Any Clinton supporters inclined to reconsider?

[Brian Stoffregen]

If there is any group where the following statement could make someone reconsider, it is the community here :-)  (my emphasis)

"I'm not Catholic. I'm a Methodist," Clinton said. "But one of the things that we share is the belief that in order to achieve salvation we need both faith and good works."

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/30/politics/clinton-faith-private/index.html

My 17-year old son picked up on that immediately.  It gave me some reassurance that he has been well-catechized.

How are her comments any different from what James writes about? Faith without works is dead.

Clinton's comments are apparently based on a hermeneutic that answers "God with man's help"

Why do you assume that? Do you believe that's what James meant? Or even Paul's "faith active in love"? Faith without acts of love is no faith - or if you prefer James' language, "a dead faith".


There are Christian Scientist who believe that God will heal (one of the ways σῴζω is translated) without human help. When Christian doctors work to save a person from death or disease, I'm pretty sure that they consider it God's salvation with human help. Otherwise, why do the surgeries or administer the medicines and therapies? Do we have no part in bringing God's salvation to others and to our planet? If it's all God, we don't need evangelists or pastors. We sit back and wait for God to do it all.

[Brian Stoffregen]

In my confirmation class the inquiry would receive a response that we are saved solely and completely by the grace of God through the faith which He puts in our hearts as we hear the proclamation of the Gospel found in the Scriptures.  Works don't save you.  Period.  Works follow when we gain assurance of our salvation and live that out in our life by serving our neighbors and loving them.  If anyone is teaching something else--well Semper Reformanda

Works do not save us; but the saved do good works because our neighbors need them.

[Team Hesse]

In my confirmation class the inquiry would receive a response that we are saved solely and completely by the grace of God through the faith which He puts in our hearts as we hear the proclamation of the Gospel found in the Scriptures.  Works don't save you.  Period.  Works follow when we gain assurance of our salvation and live that out in our life by serving our neighbors and loving them.  If anyone is teaching something else--well Semper Reformanda

Works do not save us; but the saved do good works because our neighbors need them.

So why do we insist on talking about good works as if no one does them?


Lou

[Donald_Kirchner]

In my confirmation class the inquiry would receive a response that we are saved solely and completely by the grace of God through the faith which He puts in our hearts as we hear the proclamation of the Gospel found in the Scriptures.  Works don't save you.  Period.  Works follow when we gain assurance of our salvation and live that out in our life by serving our neighbors and loving them.  If anyone is teaching something else--well Semper Reformanda

In context, not only do good works not save. Faith does not save either. Looking to faith causes one to look within. Salvation is extra nos.

Jesus saves.

[readselerttoo]

In my confirmation class the inquiry would receive a response that we are saved solely and completely by the grace of God through the faith which He puts in our hearts as we hear the proclamation of the Gospel found in the Scriptures.  Works don't save you.  Period.  Works follow when we gain assurance of our salvation and live that out in our life by serving our neighbors and loving them.  If anyone is teaching something else--well Semper Reformanda

Works do not save us; but the saved do good works because our neighbors need them.

So why do we insist on talking about good works as if no one does them?


Lou

Nice!

[Dan Fienen]

Seems to me that the last president to have any theological chops worth mentioning was Jimmy Carter.  Most have barely been able to reference a Bible  passage without mangling it.

[Robert Johnson]

Seems to me that the last president to have any theological chops worth mentioning was Jimmy Carter.

And he proves that quality theology does not imply a quality president.

[Terry W Culler]

In my confirmation class the inquiry would receive a response that we are saved solely and completely by the grace of God through the faith which He puts in our hearts as we hear the proclamation of the Gospel found in the Scriptures.  Works don't save you.  Period.  Works follow when we gain assurance of our salvation and live that out in our life by serving our neighbors and loving them.  If anyone is teaching something else--well Semper Reformanda

Works do not save us; but the saved do good works because our neighbors need them.

So why did you imply that James meant something different from that?

[David Garner]

In my confirmation class the inquiry would receive a response that we are saved solely and completely by the grace of God through the faith which He puts in our hearts as we hear the proclamation of the Gospel found in the Scriptures.  Works don't save you.  Period.  Works follow when we gain assurance of our salvation and live that out in our life by serving our neighbors and loving them.  If anyone is teaching something else--well Semper Reformanda

In context, not only do good works not save. Faith does not save either. Looking to faith causes one to look within. Salvation is extra nos.

Jesus saves.

Yes.  Yes indeed.

We always say we are saved by grace, through faith, for good works.  I think that keeps everything in its proper order, does justice to St. Paul's words in Ephesians, and not for nothing, is quite Lutheran in understanding. 

[Kobalos]

Thus far Hillary hasn't been saved by works, but by the interlinking and protection she's received from a corrupt media and well placed insiders. A few well timed suicides also helped. 

[Donald_Kirchner]

In my confirmation class the inquiry would receive a response that we are saved solely and completely by the grace of God through the faith which He puts in our hearts as we hear the proclamation of the Gospel found in the Scriptures.  Works don't save you.  Period.  Works follow when we gain assurance of our salvation and live that out in our life by serving our neighbors and loving them.  If anyone is teaching something else--well Semper Reformanda

Works do not save us; but the saved do good works because our neighbors need them.

So why did you imply that James meant something different from that?

Because that's what BPS does, sow confusion and uncertainty.

[SomeoneWrites]

Thus far Hillary hasn't been saved by works, but by the interlinking and protection she's received from a corrupt media and well placed insiders. A few well timed suicides also helped.

I used to believe the suicides were foul play.  I don't anymore.  Doesn't mean I like Hillary.  I just think it's more Alex Jones type stuff. 

[Brian Stoffregen]

In my confirmation class the inquiry would receive a response that we are saved solely and completely by the grace of God through the faith which He puts in our hearts as we hear the proclamation of the Gospel found in the Scriptures.  Works don't save you.  Period.  Works follow when we gain assurance of our salvation and live that out in our life by serving our neighbors and loving them.  If anyone is teaching something else--well Semper Reformanda

Works do not save us; but the saved do good works because our neighbors need them.

So why do we insist on talking about good works as if no one does them?

Because some have hinted that because of our sinfulness, none of our works are good. They are all tainted by sin.

[Brian Stoffregen]

In my confirmation class the inquiry would receive a response that we are saved solely and completely by the grace of God through the faith which He puts in our hearts as we hear the proclamation of the Gospel found in the Scriptures.  Works don't save you.  Period.  Works follow when we gain assurance of our salvation and live that out in our life by serving our neighbors and loving them.  If anyone is teaching something else--well Semper Reformanda

Works do not save us; but the saved do good works because our neighbors need them.

So why did you imply that James meant something different from that?

I didn't. That's always been my understanding of James. I suggested that that could also have been Hillary's understanding. Some Methodist are pretty Lutheran in their understanding of grace and works.

[Dan Fienen]

I have long thought about our good works done as Christians as being similar to the good work of a six year old helping her mother in the kitchen.  The work that the six year old does is accepted with praise and gratitude by her mother not because of the quality of the work or because it actually helped the mother all that much but because the mother loves her daughter and wants to encourage even her beginning attempts to do good.

God calls our works done in faith and in regard to His will good not because they are that good in themselves or needed by God but out of His love for us and to encourage us to grow in faithful living.