The Free Grace Alliance

Carnal Christians. No Such Thing? First Corinthians 3:1-4 is a passage that has ironically been a source of contention between Christians with different views. Lewis Sperry Chafer had a dictionary of theological cuss words and guilt-by-association arguments hurled at him for publishing his view that 1 Cor 2:14-3:4 does indeed teach the existence of carnal Christians. That First Corinthians was written to Christians is not in doubt (see 1:2, 26, 30; 3:16; 6:19-20). And even in the passage in question, Paul compares them to "babes in Christ" (3:1), which is a poor comparison if they are not in Christ. For this reason, the disagreement about this passage is not on whether these carnal people are truly Christians, but whether these Christians are rightly characterized as carnal in general. For example, Brian Borgman writes from the Reformed perspective: Nevertheless, Paul does not imply that their carnality is universal, but rather localized to one serious and destructive are...

(Originally posted at thegracelings.org) Bible wasn’t given to us as a bunch of unconnected verses that all make perfect sense on their own. Sometimes, without the context, verses can sound like they mean the opposite of what the authors meant by what they wrote. It’s a terrible thing, but many times people take advantage of this fact and use isolated verses in a way that hurts people and devastates their walk with Christ. (Sometimes it’s out of ignorance. Sometimes it’s malicious. It’s always tragic.) It’s especially common for people to cite Scripture out of context in order to cause believers to doubt Christ’s love for them or the security of their salvation. This article is about one verse that is often used this way. It’s Hebrews 10:26, which reads, “For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins” (NKJV, same throughout the article). Often, people throw this verse out there on social media like a grenade wi...