updated August 2026
You know the drive to your friend's house so well you stop thinking about it. Then one day you look up and you're in a neighborhood you don't recognize. That's the problem with a wrong turn: you almost never notice it while you're making it. You notice it three miles later, when the houses stop looking familiar. Then you have to retrace the whole route to find the one intersection where you kept going straight and should have turned left.
Bad arguments work the same way. You read a paragraph, you nod, you read another paragraph, you nod, and then you arrive at a conclusion you're pretty sure isn't true. But you can't point to the sentence that took you there.
Examining the connection between ideas is one of the most useful tools we have, both for Bible study and for discernment. A false argument usually starts on common ground. Then it makes a sharp turn. And because the arguments uses phrases from Scripture, the whole thing sounds biblical.
Sounding biblical and being taught in Scripture are two different things.
So let's practice. Below is an argument I encountered. Read it and see if you can find the wrong turn before I tell you where it is. I've labeled the paragraphs for easier reference.
The Argument
Paragraph A: The Bible teaches that all people are created in [God's] image and reflect His glory. This is the dignity of being human. But as sinners our minds are hardened against the truth, our hearts have learned to love and worship false things, and our behavior has turned away from righteousness. That is, we are sinful in our entire person: our minds, our hearts, and our behavior. We are therefore subject to God’s judgment.
Paragraph B: But in His grace, God pursues His people in love, goodness and mercy. He has provided the satisfaction for His judgment in the atonement through Jesus Christ, and we respond to His gift of salvation by faith. But God’s salvation is more than rescue from judgment. It is also the promise of renewal—the promise to renew human beings—in mind, heart, and behavior—into the image of Christ.
Paragraph C: The Bible teaches that this process of renewal is God’s work: initiated by His love, sustained by His grace, and ultimately perfected by His Spirit. And yet the Bible also teaches that God has invited His people into this work, to give ourselves in both faith and work to the lifelong process of being renewed—mind, heart, and behavior—into the image of Christ. This is the sanctifying aim of the Spirit: to know Christ, to worship the true God alone, and to walk in a manner worthy of our calling.
Did you find it? If not, don't feel bad. That's the point. It's well written, it's warm, and every individual sentence has the ring of something you've heard from a pulpit.
Study technique #1: Strip out the Poetry
Here's the first move. Rewrite each paragraph as one plain sentence with no biblical jargon and no poetry. Not because jargon is evil, but because jargon hides things. Plain English has nowhere to hide.
- Paragraph A: Though created in the image of God, all human beings are sinful and under God's wrath.
- Paragraph B: In His grace, God sent His Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross in our place, redeem us from our slavery to sin and begin the process of making us holy.
- Paragraph C: Making us holy is God's work. It is also our work.
Notice what happened. Paragraphs A and B stayed roughly the same size when I compressed them. Paragraph C shrank dramatically, and what was left was a sentence I would not have signed my name to five minutes earlier.
Study technique #2: Go Sentence by Sentence
Paragraph C is where the turn is. So let's slow down and take it one sentence at a time.
- Sentence C1: Making us holy is the work of God and His Spirit.
- Sentence C2: And yet making us holy also involves our faith and our works.
- Sentence C3: The Spirit's aim is that we know Christ, worship God alone, and live worthy of our calling.
C1 is uncontroversial. C3 is uncontroversial. C2 is carrying the entire load, and it's carrying it inside the phrase "and yet."
"And yet" is a small phrase that does enormous work. It signals a correction. It tells you that whatever came before was true but incomplete, and that the real point is coming next. Two words, no argument, and the weight of the paragraph shifts.
As this teacher went on to explain it, C2 was not a throwaway. His proposal named specific actions, disciplines and practices we must perform in order to help make ourselves holy. It also hinted at dire consequences if we failed to keep them up.
I would argue that's the wrong turn. At minimum, it's a claim that has to be proved rather than smuggled in behind "and yet."
From my study, the Bible does NOT teach that we become holy through any work of our own.
The Other Side
Before I tell you why I think C2 is wrong, let me be honest about the strongest version of the argument against me. If I skip this step, I'm doing to you exactly what that paragraph did to me.
The Bible is full of commands aimed at Christians, and they are not gentle suggestions.
- Paul tells the Philippians to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Php 2:12).
- Paul tells Timothy to "train yourself for godliness" (1Ti 4:7), using the word for an athlete's physical training.
- Paul tells the Colossians to put to death what is earthly in them (Col 3:5).
- Peter tells his readers to supplement their faith with virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness (2Pe 1:5-7).
- Hebrews tells us to pursue the holiness without which no one will see the Lord (Heb 12:14).
