Acts 16:31

So John 3:16, as magnificent as it is, leaves out or glosses over a lot of necessary truth. It is like Acts 16:31, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved." That is another one they like to quote out there and you know it is part of every altar call in some of their services. "All you have to do is believe on the Lord Jesus" and sometimes they will say you have to confess your sins or whatever but all you have to do is believe and you will be saved.

You say the believer's prayer and you are saved. Have they ever heard of baptism? Ever heard of the laying on of hands? I mean, you could probably come up with a dozen things that is left out of that verse that are necessary parts of our salvation.

So Acts 16:31, it is true as far as it goes. But the concepts of belief and salvation that it touches on are far broader than that. People have a hard time nailing down just what belief is. And what does it mean to be saved? We throw around theological words like that carelessly sometimes and leaving out the fact that there are huge areas of study that go into those concepts.