Author Archives: Paul Pavao

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About Paul Pavao

I am married, the father of six, and currently the grandfather of five. I teach, and I am always trying to learn to disciple others better than I have before. I believe God has gifted me to restore proper theological foundations to the Christian faith. In order to ensure that I do not become a heretic, I read the early church fathers from the second and third centuries. They were around when all the churches founded by the apostles were in unity. My philosophy for Bible reading is to understand each verse for exactly what it says in its local context. Only after accepting the verse for what it says do I compare it with other verses to develop my theology. If other verses seem to contradict a verse I just read, I will wait to say anything about those verses until I have an explanation that allows me to accept all the verses for what they say. This takes time, sometimes years, but eventually I have always been able to find something that does not require explaining verses away. The early church fathers have helped a lot with this. I argue and discuss these foundational doctrines with others to make sure my teaching really lines up with Scripture. I am encouraged by the fact that the several missionaries and pastors that I know well and admire as holy men love the things I teach. I hope you will be encouraged too. I am indeed tearing up old foundations created by tradition in order to re-establish the foundations found in Scripture and lived on by the churches during their 300 years of unity.

Walking in the Spirit

One obedience leads to another. He who is faithful in little will be faithful in much. Continue reading

Posted in Church, Holiness | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

God’s Not Disappointed in You

If you want to have joy, peace, and righteousness, I highly recommend believing these things and coming boldly to the throne of grace to obtain the grace you need.

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Posted in Holiness, Miscellaneous | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Confidence in the Flesh and Knowing Christ

This morning in Bible study a few of us were looking at Galatians 2. Obviously, as we go further in Galatians, we need a good working definition of justification, and we went after that. The Greek word justify is just … Continue reading

Posted in Gospel, Holiness, Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The Righteousness of God vs. Our Righteousness

Sometimes I don’t get around to blogging because everything I write is so long and takes an hour to write. I wrote the following on a young friend’s blog, and I thought I should make it my own blog post. … Continue reading

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Statistics on Born Again and Churched Christians

This isn’t condemnation. This is pleasing God. This is finding God’s will. And if we call ourselves Christians, then nothing else ought to matter to us. Continue reading

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The Atonement: What You Must Know

I just wrote a long post on works. It’s long because I took the time to try to answer some concerns that honest, God-fearing modern Christians have about the things I say about works (which I got from the Scriptures … Continue reading

Posted in Gospel, Modern Doctrines | 2 Comments

Finding the Truth: Do We Have Assurance or Must We Merit Salvation?

I am saying that the same effort to walk in the light and walk by the Spirit that allows you to experience continual forgiveness and the the righteousness of Christ will also produce practical, visible righteousness in your life. Continue reading

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What Is the Gospel?

I reproduced this post at Christian-history.org. Today, April 3, 2014, I am revising it because its language was way too strong. Rather than revise both pages, I am only revising it at the web site, and I am changing this … Continue reading

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Commenting on the Bible

I’d like to direct those of you who read this to the commentary section of my Rest of the Old, Old Story site. I’m going to start updating it, beginning with the things found in today’s blog on Jeremiah 6. … Continue reading

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The Proof Is in the Pudding: Jesus Approves the Scientific Method

It is a basic premise of the scientific method that you need to prove what you believe. When Albert Einstein suggested that massive objects can exert enough gravitational pull to bend space, he had to prove it. The way he … Continue reading

Posted in Bible, History | Tagged , , | 3 Comments