Thematic Bible


Thematic Bible









But do you want proof, my senseless friend, that faith without good deeds amounts to nothing? Verse ConceptsFutilityFools, Characteristics OfFaith That WorksUseless ReligionWorks Of FaithFutile Faith

So faith by itself, if it has no good deeds to show, is dead. But someone may say, "You have faith, and I good deeds." Show me your faith without any good deeds, and I will show you my faith by my good deeds. Do you believe in one God? Very well! So do the demons, and they shudder. read more.
But do you want proof, my senseless friend, that faith without good deeds amounts to nothing? Was not our forefather Abraham made upright for his good deeds, for offering his son Isaac on the altar? You see that in his case faith and good deeds worked together; faith found its highest expression in good deeds, and so the Scripture came true that says, "Abraham had faith in God, and it was credited to him as uprightness, and he was called God's friend." You see a man is made upright by his good deeds and not simply by having faith. Was not even Rahab the prostitute made upright for her good deeds, in entertaining the scouts and sending them off by a different road? Just as the body without the spirit is dead, faith is dead without good deeds.

Then Peter began and said, "Now I really understand that God shows no partiality, but welcomes the man of any nation who reveres him and does what is right.


But you, dear friends, must build yourselves up on the foundation of your most holy faith and pray in the holy Spirit, and keep in the love of God, and wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, to bring you to eternal life.

For this very reason make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with steadfastness, steadfastness with piety, piety with a spirit of brotherhood, and the spirit of brotherhood with love. read more.
For if you have these qualities in their fulness, they will make you neither idle nor unproductive when it comes to the understanding of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is blind or near-sighted, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his former sins.

"Master, what command is greatest in the Law?" And he said to him, " 'You must love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole soul, and your whole mind.' That is the great, first command. read more.
There is a second like it: 'You must love your neighbor as you do yourself.' These two commands sum up the whole of the Law and the Prophets."

So there is no condemnation any more for those who are in union with Christ Jesus. For the life-giving law of the Spirit through Christ Jesus has freed you from the Law of sin and death. For though it was impossible for the Law to do it, hampered as it was by our physical limitations, God, by sending his own Son in our sinful physical form, as a sin-offering, put his condemnation upon sin through his physical nature, read more.
so that the requirement of the Law might be fully met in our case, since we live not on the physical but on the spiritual plane. People who are controlled by the physical think of what is physical, and people who are controlled by the spiritual think of what is spiritual. For to be physically minded means death, but to be spiritually minded means life and peace. For to be physically minded means hostility to God, for it refuses to obey God's law, indeed it cannot obey it. Those who are physical cannot please God. But you are not physical but spiritual, if God's Spirit has really taken possession of you; for unless a man has Christ's spirit, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in your hearts, though your bodies are dead in consequence of sin, your spirits have life in consequence of uprightness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead has taken possession of you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give your mortal bodies life through his Spirit that has taken possession of you. So, brothers, we are under obligations, but not to the physical nature, to live under its control, for if you live under the control of the physical you will die, but if, by means of the Spirit, you put the body's doings to death, you will live. For all who are guided by God's Spirit are God's sons. It is not a consciousness of servitude that has been imparted to you, to fill you with fear again, but the consciousness of adoption as sons, which makes us cry, "Abba!" that is, Father. The Spirit itself testifies with our spirits that we are God's children, and if children, heirs also; heirs of God, and fellow-heirs with Christ, if we really share his sufferings in order to share his glory too. For I consider what we suffer now not to be compared with the glory that is to burst upon us.

Brothers, my heart is full of good will toward them; my prayer to God is that they may be saved. I can testify to their sincere devotion to God, but it is not an intelligent devotion. For in their ignorance of God's way of uprightness and in the attempt to set up one of their own, they refused to conform to God's way of uprightness. read more.
For Christ marks the termination of law, so that now anyone who has faith may attain uprightness. Moses said that anyone who carried out the uprightness the Law prescribed would find life through it. But this is what the uprightness that springs from faith says: "Do not say to yourself, 'Who will go up to heaven?' " that is, to bring Christ down; or " 'Who will go down into the depths?' " that is, to bring Christ up from the dead. No! This is what it says: "God's message is close to you, on your lips and in your mind"??hat is, the message about faith that we preach. For if with your lips you acknowledge the message that Jesus is Lord, and with your mind you believe that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with their minds men believe and are made upright, and with their lips they make the acknowledgment and are saved. For the Scripture says, "No one who has faith in him will be disappointed." There is no distinction between Jew and Greek for they all have the same Lord, and he is generous to all who call upon him. For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

But what the Spirit produces is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. There is no law against such things! Those who belong to Jesus the Christ have crucified the physical nature with its propensities and cravings. read more.
If we live by the Spirit, let us be guided by the Spirit.

Take care that none of you ever pays back evil for evil, but always try to treat one another and everybody with kindness. Always be joyful. Never give up praying. read more.
Thank God whatever happens. For this is what God through Christ Jesus wants you to do. Do not stifle the Spirit. Do not disregard the utterances it inspires, but test them all, retaining what is good and avoiding every kind of evil. May God himself, the giver of peace, consecrate you through and through. Spirit, soul, and body, may you be kept sound, and be found irreproachable when our Lord Jesus Christ comes.

If you really obey the supreme law where the Scripture says, "You must love your neighbor as you do yourself," you are doing right, but if you show partiality, you are committing a sin, and stand convicted before the Law as lawbreakers. For anyone who obeys the whole of the Law but makes one single slip is guilty of breaking it all. read more.
For he who said, "You must not commit adultery," said also, "You must not commit murder." Now if you abstain from adultery, but commit murder, you are still a violator of the Law. You must talk and act like men who expect to be judged by the law that treats men as free. For the merciless will be mercilessly judged; but mercy will triumph over judgment. My brothers, what is the good of a man's saying he has faith, if he has no good deeds to show? Can faith save him? If some brother or sister has no clothes and has not food enough for a day, and one of you says to them, "Goodbye, keep warm and have plenty to eat," without giving them the necessaries of life, what good does it do? So faith by itself, if it has no good deeds to show, is dead. But someone may say, "You have faith, and I good deeds." Show me your faith without any good deeds, and I will show you my faith by my good deeds. Do you believe in one God? Very well! So do the demons, and they shudder. But do you want proof, my senseless friend, that faith without good deeds amounts to nothing? Was not our forefather Abraham made upright for his good deeds, for offering his son Isaac on the altar? You see that in his case faith and good deeds worked together; faith found its highest expression in good deeds, and so the Scripture came true that says, "Abraham had faith in God, and it was credited to him as uprightness, and he was called God's friend." You see a man is made upright by his good deeds and not simply by having faith. Was not even Rahab the prostitute made upright for her good deeds, in entertaining the scouts and sending them off by a different road? Just as the body without the spirit is dead, faith is dead without good deeds.