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The Catholic Church teaches what we must believe in order to be saved.After college, I traveled the country with a pro-life organization whose staff were evenly divided between Catholics and Protestants. This made for interesting conversations around the trays of lasagna we ate in the evenings. (If you’ve ever had to feed thirty missionaries, you understand the utility of lasagna.)One night, we were having a slightly technical discussion about specific topics related to salvation—li …

There aren’t too many passages where Paul speaks about baptism. However, in the passages where he does mention it, his theology is profound and worth unpacking. The two passages that we will look at, respectively, are 1 Corinthians 12:13 and Romans 6:3-4, 7, 17-18, the passage from Romans 6 being the clearest and strongest text. 1 Corinthians 12:13 Let’s start with 1 Corinthians 12:13, where Paul writes, “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” The “ …

When it comes to biblical support for the belief in baptismal regeneration, there’s no better place to start than with Jesus himself. John 3:3-5, commonly known as the “Born Again” discourse, is the key passage for Jesus’ revelation of baptismal regeneration. Here’s the text: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second t …

Do you know the gospel? If you had to sum up the gospel in just a few words, could you? Could you get in an elevator with someone and communicate the gist of the good news of Jesus Christ in the time it took to reach your floor? The pace of modern life is intense, and this pace brings with it a ruthless pressure to communicate quickly, to get to the point. People are rushed. The world is rushed. We are anxious not to abuse other people’s time. And we know that people today rapidly filter …

Yep. There is bad news; and, if we really love others, we have an obligation not to hide it. Rather than just one part of the good news—“God loves you”—modern people need to hear a four-part gospel. In addition to the good news about God’s love, for instance, they need to hear about sin (even if we don’t use that word). Only when we have admitted that we have turned away from God and rejected his friendship can we understand that the fullness of the gospel is …