Greg Koukl has a saying, “Never read a bible verse.” The verses of the Bible are to be in context. They are addressing situations. One of the biggest challenges for the church today is the reading of only one Bible verse out of its context.

Christians today think that all that is necessary is to accept Jesus as your personal Savior and then… What? Then what? You see too often, the church has a plan to reach potential Christians, but once they are reached there is no clear plan. It sounds like:

“You are saved and now you wait to die so you can go to heaven.”

It’s true. When you are saved you do get to go to heaven. But salvation is so much more than that. Dallas Willard talks about salvation as being involved through Jesus with what God is doing. That’s now, as well as heaven. So, if we are to work with God for the rest of our lives through eternity, then where did we get the idea that we don’t do anything except accept?

It goes back to one Bible verse. Martin Luther was writing against a corrupt church that was selling forgiveness of sins on pieces of paper. If you bought it you were forgiven. There were other ways the church was promoting doing stuff to get in good with God. Luther used a bible verse to say, “No!”

Ephesians 2:8 (NLT)

God saved you by his special favor when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.

Saved by grace, as it were. Revolutionized the church. But the message soon became:

“Saved by grace? You don’t have to do anything!”

And so, in many ways, this is the legacy we are left with. Now, to be fair with Luther, he read the verse in context. He said we do good works as a response of thanks for what God did through Jesus by saving us. Luther didn’t just read one bible verse. Read more.

Ephes. 2:9-10 (NLT)

Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. [10] For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

We are saved to make it possible to do good things as much as we are saved to avoid hell and live in heaven. I will expand on that thought tomorrow.