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Well yes, the kind of faith that saves is the kind that produces 'works' - i.e. a changed life. Faith (the genuine sort) always links to action.

There's the faith by which we are saved. This is "all-or-nothing" faith - you either have it, or you don't. If you believe that Jesus is the Son of God and was raised from the dead (John 20:31, Romans 10:9) - you are saved. But there's also a "gift" of faith that only some Christians are...

However, one must bear in mind that Mary was by far the commonest girl's name in Palestine during the New Testament period - no fewer than 25% of women were called Mary! So statistically, we would expect a lot of different Marys to be mentioned in the New Testament, and it's highly unlikely that...

Don't know where you get that idea from

Jesus healed conditions that the doctors of the time could do nothing for (and in most cases still can't): paralysis, epilepsy, blindness, etc. Note that God doesn't normally work miracles when humans have the resources to do the job themselves. The Israelites were fed with manna only while...

There may well be for everyone an "instant" moment when the Spirit seals us and God says, "Now you're mine!" But not everyone is aware of it at the time.

Why? This is narrowing the playing field unnecessarily

It happened in an instant. I was reading the New Testament (only because I had nothing else to do), and went from complete unbelief to faith between Matthew 24:44 and Matthew 24:45

Yes. What He didn't keep were all the hundreds of extra rules that the Pharisees had added to the original law. So in their eyes, He was "breaking" it, but in God's eyes He wasn't.

Christ fulfilled the Law by keeping it - so we don't have to. Christ fulfilled the sacrifices by becoming one Himself. The law was also prophetic. The festivals, for example, pointed to what Christ would do (and will do when He returns). The covenant isn't quite the same thing as the law...

How can the "books" be fulfilled separately from what they contain? That makes no sense to me at all. Jesus actually said, "Everything must be fulfilled that is written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms." (Luke 24:44) God's promise to Abraham (Galatians 3:18), God's...

Jesus definitely came to overthrow the "religion" that the scribes and Pharisees had made out of the Law. But not the Law itself. "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them." (Matthew 5:17) If you're going to quote John...

The father doesn't act as a normal father would in such circumstances. That's the whole point. Jesus is showing us what God is like.

Death of human beings came after the Fall. I'm pretty sure that death of plants and other animals predated the Fall - because Genesis 1 makes a big issue out of reproduction, and if there's no death then you don't need to reproduce. Personally, I think the evenings and mornings are a literary...

Adam must have witnessed death, otherwise the threat would have been meaningless. This is one of the reasons why I don't believe in a recent 7-day creation. When the humans did sin, the sentence wasn't executed immediately - it was "suspended". True that God didn't give them a full list of...

Virtually every one of those statements is a rhetorical exaggeration. They all require some form of qualification. For example: I would say that the Bible (as a whole) is the Word of God, because God speaks to us through it. But it contains a lot of individual words that weren't spoken or...

Why can't the one church be likened to both a flock and a body, in different contexts? Revelation 21 tells us that the Church will descend from heaven to earth - and when God is dwelling on earth with His people, the distinction between heaven and earth will be abolished.

This verse mustn't be taken in isolation. Context matters! Jesus is talking to the Sadducees, who didn't believe in any kind of life after death. Jesus showed them that life after death is implied throughout Scripture - you can even find it in the book of Exodus! "In the account of the burning...

But Jesus was talking to His followers, not to unbelieving Jews. And He had already demonstrated love towards both tax collectors (eg Matthew/Levi) and Gentiles (the centurion whose servant was healed and the Syro-Phoenician woman with a demon-possessed daughter). Now, we are to seek them out.

I don't think so. A tax collector in Judea/Israel was (by definition, as you explained) a rebellious sinner and outside the ranks of God's people. But to Christians, they were 'lost sheep' to be loved and evangelised. A rebellious Christian was to be considered in the same category - an...