God says to do the will of my Father to enter the gates.  How do we do the will of God?

Sincerely,
Willing

Dear Willing,

In Jhn 6:40, Jesus says that God’s will is that everyone would behold His Son and believe upon Him.  The most important thing in life is to believe in Jesus Christ and faithfully follow Him.  God wants nothing more than for us to love His Son.  Jesus says in John 14:15 that if we love Him, we will keep His commandments.  Again in Jhn 14:23, Jesus says that if we love Him, we will keep His Word, and if we do that, the Father will love us.  We do God’s will by following His Word, the Bible.

(This question is in response to “Something To Do”)

     Is prophecy not one of the spiritual gifts in 1 Cor 12?  When we feel that Jesus is calling us to do something or leading us in a direction, is that not communicating with us?  Why would Paul need to say in Gal 1:8 that if someone "should preach a gospel *other* than the one we preached to you", why not just say all preaching henceforth is false?

I am honestly asking these questions and not trying to be sarcastic; thank you for the time spent looking into this.

And by the way, thank you for posting the "Faith Over Feelings" post – not enough Christians seem to see this, and this was the best and simplest way I've seen it done.  I am thinking of sharing it with our youth group.  God bless.

Sincerely,
Pondering Prophecy

Dear Pondering Prophecy,

We don't take your question as sarcastic – it is a very valid concern.  So let's see if we can break the subject down verse by verse.
Prophecy is a spiritual gift, and all spiritual gifts are no longer around.  In fact, one of the primary purposes of 1^st Corinthians chapters 12-14 was to explain to the Corinthian church that they shouldn’t get too excited about spiritual gifts because the gifts wouldn’t be around forever, and what was truly important was a life of faith, hope, and love (1 Cor 13:13).
Prophecy, speaking in tongues, miraculous healings, etc. were all gifts from the Holy Spirit.  The way that people received those gifts was through an apostle laying his hands on them (Acts 8:17-18).  Since it took an apostle to convey the gift of the Holy Spirit, the gifts would cease with the death of the last person that the last living apostle laid his hands on.  In fact, God promised that this would happen.  Paul says that spiritual gifts would eventually perish once God had given us the complete and perfect Bible (1 Cor 13:8-9 – read more on this subject in “Gifts That Stop Giving”).

In Gal 1:8, Paul said not to preach another gospel because the Bible is meant to be our only guide.  Whatever we preach must be exactly what God says, no more, no less.  We are warned to never add or subtract from God’s Word (Rev 22:18-19) and that we should never go beyond what is written (1 Cor 4:6).
The problem with trusting in a feeling or that “voice in our heart” is that everyone has feelings, and feelings are very subjective.  God even warns that every man does what is right in his own eyes (Pr 21:2).  Even an atheist believes that what he is doing is correct.  Though intuition and our own personal feelings can often be right, they must always be in subjection to the Bible, which is how God speaks to us.

     If Adam and Eve were the first and only people on the planet, then how did their children have children if there were no other children around? Yes, incest is an option (which is against the Bible), but their children's children would have had defects.

Sincerely,
All My Children

Dear All My Children,

Eve is the mother of all living (Gen 3:20).  In the beginning, there were only Adam and Eve.  Adam and Eve had multiple children (Gen 5:3-4).  It is morally repugnant in today’s society for someone to marry his sister, but it wasn’t that way in the beginning.  In the beginning, they had no other choice.  God told the family of Adam to “go forth and multiply” (Gen 1:28).  When Adam’s sons and daughters intermarried, they fulfilled God’s command.

Today, we worry about children having deformities if the mother and father are too closely related.  This is because of genetic mutations and defects in our DNA.  Adam and Eve wouldn’t have had these defects.  When God made Adam and Eve, they were genetically perfect, and their descendants wouldn’t have had to worry about hereditary deformities.  God didn’t prohibit close intermarriage until almost 2,500 years after Adam and Eve (Lev 18:9-17); it took that long for genetic mutations to increase enough to become a real issue.

     Why do I get mad often?

Sincerely,
Short Fuse

Dear Short Fuse,

Uncontrolled rage, like so many sins, stems from within our hearts (Mk 7:21-23).  God warns that anger has a way of creeping up on us, and we must rule over it (Gen 4:6-7).  Eph 4:26 says that we should make sure that our anger doesn’t control our actions; it is okay to be angry, but it isn’t okay to sin (Eph 4:26).  One of the easiest ways to cool your temper is to be quick to hear and slow to speak (Jas 1:19-20).  Anger can be controlled by slowing down and listening before jumping to conclusions.

     Help me explain how God teaches us, not just by commands and direct statements, but also by examples and "necessary inferences."

Sincerely,
Trying To Teach

Dear Trying To Teach,

‘Necessary inference’ is another way of saying that something must logically be true.  For example, if you saw a man walking out of a store, you could “necessarily infer” that he had entered the store at some point.  A necessary inference is simply using the facts at hand and our reasoning powers to properly find an answer.  This is something that God wants us to do.

• In Isa 1:18, the Lord says, “Come now and let us reason together.”
• In Acts 17:2, Paul reasoned with the Jews using Scriptures to prove that Jesus was the Christ.
• Hebrews 5:14 says that we should attempt to discern between good and evil.

All of these passages point out that we have a responsibility to take God’s Word and, using our minds, reach proper conclusions about what is right and wrong.  It is important to remember that we aren’t supposed to “jump” to conclusions, but God wants us to take the sum of His Word on every topic and put the pieces properly together (Ps 119:160).

In fact, this is exactly what the apostles did in Acts 15 when they had to decide whether or not to circumcise the Gentile Christians.  In Acts 15:7-12, Peter, Paul, and Barnabas gave examples of how God accepted the Gentiles without circumcision.  In Acts 15:13-21, the apostles looked at an Old Testament passage that said the Gentiles would eventually be accepted by God.  And finally, after looking at these commands and examples from God, they made a judgment that the Gentiles didn’t need to be circumcised (Acts 15:19).  This is a perfect example of using sound judgment and necessary inference.

God wants us to use our minds and come up with necessary conclusions to resolve ethical issues and defend the faith (1 Pet 3:15).