* They do not have nearly the commercian motivation as do many today.

* The resource material was limited.

* The book had little effect on the author’s preaching invitation schedule and subsequent honorariums.

* They did not have the distractions of television, radio, movies, sports, etc., etc.

* Most of these author’s were not pastors of very large churches so they were not cutting out large sections of time they should be spending in ministry.

I guess the negative would be their lack of many resources back then.

I figure any book still published 400 years after its writing probably has some merit.

It would have been nice if someone had explained this to some of the 7 churches of Asia, like Sardis:

I think I just did… above… if they turned from Jesus to their own works or replaced Jesus with other things… then their works (God working in and through them) are not dependant on Jesus. They either are walking away from Jesus or adding their own righteousness to His works… either way they are not dependant on Jesus and His finished and ongoing works in them.

iggy

For the last time, neither do I.

“I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.”

And the thing is, I see absolutely no contradiction between these words from Jesus Christ, and Paul’s (and the other apostles) admonitions.

But that responsibility is not OUR works… it is trusting God in His finished and what He is still doing.

iggy

The trust and obedience is that of total dependency on the finished works of Jesus… it is not about us proving or doing… it is living lives in accordance to what Jesus did… it is living His Life in and through us… it is about being who we are, a new creation.

How can one add to the Holiness of Jesus? Can we in our own works make ourselves more holy, or set apart than Jesus has already?

Notice also you stopped mid-scripture:

Phil 2: 12. Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed–not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence–continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13. for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

It is not about OUR works but God’s in and through us… it is as Paul stated in Galatians

Galatians 3: 1. You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?
3. Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?

We do not start to do works to prove our salvation, but let God who started a good work in us finish it in and through us.

Phil 1: 4. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5. because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6. being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Paul in Romans sums it up as it was Jesus obedience and it is that obedienc we are to walk in not our own…

Rom 5:19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

iggy