What Shall I Do To Be Saved?

By Rev. Dr. Curian Kaniyamparambil

Question 35. If we say that reference to the Bible alone is not enough?
Does that mean that we belittle the importance of the Bible?

No, no one can belittle the Bible. The Syriac Orthodox church along with other traditional churches attribute to it the utmost respect because:

• It contains the words of salvation of our Lord.
• It is a book owned by the Church.
• We treat the Book as true and genuine, with the truth preserved without any additions or subtractions from it. It is preserved as it was from the apostolic times.
• All of the church doctrines are based on the Bible.
• We have not and will not degrade it into a book to be modified, altered, or interpreted by anyone according to his will.
• We read from the Bible in all our prayers, during the celebration of the sacraments, and also teach the Bible in the church and in our Sunday Schools.

A short summary so far...

We have to consider what the requisites for salvation are. We started our discussion based on the prison master's question to St. Paul which was, in order to be saved what should one do? Based on the Apostle's reply, we discussed in three sections what faith is, what was included in it, and the basis for the true faith.

Modern Christian fellowships are so diverse that some believe that in order to be saved one just needs to believe and nothing more is required. But most fellowships teach that this alone is not sufficient, but that one needs to be baptized in order to receive salvation.

The Orthodox churches taught from the first century that a person who comes to Christianity from the Gentiles should believe and then be baptized, and that infants born to Christian parents should be baptized in their infancy.

But the modern Christian fellowships, which were formed recently teach, 'Only grown up believer's should be baptized.'

Therefore, we will discuss what the truth is based on the New Testament and Apostolic traditions. There is also dispute regarding what baptism is, how it should be performed, by whom, and about the procedure of baptism.

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