All who are led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons and daughters. 15 You didn’t receive a spirit of slavery to lead you back again into fear, but you received a Spirit that shows you are adopted as his children. With this Spirit, we cry, “ Abba, Father. ” 16 The same Spirit agrees with our spirit, that we are God’s children. 17 But if we are children, we are also heirs. We are God’s heirs and fellow heirs with Christ, if we really suffer with him so that we can also be glorified with him.
Few Christians arrive at a set of beliefs that remain set in stone for the rest of their lives. What we believe necessarily evolves in response to insights into the Bible, to questions or doubts we face, to changes in life circumstances, or to things that happen in the larger world. A faith should be a living thing. Nevertheless, Christians often find it helpful to identify what they can most fully believe at a given moment. Such clarity—those moments of blessed recognition—both empower the present and lead us toward the future. Such moments can also be mile markers by which we gauge further developments in our faith journey. Each chapter in this book follows a similar format. The first section lists the most common ways a certain topic is understood in the Bible. The second section identifies important ways the church has interpreted that topic since the Bible’s inception. The third section introduces contemporary perspectives. With that foundational knowledge, readers can make a judgment as to which viewpoints seem more or less persuasive to them personally. Finally, each chapter ends with questions for reflection for individuals or small groups.             Â