On Better Bible Study Podcast, in the 16th episode of the series titled The Gospel and Spiritual Growth Bible Study, Rudy reviews the most important concepts, definitions and topics to Church of Christ members. Wrapping up our concentration on the gospel, we will be focusing on spiritual growth.

Salvation Power
Salvation that God provides us is in the Gospel. It is the power of God unto salvation. This very big sentence is important to people who want to convert other people and also to any believer.  If this singular power of God unto salvation played no role in the believer’s conversion then there was no conversion.

Doctrinally our predecessors taught us that we have to deal with 90% of people, who say if you believe that is enough, if you are a believer then you are saved.

Obedience
 

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. (Romans 1:16 NSAB95)

Roman 1:16 tell us that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation, the singular power.

dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. [2Th 1:8 NASB]

Knowing this, you can only conclude that the Gospel must be obeyed. Obedience to the gospel is far more complex, it is far more involved than simply going to a baptistery or to the lake and saying I do.

Baptism is the death part of the obedience.  Coming up is part of the obedience; we are raised to walk in newness of life. When a Christian is buried with Christ something happened prior to the burial, allowing that burial to permit resurrection to walk in newness of life. What is that? It is death.

Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4 NASB95)

Power of God
A number of complex things take place as part of the obedience to the gospel. To believers and to the people who want to convert, this sentence in Romans 1 is extremely important, it is the power of God.

It doesn’t say that it is

the legal requirement,
the equivalent of signing on a dotted line,
the ritualistic thing,

it says it is the power of God.

When studying the gospel

we are studying about the power of God,
how did it affect us - did it move us,
what is the interactive role that it plays in our conversion? If it played no role, then we are not converted, neither are the people that we talk to.

Dynamos
Dynamos is just a Greek word.  It is no good to learn Greek and Hebrew verbs, nouns and pronouns without seeing their importance in our doctrines, theology and lives.

One of the strengths of the restoration movement of the 19th century was that it made it incumbent on church members to study. As they started doing that, they gained the potential to extract themselves from denominationalism and denominational assumptions.
Denominational assumptions
The denominational assumptions through history until today, no matter what they claim about saved by Christ, they are all still legalistic.  When they attempt to answer the question, “How do I grow up in Christ?†they default to doing something rather than becoming something different than you were before. Boiled down they claim that if you did all those things correctly then by definition you are acceptable to God.

In certain cases, such as Baptist or pre-destination people, even if you weren’t predestined to be saved, but did everything right, or even if you refused to do what was required, somehow you would still be saved. This is because they believe that once you are saved, you are always saved.  Again, they have defaulted to a behavioral system.

As the New Testament church emerged out of this mud hole of false doctrines, the members started understanding the power of the Gospel because they were encouraged to deeply study the Bible.