Matthew 7:24 sinks Christianity
^(24) Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
This seems like an innocuous verse, but in my mind it undermines all of Christianity, namely that salvation comes through faith in Christ alone.
Take the preceding three verses into context:
^(21) Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
^(22) Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
^(23) And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
^(24) Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
As you can see, Jesus is saying that whoever does his sayings he will consider wise because those who do not do the will of the Father will not enter the kingdom of heaven, indicating that doing his sayings is at least in part doing the will of the Father. The problem with this for Christianity is that in his sermon Jesus is not talking about believing in him, but rather moralistic teachings such as "do unto others as they do unto you", and "judge not, that ye be not judged". What can be surmised from this is that according to Jesus, entrance into heaven is based (at least in part) on works. You must do the will of the Father to enter into the kingdom of heaven, and according to Jesus his sayings would be doing the will of the Father.
In my experience Christians get bogged down in things very easily and miss the point, so if you're still wondering what I'm talking about, it's simple. Jesus gives a moralistic sermon and says he will consider you wise if you put his sayings into practice because only those who do the will of the Father will enter into the kingdom of heaven. This means salvation is based at the very least in part on works, whether or not you do the will of the Father. This flies in the face of the Christian claim that salvation comes through faith in Christ alone. This claim is not possible because Jesus is predicating salvation here on doing the will of the Father which has to do with doing his sayings. This is bizarre because in John 3 Jesus claims that salvation indeed comes through believing in him. What you have is Jesus teaching two ways of salvation, which invalidates the whole religion because it becomes nonsense (which is indicative of it being made up).
I really don't see how I can be wrong about this, but I'm interested in opposing opinions.