Entertaining Angels Unaware: Welcoming the Immigrant Other

My book is now available in paperback and hardback directly from Wipf & Stock (though it is a Cascade imprint).  

https://wipfandstock.com/9781725259478/entertaining-angels-unaware/

One can also buy an epub version (Google Play).

https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Philip_A_Gottschalk_Entertaining_Angels_Unaware?id=aE8TEAAAQBAJ

Gottschalk Gazette December 2020

 Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

 

Dear Friends,

 

We want to pause to say, “Thank you!” for your prayers, friendship and encouragement. We have finished our Fall 2020 semester Final Exam Week this past week at Tyndale Theological Seminary in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.  Linda and I are so grateful to all of you who continue to support us.

 

August 2020 marked our twentieth year at Tyndale Theological Seminary and our 30th year in Europe.  

 

The past Spring 2020 semester and this Fall 2020 semester have been rather bizarre due to the COVID virus.  In the Spring 2020 our faculty, staff and students managed to avoid any infections, but we had a pretty strict lockdown in the Netherlands, which the government ordered.  In mid-March 2020 we started to teach all classes virtually using video conferencing.  

 

Linda and I decided not to travel to the US this past summer of 2020 due to COVID.  Others on our faculty and staff did return to the US and some, who returned to NL from the US, fell ill with COVID.

 

This past summer (2020) while on vacation we prayed and sought the Lord about our future. As we reported earlier, we believe the Lord is leading us to leave Tyndale in June 2021.  We plan to return to the US for a year and then to go to Zaporozhye, Ukraine for two to four years (until 2024-26) before we officially retire. We will teach as a part of the Master of Theology program of the Zaporozhye Bible Seminary where we have taught before and where Phil has been coordinating the MTh program.

 

We returned to the classroom at the end of August 2020 only to have the seminary shut down an extra week during our normal Fall 2020 Reading Week (so two weeks).  Unfortunately, the second wave of COVID affected 30-40% of our faculty, staff and students.  One student was hospitalized and is still struggling.

 

After that Fall 2020 extra week-long Reading Week (two weeks) some professors elected to continue with face-to-face classes and others, like us, decided to return to video conferencing classes. Throughout the Fall 2020 semester Linda struggled with two health crises, one being COVID. Thankfully, she is fully recovered from both.

 

LIke many of you we have also had to suffice with virtual church.  We both miss singing and playing in the music group at church.  Both of us have contributed to the worship by recording sermons and music for some of these services.  Our church has decided to cancel Christmas Eve services due to the new measures instituted by the Dutch government on COVID.

 

Since we expect to sell our home here in the Netherlands in June 2021 we are in the process of sorting, packing and giving things away. We have accumulated a lot of stuff here in Europe over the past 34 years.  This process is both one of a slow saying goodbye and more or less a process of cutting down what will remain in Europe and what will either be sent to the US or given away.

 

Despite the circumstances we have taught a large number of courses.  Phil taught Foundations for Theology, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit and the History of Philosophy I in the Spring 2020 Semester.  Linda was on sabbatical and worked on writing a history of Tyndale Theological Seminary which is about half done.  

 

In the Fall 2020 Semester Phil has taught the Ethics of War, Peace and Peace-making, Communicating Christ to Postmodern Culture and Introduction to Islamic Philosophy.  He also had three mentees for spiritual formation and one Master of Evangelical Theology thesis writer. Linda taught Research Methods (two sections: Master of Divinity and Master of Evangelical Theology) and Topics from the Reformation. She had worked with one MET thesis student, but that was the student who came down with COVID and was hospitalized and then decided to stop her studies for this semester.

 

In Spring 2021 Phil will teach the same three courses as last Spring semester.  He will also have the three mentees for spiritual formation and the thesis writer who will hopefully defend his thesis in May. Linda will teach Modern Church History and Thesis Prospectus (helping MET thesis writers develop their thesis proposals).

 

We appreciate how you have continued to support us financially and emotionally with your prayers and encouragement. We are grateful to you and the Lord that we have had 30 years of ministry in Europe next summer.  We hope by God’s grace to last until we hit 40 years as missionaries in 2024.

