For Christianity, marriage is much more than a convenient way to order society and build and protect families. Marriage is at its heart a reflection of two deeper theological realities: first, it reflects the eternal relationship that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have. In other words, God has given his human creatures the gift of marriage so they can look like the Trinity, bearing God’s image in the husband-wife relationship. And second, marriage reflects the love Jesus has for his church.

Because of this, marriage takes on a significance that far exceeds its romantic possibilities, or its economic or social utility. God wants us to remain faithful to our spouses because he is a faithful God.

There are times when the Bible permits divorce–in cases of adultery, abandonment, and (many in the church agree) physical abuse. But outside of these cases, God expects husbands and wives to practice love and faithfulness for each other.

Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert

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For lots of Christians knowing when they were saved is very important, and knowing the date they were baptized or the date they first believed becomes a way to assure themselves of the security of their relationship with God. There are two questions behind this issue: first, am I saved because of a decision I’ve made or a decision God has made.

Chuck and Aaron talk about how our salvation is completely founded on God’s decision to rescue us, and even when our initial realization of the truth of the Gospel resulted in what looked like us deciding to believe in Jesus, it was really God working in our hearts to give us the faith to believe.

And the second question: am I saved in one moment or is it a process? So many people have a different experience–some were baptized when they were infants and have never stopped believing the Gospel, some were baptized, drifted away from faith in Jesus, and then came back to him over time and or in one dramatic moment, and some were never baptized but as adults became converted to Christianity, again either in one moment or as a result of an apparent process. And while all these experiences are difficult, one thing remains the same–those who have been saved by Jesus have spiritual life now.

The best way to tell if you are physically alive is not to look at your birth certificate but to check your pulse, and the best way to know if you are a child of God is whether or not you have faith in his son Jesus.

Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert

Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org.

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Prayer, with Bible reading, is a conversation with God. But sometimes it seems that God isn’t listening to our prayers. Is this an illusion of our lack of faith, or is perhaps God not really listening? The Bible sometimes talks about God not hearing prayers, but how does this work for an omniscient God–isn’t it impossible for him not to hear everything everyone is saying, whether to him or anyone else? The key is in the way the Hebrew language uses the word for “hear”. It doesn’t just mean receiving the audible sensation of sound; it means listening to and responding to something someone says. So, when the Bible says God does not hear the prayers of those who are opposed to him, it means he won’t respond to them.

But for Christians, whether or not we feel like God hears and responds to our prayers or not, he does. He wants a relationship with us, and promises always to communicate with us.

Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert

Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org.

To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep115.