counseling books!

The Christian Counselor’s New Testament and Proverbs, translated by Jay Adams

Visit our online bookstore for all your biblical counseling resource needs.
For more biblical counseling training, check out our list of INS Online Courses.

Follow INS on Social Media:
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The post Fighting Error in the Church appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

Well, if it was, please indulge me for a couple of minutes’ read to try to change your opinion.

What is theology anyway? Systematic theology, as its name indicates, is the culling of the principal aspects of various teachings in the Bible, placing them in juxtaposition to one another, and reaching general conclusions about what God has to say concerning each one. Let’s just take a taste of what this means.

For instance, consider the Bible’s teaching about salvation. In the Scriptures, we learn that the original word for “salvation” means “rescue.” So, to begin with, we discover that there is a need for rescuing people from a desperate situation. We also read that all have sinned and come short of eternal life. That is the situation from which there is a need to be rescued—failure to measure up to God’s standards. Moreover, we discover that because God demands perfection in order to enter heaven—which is a perfect place from which all sin is excluded—we are unable to rescue ourselves. We probe some more and note that the situation from which we must be rescued is everlasting punishment for our sin. Thinking biblically about sin—this barrier to heaven and cause of punishment—we conclude that sin is offending a holy God by disobeying His commands. So, in order to be saved from hell, and get to heaven, we next understand that someone else must rescue us by satisfying those commands. Moving along in the Bible, we next come to see that this is why Jesus Christ came to the earth. Since a holy God demands satisfaction, Jesus—the only perfect man (Who obeyed those commands in our place)—came to die in the stead of guilty sinners in order to save them from the consequences of their sin. As a perfect man, He did this by bearing the punishment of all who would believe in Him, as He suffered and died upon the cross. That God accepted His sacrifice for sinners is made clear by the fact that He raised Him from the dead and ascended into heaven. Furthermore, the Bible teaches that He will return a second time to receive all believers who are alive and to raise those who have died. Then, we shall ever be with the Lord.

Nearly every statement in the paragraph above (and almost every word) is a theological statement. It wasn’t hard to follow them was it? Yet, whether or not you know it, you have compassed a great deal of theology merely by reading it. If you find it interesting to note such interrelationships, and want a truly systematic approach to Christian theology, I suggest that you buy and devour either L. Berkhof’s Systematic Theology or A. A. Hodge’s Outlines of Systematic Theology. If you are a serious student of the Bible, you couldn’t do better than to purchase both!

Check out our online course, Theology and Counseling taught by Jay Adams!

Books related to dealing with problems:

1. A Theology of Christian Counseling by Jay Adams
2. Sanctification and Counseling by Jay Adams
3. Christ and Your Problems by Jay Adams

The Christian Counselor’s New Testament and Proverbs, translated by Jay Adams

Visit our online bookstore for all your biblical counseling resource needs.
For biblical counseling training, check out our list of INS Online Courses.

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The post Let’s Talk Theology appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

“Why?”

Because they may be attempting to “snow you” by using that term.

“What does the word mean?”

It comes from a French word that means “shades,” and refers, for instance, to various subtle shades of color.

“I still don’t get it.”

You see, such persons are claiming, “I don’t see things quite as black or white, they way you do. I see various delicate shades of meaning that you don’t,” while all the while the differences are wide enough to drive a Mack truck through.

“Oh!”

And, so what is supposed to be a subtle distinction, quite often, is nothing of the sort—instead, it is a vital difference.

“And this is a way of covering up true differences?”

Exactly. While there are distinctions in the Scriptures, they are rarely (if ever) so subtle as to be called “nuances.” Often, a denial of some biblical truth is behind the use of the term.

“It’s a way of disguising true differences, then?”

Often is. And if you buy into it you will have been NUANCED!

Check out our online course, The Use of Scripture in Counseling, taught by Jay Adams!

1. The Christian Counselor’s New Testament and Proverbs
2. What to do on Thursday
3. How to Help People Change

The Christian Counselor’s New Testament and Proverbs, translated by Jay Adams

Visit our online bookstore for all your biblical counseling resource needs.
For biblical counseling training, check out our list of INS Online Courses.

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Perhaps you’ve never thought much about it, but what does it mean to be a Jew? According to Romans 2:29, being a Jew is an inward thing, and all who have trusted Christ are the true Jews in God’s sight. Take a look at the passage sometime.

Perhaps as vividly as any other verse, this teaches that God looks at the inner person, when evaluating people, rather than the outer.