 

Warmly in Christ,

Phil & Linda Gottschalk

Going! Going! Gone!

 

As the current, but not for long Chair of the Division of Theological and Historical Studies at Tyndale Theological Seminary near Amsterdam, the Netherlands I would like to share a few thoughts.

 

You all know that I like science fiction both to read and to watch. The movie Ghost in the Shell came out a couple years ago. Ghost in the Shell is a Japanese anime (cartoon) series of graphic novels and anime movies, however in this iteration it was done with live actors and CGI.

 

The main protagonist is Major Mira Killian, the Ghost in the Shell, who is played by Scarlett Johansson. Mira was murdered and then her brain was put into a cyborg body. The main theme is how she tries to understand who and what she is.

 

At one point in the movie she is discussing this with the scientist Dr. Oulet, who “created” her. Outlet is played by actress Juliette Binoche. To keep Mira on focus with her task of fighting terrorists, the scientist has regularly “wiped her memories” and given her false memories to motivate her. Mira has some flashbacks, but cannot figure out what they mean.

 

Dr. Outlet says to Mira:

 

“We cling to memories as if they are what defines us, but what we do defines us.”

 

I was struck by this statement. There are layers of irony in the film, but on face value this statement is pregnant with wisdom.

 

We cling to our memories, our successes, our accomplishments as if they define us, and they do to a point, but we always face the danger of falling into defending who we are by our past accomplishments. In a publish or perish academic institution one must, well, publish or perish.

 

In the sort of institution Tyndale is, as Cecil Stalnaker, our long time Missions professor, used to call it, a mission school, the roles of the faculty and staff constantly change. This can be due to shortages of personnel either administrative or academic, as it was in the past. In the past everyone carried several administrative jobs as well as academic jobs. We all pitched in and did what we needed to do to keep the school going.

 

As the faculty and staff have expanded there is no longer the need for us to do several administrative jobs or to carry a heavy load of courses. We can divide and conquer now.

 

For me this time has been in many way enjoyable. I have been able to focus on a few courses I excel in and feel passionate about and to develop some electives which I like.

 

Another thing I have tried to do is to mentor my successors. I count Szaszi Bene to some degree, Rahman Yakubu, and Solomon Dimitriadis,as some I have tried to encourage and even Bob Landon as a former student. I hope that all of us who are going, going, gone sooner rather than later are focusing on helping younger colleagues get their feet and find their place.

 

However, every era comes to an end. Throughout the past twenty years I have survived several changes of presidents, vice presidents, academic deans and even colleagues who unfortunately came and went for a variety of reasons. Each time we reinvented ourselves. 

 

Accreditation was a great accomplishment, but like many things it is not a “once and for all” accomplishment. It is moving target as we are assessed and given requirements for change.

 

“We cling to memories as if they are what defines us, but what we do defines us.”

 

The past is the past. It may be a foundation, but it is gone. What we do now is what defines us.

5-4

5-4

When Brett Kavanaugh was added to the US Supreme Court, “Conservatives” got control of the Court. When Amy Coney Barrett was added the Court went 6-3. Some hope that the US Supreme Court will rule in their favor. We shall see.

 

5-4

was also another significant margin of votes for me. I have been obsessing lately about news related to the US Presidential election. I was very, very afraid that there would be violence particularly on the Saturday after the election after news media had called the election. That feeling wasn’t lessened much when I saw Rick Santorum say that he thought what the President was tweeting was dangerous. Santorum in no liberal. He is a Republican of sure pedigree.

 

Why I asked myself was I so worried about violence starting in the US following this election? Was it just news media winding me up?

 

As I was preparing my class today, the Ethics of War, Peace and Peacemaking to speak about my experiences in Yugoslavia, I realized why I was so upset and worried about the possibility of violence in the US following the election: I’ve been there and done that.

 

As a naïve and ardent young missionary, I took my family to Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1986. Through the 1970s and into the 1980s Yugoslavia had been the picture poster child of Communism. The Adriatic coast brought movie stars to vacation there. The Winter Olympics had taken place in Sarajevo in 1984. Belgrade is a lovely town on the Danube River. Who could imagine the violence and destruction that would soon descend on Yugoslavia? But a young Serbian Communist politician called Slobodan Milosevic wanted to replace Josip Broz Tito who had been the leader of Yugoslavia after World War II.

