I understand why you do them, but given the often stated belief that good works are a product of faith and not conducive to salvation I don't understand why the pastor would urge the works. He should be urging faith. Isn't his task to lead you to salvation?
“I don’t understand why the pastor would urge the works. He should be urging faith. Isn’t his task to lead you to salvation?”
1. You continue to present a view of SS type churches as simply trying to get souls past the gate. As noted before, this is far from the whole, and while it has its share, Catholicism has its equivalent, and she effectually, if not officially, fosters a faith in which her power and some good deeds will get the most nominal Catholic into glory, Ted Kennedy being just one.
2. To disassociate works with faith is no more valid than separating love with acts thereof (and multitude surveys show evangelicals far more fruits thereof). What a person does reveals what they ultimately believer, regardless as to whether it conforms to their profession. And the faithful preacher exhorts works in the same order as the Bible doctrinally does, after establishing the means to salvation and the state the believer has as a result, and with the motive to glorify God.