Warm-up: Can you share any memories of ever talking about the conscience e.g. with family, and how we do or don’t listen to it?
1) Read 1Tim1:18-20. => What does it mean to hold faith (incl. its sound doctrine) with a good conscience until the end, v19?
- v18: Where did Paul point Timothy to find help against shipwreck? =>
- What went wrong with Hymenaeus that he “…suffered shipwreck in regard to his faith” (NASB)? =>
- How does a good conscience influence our assurance of eternal salvation, and whether or not you believe that it is eternal?
- How can one ‘reject’ (lit. cast away) or keep a clean conscience? Heb 9:9 and 10:22 (cf 1Tim 3:9; Heb 9:14; 2Cor 1:12)
- How did a wounded conscience affect what this leader might have taught about the Christian faith? cf 2Tim 2:18
- Who do you think questioned whether the work of Christ is sufficient for salvation: Hymenaeus, or Timothy?
- Whose conscience demanded that we contribute to the work of Christ? Did Hymenaeus rely too little or too heavily on the promise that Christ is sufficient to keep us and guard our salvation? cf 2Tim 1:12-13 [Had he believed in Christ’s sufficiency, he would have retained this standard of sound words just like Timothy, and his faith would have been sound to be kept in it] =>
2) Read again 2Tim 1:12-14. Why does the Bible put so much emphasis on trusting God that he himself guards our salvation?
- v14: Why did Paul exhort Timothy to guard this treasure by the Holy Spirit? cf Jn 15:5
3) Read Phil 2:12-16. In this chapter, v12 is often regarded as the proof text that believers must add their own effort to ensure that they don’t lose their salvation. What do you think about this?
- Why did Paul join verses 12 and 13 directly to each other? => Compile first every guess or opinion that is or has been proposed, to then discuss pros and cons, e.g.:
- to warn that while God does his part, we must contribute ours too so that he will not change his mind and condemn us again? cf Eph 2:8-10
- to instill fear of apostasy and its damnation as incentives for good works? cf 1Jn 4:18
- to establish that the doctrine of God’s sovereign grace does not contradict man’s own ‘free will’? cf Jn 6:64-65; 1Cor 2:14; Ro 9:11
- to warn ‘lazy believers’ that both God’s sovereign grace and our responsibility must be affirmed to ‘balance’ each other, even as a paradox, like ‘two sides of the same coin’ ? =>
- Must believers balance a “Yes” from God with a “No”, in the sense: “Yes, salvation is promised to you to be entirely the work of God, and No, for it is also your work? => Why not? cf e.g. 2Cor 1:19-22
- Paul taught Christians to instead (!) ‘work out’ salvation. How so? cf e.g. Eph 2:10 =>
- Whose works are they, really? How does any author of a masterpiece feel when others take credit for that work?
- Why can no Christian gain, complete or let alone preserve their salvation through their own works?
- By contrast, how does God do it? And how does that involve the believers themselves? cf e.g. Jn 6:63; Gal 5:18; 1Thes 2:13; 1Pet 1:23
4) If verses 12 and 13 of Phil 2 were separated by the words ‘even though….’, how would that change the meaning? What does it mean that there is no such ‘even though’?
- What do you think about the above illustration that vv12-13 are like two sides of the same coin? Do we owe our salvation to God alone (v13), but still must add good works to be saved (v12)? Could this paradox be deliberate, e.g. to “explain” that we must consciously embrace the apparent contradiction as an impenetrable “mystery”?
- [Note: By definition, paradoxes explain nothing; they ask for explanations (to be resolved). And to interpret the heart of Christian doctrine about salvation as simply paradoxical in its nature would make Phil 2:13 contradict the entire Bible, and the whole discussion why works cannot save anyone would be pointless. So why shroud the heart of true religion in mystery where the gospel already since Cain and Abel proclaims revelation, Heb 11:4? See also Q3]
- v13 is not asking to add works, but instead explains why believers must walk with fear and trembling, and even while they do walk in God’s own good (!) “…works that He prepared beforehand”. How so? What is there to fear? cf Ro 11:20-21 =>
5) Read 1Cor 10:1-13. Why did Paul remind the Corinthians of how the Israelites fell in the wilderness? cf v11 =>
- What are (all) Christians learning from this example, vv6+11? => Hint:
- Did Paul quote it as proof that believers can lose salvation (symbolized here by their inability to conquer Canaan)? Why not? =>
- Read Heb 3:12. How did the Israelites ‘fall’? => Was their unbelief the fruit (=result) of their falling, or its root (=cause)? cf Heb 3:19
- ‘Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall’ (1Cor 10:12). What could this mean?
- 1Cor 12:13 How can believers so persevere in trials and temptations without losing faith? =>
- Read (again) Ro 11:20. Does your translation mention pride?
- How does such (religious) pride or conceit manifest? =>
- Why can such conceit only be overcome by genuine (=saving) faith in Christ?
6) Heb 6 is often taken as proof that being born again is no guarantee of eternal salvation. As discussed in a separate study, Heb 6:10-12 and 6:17-18 instead stress the very opposite: God proved to believers the immutability of his purposes. Why?
[God’s promises are the very means by which he ensures that true Christians will not fall away and perish; cf Jn 10:27-28; 1Tim1:18; 2Pet 1:4]
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