There were changes which Milosevic wanted to make that would make him the “king” in Yugoslavia. The numbers were 5-4.

 

Tito had devised a very, as some say, “torturous” system of government in Yugoslavia. Each of the six republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia & Hercegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia had a seat in the Presidium, the highest ruling body. The leadership of the Presidium rotated through the republic leaders to try to keep a balance.

 

There was a large number of Serbs in Yugoslavia. They were about a third of the population and the largest group. The Serbian king had ruled Yugoslavia before the World War II Allies had replaced him with Tito. The Serbs wanted power.

 

Tito kept the Serbs from power by a unique system: 5-4. Each republic has a vote on the Presidium. So, there were six votes. However, to control the Serbs Tito divided Serbia into three parts: Vojvodina (in the north), Serbia proper and Kosovo (in the south). Vojvodina and Kosovo were given autonomous status within Serbia. Vojvodina is a very ethnically mixed area with Serbs, Slovaks, Czechs, Romanians and Hungarians. Kosovo, though the home and birthplace of the Serbian people, was 90% Albanian. Each autonomous region had their own courts, government and executive branch. Each of the autonomous regions had a vote on the Presidium. So, the result was 6-3: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia & Hercegovina, Macedonia, Vojvodina & Kosovo vs Serbia, Montenegro, and the Army which had a vote.

However, Slobodan Milosevic and his forces changed the Serbian Republic’s Constitution taking autonomous status away from Kosovo and Vojvodina. Thus, Serbia had now 5-4: Serbia (with Vojvodina & Kosovo), Montenegro & the Army vs Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia & Hercegovina and Macedonia.

 

When Serbia manage to pass this change and gain a 5-4 advantage in the Presidium, in effect control of the country, first Slovenia and then Croatia seceded from the Union of Federated Socialist  Republics of Yugoslavia. The real war started with the secession of Bosnia & Hercegovina. Bosnia & Hercegovina was about 1/3 Serb. The Serbs in Serbia proper were not about to allow the Bosnian government to control those people. The war, which the West calls the “Bosnian War,” started in earnest. To the Serbs it was always a “Civil” War since the three republics seceded (though the Serbs changing the Constitution precipitated the war).

 

5-4

So, 5-4 and more 6-3 frightens me. People feel justified. This is the way the system works. The President was able put three Justices on the Supreme Court. Now he should be able to expect support for his court cases.

 

Will “We the People” end because of 5-4 or 6-3? There may not be violence in the US on the scale of former Yugoslavia and everyone in the US thinks they are far above that sort of war. But are we? Many see their candidate as God’s choice. Many see the other side as godless or religious maniacs. Yet, the country is almost literally divided in half in terms of the popular vote. We are a nation divided. E pluribus plures. “From the many, many.”

 

I hope that the US does not descend to the madness of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. However, I have seen how populism, nationalism and religious fanaticism can end. Compromise is the essence of democracy. If we cannot get past our demonizing of the other side and start to work together, we are doomed. Sooner or later our country will descend into violence or dictatorship. We must work together. We must live together. We must care for each other.

 

Three keys of a speech

 

When I was taking a preaching course or perhaps it was a pastoral duties course in seminary, my professor said that there were three elements of rhetoric or speech: pathos, ethos and logos.

 

Pathos means, in effect, emotion or passion. If a speaker does not touch the emotions of his or her audience, then he or she will likely not be persuasive. Some preachers and speakers can “play the audience like an organ,” my professor said. They know how to play on emotions. Other speakers, who have something to say, may fail to convince because they do not move peoples’ passions.

Ethos means that a speaker is a moral person or has moral authority to speak. If a person has the right message, but is perceived as having no character, then he or she probably won’t be convincing. On the other hand, if the speaker has a long track record of speaking truthfully, keeping his or her word, and is known to be a morally good and consistent person, then his or her message is more likely to be received and be persuasive.