That is not a short list, and it's not a stretch. Anyone who says the Christian life involves no effort has a lot of explaining to do, and I'm not going to say that.
So the question is not whether Christians work. Of course we work. The question is what our work accomplishes.
Did Jesus Die for Nothing? (Galatians 2:11-21)
Are You Living Like a Slave or an Heir? (Galatians 4:1-11)
What our Work Does
Here's the line I'd draw, and it's a firm one. Scripture commands effort. Scripture never makes our effort the engine of our holiness.
Effort is the evidence that God has changed us. It is not the cause of the change. And the moment you swap those two, you have a different religion with the same vocabulary.
Watch how Paul handles exactly this in Galatians 3. He asks the Galatians one diagnostic question: did you receive the Spirit by works, or by hearing with faith? They know the answer: by faith. Then he asks, "Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" (Gal 3:3)
Note the structure of that question. Paul is not asking whether they're working hard. He assumes they are. He's asking what they think the work is doing. And he calls the answer foolish, which is a strong word for a pastor to use about people he loves.
Paul's logic is that the way you started is the way you continue. Grace at the beginning, grace in the middle, grace at the end. If you were saved by a gift, you're being made holy by a gift.
Why the Cross is Enough to Save You (Galatians 3:1-14)
Thought Game
Suppose your friend gives you a car for your birthday. Title in your name, keys in your hand, no strings. You're thrilled.
Two weeks later an invoice shows up. Twelve monthly payments, starting now, and a note explaining that of course the car was a gift, and yet you're invited to participate in the ownership process.
You would not describe that as a gift. You'd describe it as a car loan with an unusually warm introduction.
A gift, by its nature, is something you did not earn and cannot repay. If you work for it, it isn't a gift. If it's a gift, you don't earn it. You can't have it both ways just because you said "and yet" politely.
Now here's the part people trip over. Getting the car for free doesn't mean you never drive it. You'll change the oil. You'll learn where the windshield wiper controls are. You'll work at it. But not one minute of that work makes the car more yours than it was on the day the keys hit your palm.
That's what obedience is. It's driving the car. It isn't making the payments.
What about the Warnings?
This is the fair follow-up question, because the argument I quoted came with warnings attached, and Scripture does contain warnings. So here's the test I'd apply. Ask where the warning sends you.
A biblical warning sends you back to Christ. It says: look at what you're drifting toward, and look at who saved you, and go back to Him. The warnings in Hebrews work exactly this way. They always end at Jesus. Count on him, not your own efforts.
A warning that has taken the wrong turn sends you back to yourself. It says: look at what you failed to do, and try harder. Its effect is anxiety, and its subject is your performance.
Same word, "warning." Opposite destinations. That's worth checking.
Three Questions
The passage above is one example. The skill is transferable. When you're reading a commentary, a book, an article, or listening to a sermon, and something feels off but you can't name it, try these.
- Can I say this paragraph in one plain sentence? Strip the poetry and the jargon. Then ask whether you'd still agree with the plain version. If the plain version bothers you and the poetic version didn't, the poetry was doing something.
- Which sentence is carrying the weight? Most paragraphs have one load-bearing claim and several sentences of scaffolding. Find the load-bearing one and ask whether it was proven or assumed.
- What are the connecting words doing? "And yet," "therefore," "which means," "of course." These words assert relationships between ideas. An assertion is not a proof. Ask what would have to be true for that connection to hold, and then ask whether the author showed it.
You'll notice none of these three requires Greek, a seminary degree, or a shelf of commentaries. They require you to slow down and read the connections rather than the vocabulary.
Where I Land
From my study, Scripture does not teach that we become holy through work of our own. As the reformers summarized it, we're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. And what's true of the start is true of the whole. The process of making us holy, from beginning to end, is part of God's gift.
Many passages teach this. Ephesians 2. Romans 5-8. James 1-3. And practically the whole book of Galatians, especially chapter 3, where Paul says out loud that it's foolish to think you were saved by grace and are now being perfected by self-effort.
Grace and Slavery to Sin (Romans 6:1-14)
Grace and the Law (Romans 6:15-7:6)
If Grace Covers All Sin, Why Not Keep Sinning?
Does that leave us with nothing to do? Not at all. It leaves us with a great deal to do and a completely different reason for doing it. We don't work in order to become holy. We work because God has made us His, and that changes what we want.
Study technique: When you read commentaries and Christian books, read slowly. Examine the connections between ideas, not just the ideas themselves. Simplify the language into plain English without the jargon. Then look for the gaps and the leaps that still need to be proved.
That's the whole skill. It's not suspicion. It's attention.
Photo by Zac Harris on Unsplash
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