Faith Alone? or Faith and Works?

First reading
Hebrews 13:15-17,20-21

May God turn us all into whatever is acceptable to himself through Jesus Christ

Through Christ, let us offer God an unending sacrifice of praise, a verbal sacrifice that is offered every time we acknowledge his name. Keep doing good works and sharing your resources, for these are sacrifices that please God.

  Obey your leaders and do as they tell you because they must give an account of the way they look after your souls; make this a joy for them to do, and not a grief – you yourselves would be the losers. I pray that the God of peace, who brought our Lord Jesus back from the dead to become the great Shepherd of the sheep by the blood that sealed an eternal covenant, may make you ready to do his will in any kind of good action; and turn us all into whatever is acceptable to himself through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever, Amen.

Martin Luther, when he started his church, got a lot of things wrong from the very beginning.  First, of course, was the notion of sola scriptura, that absolutely everything to maintain a Christian life is found in the Bible.  This notion cannot be found in the Bible so sola scriptura falls apart on its own.  Second, he said that in his church that you are saved by faith alone. This falls apart as well oddly enough because of what we read in the Bible in various places including the Book of James, which Martin hated and we can see that the concept of faith and works is included in Paul's letter to the Hebrews. 

The letter to the Hebrews is unique among the Pauline letters as it does not begin with the traditional greetings that Paul was known for.  It rather gets straight to the point and it is written in beautiful, almost flawless Greek.  It was written during a time of persecution against this Christian community and was intended to bolster them up and to encourage them to keep the faith and not to degenerate back into Mosaic practices.  It tells the readers how to do this which is "to keep doing good works and sharing your resources." So, works are seen to be co-equal to faith, you have to have both in order to be complete.  This makes perfect sense and it has been taught since the beginning by the Catholic Church. 

So, keep the faith, have faith in Jesus and become His arms and legs on earth and work for Him and through Him.  Your faith will give you courage and strength and your works will give glory to the One that loves you so very much. 

My blog will be moving to World Press soon, but not yet.  I have purchased the domain "JoyfulCatholicLife.com" and some exciting things will be happening late spring and early summer.    The new platform will have facilities that will allow me to invite a larger audience and the ability for readers to easily leave comments and to exchange dialogue.  You will also have the ability to download (FREE) some of my best work.  Finally, there will be a link to my new podcast, which should start in spring 2019.  I am hoping to get my messages out to more people than ever.   For my regular readers, I have to say THANK YOU.