 

Logos means a message. For a speaker to communicate something, the speaker has to have something to say, a message, a word. Often it seems some speakers are great with pathos, they know how to persuade an audience, even if their message might be lacking. At other times those with ethos, moral authority, may be mistaken and advance a message that is false or faulty. In effect they may abuse their moral high ground to advance a questionable message.

 

Evangelical preachers tend to focus on logos, the word, or message. Is our exegesis, our biblical interpretation right? Some preachers, however, have been consummate “organ players” and even though they had fantastic “falls from grace” (committed obvious and egregious sins), however, they continued to be allowed to preach by their audiences. Some preachers, as I just mentioned, have lost their moral authority due to sinful behavior. However, people follow them because at least for a while the message seems sound.

 

We Evangelicals need to focus on ethos. We have always been strong on logos. I am proud that I have learned biblical Greek and Hebrew and that I went to one of the best Evangelical seminaries in America. However, I am appalled when I see well-known preachers deliberately sin over a long period of time and be “forgiven,” as if their sins made no difference to being qualified to preach the Bible.

I’m also afraid that Evangelicals have become showmen or show women. It’s easy, if you are a persuasive speaker, to move peoples’ passions. It is harder to persuade them to live godly lives. The scriptures warn that in the end times (the last days) people will gather to themselves preachers who will “tickle their itching ears.” 2 Timothy 4:3 

 

“For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.”

 

This means that rather than ask preachers to speak God’s truth to them in an uncompromising way, people will seek preachers that make them feel good and give them esoteric knowledge, rather than provoke them to lively godly lives.

 

I could tell many stories and it is not my purpose to bash anyone in particular, however, I know of one extremely well-known preacher who committed adultery and left his wife. He tried to force his son to side with him and not his mother. The son declined.

 

I don’t know all of the circumstances of this case, but it was pretty clear. I know that at times marriages are in bad shape and some don’t survive, but when you have been preaching faithful marital monogamy for decades and then take a “trophy wife,” there’s a fundamental problem with your ethos.

I used to think that logos was the essential element to good preaching. Who can argue with a sound exposition of the World of God? (At least among Evangelicals). But it is too easy to say the right words, to sign the doctrinal statement and harder to maintain ones’ spiritual life and integrity.

 

We need logos to have a sound message. We need pathos to be able to persuade people to follow the Truth. But without ethos we have nothing to say that anyone will hear.

Jesus - Savior or Example? Part II

Collect of the Day: Proper 15

Almighty God, you have given your only Son to be for us a sacrifice for sin, and also an example of godly life: Give us grace to receive thankfully the fruits of his redeeming work, and to follow daily in the blessed steps of his most holy life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.  Book of Common Prayer 

I began with a prayer above that spoke of Jesus as both the sacrifice and the example or exemplar.  These are two Christologies, understandings of the person and work of the Messiah, Jesus.

Because some more rationalistic (antimiraculous) theologians didn’t like the bloody Old Testament sacrifice of atonement and didn’t like the idea of someone else dying for them or anyone else (This seemed “unfair” to them.) and because they did not believe in the deity of Christ (They were Deists, rather than Theists.), they proposed a view of Christ in which he was a wise teacher and a good person, who left us an example of how to act.  This is called an Exemplarist Soteriology.  Soteriology is the teaching or doctrine about how we are saved.

These theologians believed that Jesus was not a sacrifice, but only a moral example, a teacher.  They did not believe Jesus was the son of God or a miracle worker.  For them Jesus’ teaching and life laid down the perfect example of a good person, a person who pleased God.

There is no doubt that Jesus meant us to follow his example.  There is also no dout that Jesus gave his teaching so that we could be conformed to his image, to his moral will.

However, Exemplarist Soteriology begs a few questions. First if Jesus is an example, why would he be “THE” example? In other words, why Jesus and not Buddha? “It’s my tradition,” is no answer.  If Jesus is not the Son of God who died for me and paid the price for my sin, why follow his teaching? Examplarist Soteriology doesn’t answer the question about how to deal with our “sin problem.”  

Generally speaking these theologians didn’t accept that everyone was born in sin and so needed redemption (the doctrine of original sin).  They were more in line with the thinking of Pelagius, an early theologian, who believed that we did not need a sacrifice for sin, but only need to work harder and longer to overcome our sins.

