Mailbag! Works vs Faith, Church Volunteers, and Better Bible Habits
Curiously Kaitlyn
Phil Vischer
5 • 759 Ratings
🗓️ 13 January 2026
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It's mailbag time! Kaitlyn and Mike field your questions about faith and works, why churches sometimes prioritize nursery duty over community outreach, and how to move beyond the "Bible in a Year" grind. They talk salvation as allegiance, children as the church's shared responsibility, and creative ways to stay rooted in Scripture without treating it like a daily vitamin.
0:00 - Theme Song
1:25 - Is Salvation a Gift?
6:33 - What Did Paul Mean by "Work Out Your Salvation?"
12:02 - Sponsor - Blueland - For 15% off first order of Blueland cleaning products, go to this link: https://www.blueland.com/CURIOUSLY
13:27 - Should churches focus on outreach or inreach?
22:20 - How to Read the Bible Beyond Daily Reading
31:32 - End Credits
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Curiously Caitlin, where we try to make theology make sense. |
| 0:06.6 | I don't know. |
| 0:10.1 | That doesn't make any sense. |
| 0:14.3 | Curiously, Kate, yeah. |
| 0:19.4 | Welcome back to Curiously, Caitlin. |
| 0:56.0 | I am joined once again by producer Mike. Mike, how are you? I'm doing great. I'm so excited for part two of our mailbag. People send in great questions. And we can't get to all of them, but we're getting to some pretty great ones. We are. I'm excited. So let's just dive in. Yeah, let's do it. All right. I'm curious. Where does the idea of free gift of salvation come from? I don't recall any scripture using this term. In fact, Jesus says to count the cost. It's a question I've been pondering as I've heard so many skeptics say, nothing is ever free, never trust anyone who says there is. And I'm thinking they have a point. This is a fantastic question. Also, I just want to say, Mike, you put together a |
| 1:02.3 | huge list of all these questions people sent in. And I pick this one in part because it starts with |
| 1:06.0 | I'm curious. So I feel like it was made for curiously, Caitlin. Thanks for saying that, Caitlin, because now next mailbag, we're just going to get like 50 questions that start off with. |
| 1:14.7 | I'm curious. |
| 1:15.7 | This will get them. |
| 1:16.5 | Just want to say, we love you being curious. |
| 1:17.9 | That's great. |
| 1:19.5 | Second thing, this is actually a much more controversial question than I think this person might realize. |
| 1:26.2 | And we'll get to more of that a minute. |
| 1:28.5 | There are a couple of scriptures that say something along the lines of free gift. And we don't |
| 1:33.6 | want to make a theology based entirely off of, oh, chapter verse, I found the phrase that you're |
| 1:38.4 | talking about. But I do want to reference two of them, because I think they get us towards |
| 1:42.5 | some of what we're talking about here. Okay. |
| 1:49.2 | So one of those passages is Ephesians chapter two where it says, for it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves. |
| 1:51.5 | It is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast. |
| 1:55.7 | So it doesn't say free gift, but it says gift, gift from God. |
| 1:59.3 | And it gives us some context for why Paul is saying gift from God, not by works so that no one can boast. |
... |
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