You don't need to have the scripture verses memorized, and this list isn't authoritative. So, if you don't know everything, that's alright. But, these are the basics in Christianity and Christians should, at the very least, be familiar with them.
1. Can you tell someone what the Great Commission is?
2. Can you tell someone what the gospel is?
3. Can you tell someone where in the Bible the gospel is defined?
4. How many ways are there to get to God?
5. Can you quote John 3:16?
6. What book and chapter of the Bible has the 10 Commandments?
7. What is the basic salvation message?
8. Must you be baptized in order to be saved?
9. Is salvation obtained by being good, by faith in Jesus alone, or both?
10. Can you define the term justification?
11. Can you tell define the term sanctification?
12. Can you tell someone the difference between Mormonism and Christianity?
13. Can you quote scripture and location that says we are saved by grace?
14. Can you quote scripture and location that says there is only one God?
15. Is Jesus God in flesh, a good man, or an angel who became a man?
16. Did Jesus rise from the dead in a physical body or not?
18. Is the Holy Spirit a person like the Father and Son, or a force like radar?
19. Can you explain what the Trinity is?
20. Has God always been God?
21. Can you tell anyone what some of the attributes of God are?
22. Is Jesus going to return or not?
23. Did Jesus bare our sins in His body on the cross or not?
24. What is salvation?
25. What is sin?
27. What is hell?
30. What are the first five books of the Old Testament?
31. How many books are in the Bible?
32. Were Adam and Eve real people or not?
33. What is the biblical reason that Adam and Eve cast out of the Garden of Eden?
34. Is the devil a real being?
35. What are some of the qualifications of an elder?
1 comment:
Hi Luke,
Good questions and answers!
I think that sometimes in the ACC we get so wrapped up in what makes us unique or in some subtle theological points which came out of a particular climate 100 or 200 years ago, that we forget about some of these basics and they are rarely mentioned or taught. Of course this is not unique to the ACC, but rather it is a tendency that springs up anywhere if it is allowed. What happens is that a tradition of interpretation arises that is in some degree foreign to the scriptures, becuase of the lack of serious effort to search the scriptures. But the longer this lasts, the more it gets ingrained into the culture. And the more ingrained into the culture it gets, the more foreign the actual Biblical answer sounds. Sad to say, there is still much confusion in some parts of the ACCN (Nazarean side) over the question: "Must you be baptized in order to be saved?"
Another problem which is common, and I think it is one which I struggle with is..It is easy to get so falsely confident in knowing the answers that one becomes lazy and uninclined to really dig into the scriptures. If one has a pretty good memory, they can even remember a lot of verses, and that too gives a unjustified notion that one be lazy and not re-review things. There's a saying in Biblical Greek research which basically says "Nothing is more dangerous than a 'little' greek knowledge". What that means is that it is easy to get a very superficial knowledge which gives us too much confidence but unfortunately isn't nearly enough for us to be worthy of that confidence :> Well, in a somewhat similar vein, doing just enough Bible study to give us false confidence is not enough, we need to really plunge ourselves into an effort to understand and apply God's Word.
Sometimes spending time within an isolated community can often work to further even one of those problems. Too often we build a sheltered existence that makes us feel comfortable in our beliefs. However, when we have the challenge of serving people who are a-typical, non-believing, questioning, etc., we often are forced to answer (for ourselves and others) some of these fundamental questions and re-learn some things we thought we knew all along (while it was really that we were just shielded from them before).
I think (looking at myself) there is some fear and hesitation when trying to answer these questions, especially if the said person were an unbeliever or had radically different basic presuppositions.
Post a Comment