In the Bible, the distinction is that the word, “Jew” eventually became a religious term, it never was an ethnic one. Originally, the word “Jew” was a corruption of “Judah.” The ethnic term isn’t “Jew,” as many think, but the ethnic word is “Hebrew.” So a Jew is one who is a Jew inwardly, Paul (himself, a Hebrew) said.

Check out our online courses, including, Introduction to Nouthetic Counseling and  The Use of Scripture in Counseling, taught by Jay Adams!

Books related to counseling others:

1. Competent to Counsel by Jay Adams
2. The Christian Counselor’s Manual by Jay Adams
3. How to Help People Change by Jay Adams
4. Check out our Bookstore for all the best counseling books!

The Christian Counselor’s New Testament and Proverbs, translated by Jay Adams

Visit our online bookstore for all your biblical counseling resource needs.
For more biblical counseling training, check out our list of INS Online Courses.

Follow INS on Social Media:
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– Twitter: @noutheticstud
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The post Who Is a Jew? appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

Well, of course, the first answer to that question is that you are a sinner. Even if you have come to faith in Christ and have been saved you will continue to sin—even against your better intentions. There still is corruption in you.

Paul faced this problem himself. In the seventh chapter of Romans he deals with it. He says that he does the things he doesn’t want to do, and fails to do those things that he wanted to do. Not all of the time, of course, but frequently enough to speak in exasperation about it.

Paul located the problem in his body (which, of course, includes the brain—everything that dies and goes into the ground is body). Not in any Gnostic sense. Rather than think that evil is an essential trait of all things material, which the Gnostics believed was the source of such problems, he held it was the habituation of the body toward sin prior to becoming a believer that he carried over from his former life.

Paul speaks of having once become an obedient slave who yielded the members of his body to sin as a master over him. Then, when he was saved, he was freed from slavery to sin. But he found himself going back to the old ways that had become habituated in him. Now, he says that as he once yielded his bodily members to sin, he was learning to yield them to God for righteous purposes. He wanted his body to become an efficient, well-trained instrument in the Lord’s service.

As he prayerfully yielded his members to righteousness, the Lord enabled him to put off the old ways in order to replace them with the new ones. When he cried out, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” he was quick to answer his own question—the Lord Jesus Christ will! He was now yielding to his new Master and asking Him for grace and mercy to develop a well-trained body that would be available for service to his new Master.

When you struggle with this problem, turn again to Romans 7 and 8 and find the solace and assistance necessary to put on God’s new ways. For further help in this matter, see my book, Winning the War Within.

Check out our online courses, including, Introduction to Nouthetic Counseling and  The Use of Scripture in Counseling, taught by Jay Adams!

Books related to counseling others:

1. Competent to Counsel by Jay Adams
2. The Christian Counselor’s Manual by Jay Adams
3. How to Help People Change by Jay Adams
4. Check out our Bookstore for all the best counseling books!

The Christian Counselor’s New Testament and Proverbs, translated by Jay Adams

Visit our online bookstore for all your biblical counseling resource needs.
For more biblical counseling training, check out our list of INS Online Courses.

Follow INS on Social Media:
– Facebook: noutheticstudies
– Twitter: @noutheticstud
– Instagram: @noutheticstudies

The post A Body for Christ appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

There are serious problems with this all-too-frequent misuse of Paul’s words. Let me mention two:

1. Neither the term “prompt,” nor anything like it, ever occurs in the Scriptures as a means of assurance. The Bible allows for no such personal, individual revelation. People may have what they think are hunches, promptings, and the like, that originate from the Holy Spirit, but they have no biblical basis for interpreting these inner feelings as such. In particular, this verse teaches just the opposite, as I wish now to show you.
2. The word translated “with” is the Greek term, sun, which means “together with.” It never has the meaning assigned to it that is required by McDavid’s understanding. The verse simply cannot mean that the Spirit “testifies to our spirit”—as his interpretation requires.

Check out our online courses, including, Introduction to Nouthetic Counseling and  The Use of Scripture in Counseling, taught by Jay Adams!

Books related to counseling others:

1. Competent to Counsel by Jay Adams
2. The Christian Counselor’s Manual by Jay Adams
3. How to Help People Change by Jay Adams
4. Check out our Bookstore for all the best counseling books!

The Christian Counselor’s New Testament and Proverbs, translated by Jay Adams

Visit our online bookstore for all your biblical counseling resource needs.
For more biblical counseling training, check out our list of INS Online Courses.

Follow INS on Social Media:
– Facebook: noutheticstudies
– Twitter: @noutheticstud
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