Exemplarist Soteriology also doesn’t answer HOW we can follow Jesus’ example.  If he is the greatest, most perfect teacher, how are we to find the strength and will to follow him?

Biblical soteriology gives us the answer: the answer is the Holy Spirit.  Following salvation (being saved from sin) is sanctification (being conform to Christ’s likeness).  Once we are saved the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us and guides us into growing in holiness.  Not only does the Holy Spirit indwell us and guide us, he gives us POWER to live the Christian life, to follow Christ’s example.

Jesus’ example may be a beautiful thing.  Immanuel Kant, the Enlightenment philosopher, loved Jesus the Teacher.  He called him Master.  Kant’s Categorical Imperative, a law which he believed we could reach by practical reason alone, was a paraphrase of the “Golden Rule.”  

Kant said, “Act in such a way that your action could become universal law.” He claims that we can know this by thinking alone without revelation.  His law means in paraphrase, “If you don’t want someone to steal from you, don’t steal.  Stealing can’t be allowed.”  In simpler, positive terms he could have said, “Do unto others what you want them to do unto you.”

In his book, Religion within the bounds of reason alone, Kant talks much of the Teacher, but not of the Savior.  Kant is a Deist who does not see Jesus as the Savior or the Son of God.

We cannot accept an Exemplarist Soteriology.  Jesus is not just an example, he is the Savior of the whole world.

We should follow his example. The New Testament is full of commands to follow Christ’s example. The goal of sanctification, growth in holiness is to make us like Jesus, to conform us to his image.

The sacrifice of Jesus is the accomplishment of our salvation, our atonement with God the Father. The presence of the Holy Spirit is the motive power of sanctification. Salvation is a moment, a decision to accept Christ.  Sanctification is a lifetime of effort to live like and for him.

I like that prayer above because the “two wings of the dove,” so to speak, are balanced.  There is no real growth in Christ or outcome of salvation without conforming to his example and teaching.  There is also no growth without the presenec of the Holy Spirit within our lives.  But there is no hope of following that example without first being redeemed and reconcilied with God without the death and sacrifice of Christ.

So, let us rejoice in his redeeming sacrifice for us and let us strive to be more like him.

Jesus - Savior or Example?

 Collect of the Day: Proper 15

Almighty God, you have given your only Son to be for us a sacrifice for sin, and also an example of godly life: Give us grace to receive thankfully the fruits of his redeeming work, and to follow daily in the blessed steps of his most holy life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.  Book of Common Prayer

Evangelical Christians tend to focus on Jesus as the one who paid the price for our sins, Jesus the atoning sacrifice.  This is good and appropriate.  “There is salvation in no other name,” says the Apostle Peter in his sermon on the Day of Pentecost.

Church tradition contains various attempts to explain what it means for Jesus to be our atoning sacrifice.  Of course this idea of the atoning sacrifice comes from the Old Testament: the sacrifice lamb is slaughtered for the sins of the people and the blood of the sacrifice is sprinkled on the altar.

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews lays out all of this logic from the Old Testament sacrifices.  He tells us that Jesus is the sacrifice, priest and prophet, as well as the coming King!

When Jesus first went to see John the Baptist in the desert John said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”  John’s phrase could not be clearer.

Much later Anselm of Canterbury wrote a book called Why the God-man? In is book Anselm lays out the logic of redemption.  He does not offer this explanationn as an a priori argument, a “before the fact” argument from intuitive logic alone. Rather he says that having learned from Scripture that Jesus is the Son of God, born of a virgin and born to be the sacrifice of sins, he lays out the logic of redemption, as philosophers would say “a posteriori,” after having learned about the redemption by revelation, he is able to follow it with his human logic.  It is not an event or reasoning he could have come to without revelation, but having received it, he can “rationalize” it, give a reasonable explanation.  There is no tension between revelation and reason.  Revelation makes known and logic confirms.

Anselm’s argument is for penal substitutionary atonement.  These days many people find fault with his argument: too bloody, violence against an innocent animal, etc.  However, his logic is an explanation of biblical revelation.  He is not inventing something to suit the tastes of his generation or ours.  He is laying out the logic of scripture and revelation.

