Bible Doctrine

Repentance, like faith, is an intellectual understanding (that sin is wrong), an emotional approval of the teachings of Scripture regarding sin (a sorrow for sin and a hatred of it), and a personal decision to turn from it (a renouncing of sin and a decision of the will to forsake it and lead a life of obedience to Christ instead).

It is Scripture alone, not any human authority, that must function as the normative authority for the definition of what we should believe.

But if medicine is used in connection with prayer, then we should expect God to bless and often multiply the effectiveness of the medicine (cf. 1 Tim. 5:23).

The term irresistible grace is subject to misunderstanding, however, since it seems to imply that people do not make a voluntary, willing choice in responding to the gospel—a wrong idea, and a wrong understanding of the term irresistible grace. The term does preserve something valuable, however, because it indicates that God’s work reaches into our

The verb justify in the New Testament (Gk. Dikaioō) has a range of meanings, but a very common sense is “to declare righteous.”

God intends to answer our prayers even for our persecutors with regard to many areas of life.

Therefore, we can say that regeneration comes before the result of effective calling (our faith). But it is more difficult to specify the exact relationship in time between regeneration and the human proclamation of the gospel through which God works in effective calling.

This means that all science and technology carried out by non-Christians is a result of common grace, allowing them to make incredible discoveries and inventions, to develop the earth’s resources into many material goods, to produce and distribute those resources, and to have skill in their productive work.

We should willingly use medicine with thankfulness to the Lord, for “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof” (Ps. 24:1). In fact, when medicine is available and we refuse to use it (in cases where it would put ourselves or others in danger), then it seems that we are wrongly “forcing a test” on the Lord our God (cf. Luke 4:12): This is sim