Hey there, everyone,
I wanted to start a thread on “Real Christianity”. I am not to far away from 50 years old and I’ve been mulling this issue over. I think many on this board have spent a significant amount of their mental capacity thinking about what is true and what is right with regards to Christ and how to worship him and think rightly about him (and I am one of them!). I wanted this thread to focus on some of your journey on where you started and what you believe is most important for what you would consider being a “real Christian”.
I grew up with a charismatic background and a bounced around quite a bit within the Independent non-denominational groups of churches with much more of a Baptist like focus (hence what drew me to these boards! Sadly, that is not enough to post on some of the cool threads on scripture that I see in the Baptist-only section
).
As I’ve spent time really looking deeply into the Restoration Movement, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Protestantism and Calvinism, some Catholicism, and the fact that every single one of these groups of churches that I’ve mentioned have an incredible variety of disagreements even within themselves, many to the point of declaring Anathama!, it’s made me really stop and consider who is a real Christian.
I could talk about the theological beliefs here and all sorts of things like that which of course are important, but as I continue to meditate on the gospels, especially Luke and Acts over the last three years, that it really seems to me that the early Christians were focused on being as much like Christ as they could. I would bet 90% of them don’t talk about theology and doctrine things like we do. As I’ve read the New Testament over these last years, it really seems to me that the point of all of the teaching is to get people to live their lives like Jesus. It seems that many of us think that we have to have perfect understanding of how forgiveness actually works, or how the Trinity actually relates to each other, or how do you understand exactly what is going on at baptism, etc. etc.
I wonder how many things somebody could get wrong about Jesus and not have the correct knowledge, but still be found in him?
I keep coming back to the trees and the fruit and that you will know them by their fruit and that the Lord will know you are His by if you have built on the foundation of his words (Luke 6). Why are so many current day Christians in America, so focused on ethereal understandings of how spiritual things functionally work behind the scenes, when Jesus says that he will judge us based on what our life looks like with how we live it for him?
Anyway, that sort of my two cents on the subject. I definitely love mulling over theological issues, but I’m not convinced that beyond the basics of the things summarized in the apostles‘s creed you have to understand how everything works to be in Christ. I wonder if as many people that argue on twitter are devoting their lives to prayer, giving to the poor, feeding the hungry, loving and sharing with fellow Christians, and sharing Jesus with people they don’t know.
I wanted to start a thread on “Real Christianity”. I am not to far away from 50 years old and I’ve been mulling this issue over. I think many on this board have spent a significant amount of their mental capacity thinking about what is true and what is right with regards to Christ and how to worship him and think rightly about him (and I am one of them!). I wanted this thread to focus on some of your journey on where you started and what you believe is most important for what you would consider being a “real Christian”.
I grew up with a charismatic background and a bounced around quite a bit within the Independent non-denominational groups of churches with much more of a Baptist like focus (hence what drew me to these boards! Sadly, that is not enough to post on some of the cool threads on scripture that I see in the Baptist-only section
).As I’ve spent time really looking deeply into the Restoration Movement, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Protestantism and Calvinism, some Catholicism, and the fact that every single one of these groups of churches that I’ve mentioned have an incredible variety of disagreements even within themselves, many to the point of declaring Anathama!, it’s made me really stop and consider who is a real Christian.
I could talk about the theological beliefs here and all sorts of things like that which of course are important, but as I continue to meditate on the gospels, especially Luke and Acts over the last three years, that it really seems to me that the early Christians were focused on being as much like Christ as they could. I would bet 90% of them don’t talk about theology and doctrine things like we do. As I’ve read the New Testament over these last years, it really seems to me that the point of all of the teaching is to get people to live their lives like Jesus. It seems that many of us think that we have to have perfect understanding of how forgiveness actually works, or how the Trinity actually relates to each other, or how do you understand exactly what is going on at baptism, etc. etc.
I wonder how many things somebody could get wrong about Jesus and not have the correct knowledge, but still be found in him?
I keep coming back to the trees and the fruit and that you will know them by their fruit and that the Lord will know you are His by if you have built on the foundation of his words (Luke 6). Why are so many current day Christians in America, so focused on ethereal understandings of how spiritual things functionally work behind the scenes, when Jesus says that he will judge us based on what our life looks like with how we live it for him?
Anyway, that sort of my two cents on the subject. I definitely love mulling over theological issues, but I’m not convinced that beyond the basics of the things summarized in the apostles‘s creed you have to understand how everything works to be in Christ. I wonder if as many people that argue on twitter are devoting their lives to prayer, giving to the poor, feeding the hungry, loving and sharing with fellow Christians, and sharing Jesus with people they don’t know.