The atonement is an idea taken from the Old Testament.  We must be recconciled to God. We are estranged from our maker.

The way to overcome this separation from our maker is through a sacrifice.  We are guilty of sin, deliberate wrong doing, breaking God’s law, hurting our Father.  We must pay a price to be reconciled to him.  This is the “penal” part of penal substitutionary atonment.  We are guilty before God’s law and a penalty must be paid.

We understand that atonement must be achieved and we now understand why a penalty, a “life for a life” must be paid, but why substitutionary?

God in his mercy had allowed the people of Israel to substitute a perfect lamb for themselves as a substitute for payment for their sins.  Though the people should have died, God allowed the high priest to offer a sacrifice of a perfect lamb once a year on the Day of Atonement to cover the sins of the people.

Jesus is the sacrifice lamb.  He is a perfect sacrifice and his death accomplishes our reconciliation with God.  

Jesus death also redeems us.  We had willingly sold ourselves into slavery to sin and the devil.  Jesus pays the price to buy us back, buy us out of that slavery.

Anselm in trying to explain this “mystery” (mystery in the Bible doesn’t mean something beyond comprehension, it means something not yet revealed) draws on the Old Testament sacrificial system and the explanations of Jesus, John the Apostle, Paul and the writer of Hebrews.  Anselm explains these scriptural ideas, this revelation, with reason, so that people can understand Jesus’ sacrifice and their own salvation.

Jesus had to be born of a virgin to be sinless.  The sacrifice lamb had to be without blemish, perfect.  A sinful person could not pay the price for other sinful people.  Even the high priest could not cleanse himself from his own sin.  Only a person who was sinless could be the sacrifice for sin.

Anselm also drew from the writer of Hebrews when he argues that Jesus or the sacrifice for sins had to be a man, a human.  No animal could really pay the penalty for the sins of humans.  Only a perfect man could make this sacrifice.

So, Jesus had to be born of a virgin as a man to be a sinless man and he had to be born a man to make atonment for men.  However, no man could pay the infinite price needed to redeem and reconcile humankind to God.  For this reason Jesus needed to be the Son of God born of a virgin to pay the penalty for humankind.

As well this sacrifice could only happen once.  The Old Testament sacrifices went on year after year.  None of them could atone for the sins of the nation.  However, Jesus “offered the once for all sacrifice for sin” (Hebrews 10:12) his work was finished.

For the past twenty years Linda, my wife, and I have attended St. James Church, Voorschoten, NL (Church England, Diocese of Europe).  I won’t explain how we ended up at St. James.  It’s a long story.

However, I want to say one thing, which is logical, scriptural and emotional.  When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper (Holy Communion) at one point in the liturgy the minister says,

All glory be to thee, Almighty God, our heavenly Father, for that thou, of thy tender mercy, didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption; who made there, by his one oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world; and did institute, and in his holy Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memory of that his precious death and sacrifice, until his coming again.

When the minister says: “one oblation (sacrifice) of himself once offered, a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world,” my heart sings.

I’m a very emotional person despite being a philosopher.  I am not a thinking machine.  However, Anslem lays out logically, what I choose to believe volitionally with my will.  Logic can explain, but without a choice of the will there is no salvation.  “The angels know and dread.”  You can know the truth and still reject it.

I don’t see any problem laying out the logic of a “mystery,” since biblically a mystery is not something which can never be understood.  Biblically a mystery is a secret which is finally revealed.

The Bible says that the prophets of old longed to see the day of the Messiah.  The plan of redemption and atonement was not known to them.  Not unclear to them, but hidden from them.  After Jesus died and rose again they understood.

We should not pit rational explanation against “mystery” or faith. (I don’t mean godless, arid, modern Reason. I mean full orbed ancient and medieval reason.) Faith is not “believing what you know ain’t so.” Faith is placing your trust in Jesus the Savior having understood first what it means that Jesus is the Savior and that you need one.  

Continuing in faith isn’t a mystery either.  The Bible was given to us to understand that mystery and it’s implication: that Jesus died for our sins and that we must live our lives from here on out to please him.