Do christians have free will?

Sincerely,
Choices

Dear Choices,

All humans have free will.  We can choose to turn to God, or we can choose to depart from Him.  The Bible states time after time that you have choices in life and that those choices make a difference.  Jhn 3:16 says that Christ died for the sins of all mankind, and those who choose to believe in Christ will receive forgiveness.  Joshua told the Israelites to choose which god they would follow (Josh 24:15).  God has consistently told mankind that we can choose life or death (Deut 30:15).  Jesus calls us to come to Him and receive freedom from our burdens (Matt 11:28).  We must choose to follow the narrow road to salvation (Matt 7:13) and flee from wickedness (Jas 4:7).  We can choose to obey God and receive salvation, and we can choose to turn from God and lose our salvation (Heb 3:12-14).  God is constant in His love and willingness to help all mankind (Heb 13:8)… it is our choice whether or not we heed His call.

What is faith?

Sincerely,
Faithful?

Dear Faithful,

Faith is belief, trust, and loyalty to something or someone.  If you have faith in your friend, you trust them and are loyal to them through thick and thin.  If you have faith in your car, you believe that it will run smoothly even though you aren’t a mechanic and aware of everything going on under the hood.  Faith always involves trusting something you can’t see or control (Heb 11:1).  You have faith in your friend’s judgment to give you directions; you place your faith in the author of a manual or instruction book to help you properly assemble a piece of furniture; you have faith in a traffic light to properly change colors and not direct you into cross-traffic.

In the case of God, our faith is built upon His Word (Rom 10:17).  We trust God’s Bible to guide our lives and direct our steps (Ps 119:105).  Our faith in God is shown in our actions – it is impossible to have faith without action (Jas 2:17).  If someone says they believe in God, but they don’t obey His Bible, they are no better off than the demons (Jas 2:19).  Faith in God is a lifestyle.  We hear what His Word says, and then we act upon that command.  After all, if we love God, we will keep His commandments (Jhn 14:15).

If the writers of the New Testament were supposed to be inspired by the Holy Spirit, then why would some seem to indicate that they were not inspired in their writings?  For example, Paul, in 1 Cor 7:12, said it was him, not the Lord, speaking.  Also in 1 Cor 1:16, Paul said he forgot who he had baptized.  If he was under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, how could he forget?  Why would he make such a statement?

Sincerely,
Uninspired

Dear Uninspired,

1 Cor 7:12 and 1 Cor 1:16 need to be addressed separately because they have different explanations for why they were written as they were.  When the Holy Spirit inspired the apostles, He made sure that every word they wrote down was exactly as it should be (1 Cor 2:13, 2 Pet 1:21).  The Holy Spirit inspired what Paul wrote, but that didn’t change the fact that Paul was human.  The Holy Spirit wanted us to know that Paul couldn’t remember exactly who he had baptized in Corinth – probably because He was emphasizing the fact that it didn’t matter who did the baptizing (1 Cor 1:14-15).  There is no contradiction between Paul the man forgetting who he baptized and Paul, the inspired writer, documenting his own memory lapse.  That explains 1 Cor 1:16.

Now, let’s take a look at 1 Cor 7:12.  In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul is addressing marriage questions.  Some of those questions had already been addressed by Jesus when He walked this earth.  When Paul reiterated a teaching that Jesus had already covered (such as the fact that two christians couldn’t divorce for just any old reason), he wrote, “I give charge, not I, but the Lord” because he was referring to Jesus’ previous teachings (1 Cor 7:10-11, Matt 19:3-9).  However, there were some marriage issues that Jesus hadn’t addressed – such as when a christian was married to an unbeliever.  Jesus didn’t address this issue because there was no need to talk about marriage to unbelievers when He was preaching to only the Jews.  Marriage to unbelievers only became an issue once Gentiles (non-Jews) began converting.  When addressing these new marriage issues, Paul clarified that he was providing a teaching in addition to what Jesus had already taught by writing, “say I, not the Lord”.  What Paul was teaching wasn’t opinion; it was simply a new teaching on marriage that had never been addressed.

Why did Jesus quite frequently refer to himself as the "Son of Man" (Matt 16:13) when it is so essential to our faith and salvation to recognize and confess him to be the "Son of the living God" (Matt 16:16-19)?

Sincerely,
Name Confusion

Dear Name Confusion,

Jesus was both Son of Man and Son of God – it is one of the great and awesome truths of the Bible.  Jesus was completely Deity, and completely human at the same time.  Verses like Jhn 1:1-3 and Col 3:15-17 make it clear that Jesus was and always has been God.  He is eternal and existed before man – Jesus even said so Himself (Jhn 8:58).  However, if Jesus had simply been God pretending to be a human, His sinless life wouldn’t have been nearly as impressive.  Instead, we are told that Jesus suffered in all things exactly as all other people do – yet without sin (Heb 4:15).  In all things, Jesus was a flesh-formed human just like the rest of us (Heb 2:17-18).  Jesus often used the term ‘Son of Man’ because He spent a lot of His life emphasizing His humanity and empathy with the pains of mankind.  Jesus spent little time pointing out His deity – His life did that for Him (Matt 27:54).

Where is the command, example, or necessary inference for a church owning property?

Sincerely,
Book, Chapter, Verse

Dear Book, Chapter, Verse,

Every command that you find in the Bible has specific and general qualities to it.  For example, when God told Noah to build the ark, He told Noah to use a specific kind of wood (gopher wood – Gen 6:14) and build the ark to specific dimensions (Gen 6:15-16), but He left the details of how to cut, fasten, and construct the ark up to Noah.  It would have been wrong for Noah to use oak or birch, and it would have been wrong for Noah to change the dimensions of the ark, but aside from that, Noah had freedom to use his own wisdom in the engineering of the ark.  The things that God was specific on, Noah had to be specific on to… but the things God was general about, Noah had freedom to decide for himself.

Another way of saying this is that anything required to fulfill a command is inherent within the command.  This means that if I ask someone to fill my car with gasoline, by default, I have given them permission to drive my car and take it to a gas station of their choosing.  Why?  Because driving my car and going to a gas station are necessary to fulfill that command, and I didn’t tell them which gas station I wanted, so I’ve left that to their discretion.

Both of these examples lead us back to your question.  The command that gives a congregation the authority to own property can be found in Heb 10:24-25 and 1 Cor 14:26.  In both those verses, the church is commanded to assemble.  We are told that we must assemble, or we will be displeasing to God… but we aren’t told where to assemble; that detail is left to our discretion.  We could meet in homes (if we had ones that were big enough), we could meet in a park (if it were legal and weather permitting), or we could buy some property and a building to use.  All of those options would be permissible, and each congregation has the freedom to decide where they wish to assemble because God has commanded us to meet regularly, but He left the details to us.