If you’ve seen my other blog posts, you will notice that I am making a jump here. I had been studying “Released from Shame” by Dr. Sandra Wilson. This is an excellent book and I still recommend it, particularly to people who struggle with shame and bad memories. However, I want to broaden my scope a little and, while I will still use Dr. Wilson’s book for counseling purposes, I want to feature posts that are more universally applicable.
The answer was sitting on my desk. Recently I began a study with a brother and his friend and the brother picked up copies of “What is Christianity?” by Joel Stephen Williams. This book has been an excellent study tool for someone who has heard of Christianity but maybe has been confused by the plethora of belief systems and institutions as it focuses in on why we believe what we believe.
This study, I believe, will be fruitful for Christian and non-Christian alike. Many times Christians may know what we believe, but not why. Sometimes we may not know where to go for a specific passage on a certain belief. This study will be full of Scripture and will strengthen, re-affirm, and bring concrete Scripture to bear where only an idea may currently exist.
For non-Christians, there is understandably some confusion about what Christianity really is. Ask a dozen Christians about what they believe and you may well get a dozen different answers. Combine that with the observance of Christians not acting very Christian-ly (or we would say Christ-like) and confusion is the natural product. I hope that as we study that we may be able to point out the way that the church was meant to act and function.
Confusion and murkiness are truly counter to the purpose of the church. God is truth. There is absolute truth and it aligns with God. It is like a pure crystal, you can see through it and it is valuable. As the crystal acquires blemishes, it becomes less pure, less clear, and less valuable. Our study will be to reveal the crystal in its unblemished state.
Not that we consider ourselves as perfect. We know as Christians that we all have progress to make in our walk with Christ. We all try to encourage each other to do better today than what we did yesterday. We don’t have a certain “you must be this righteous to enter” requirement. We do have the Bible, we do have the Spirit, and we do have a Savior who we try to imitate.
The only way to imitate him better is to know him better, and to know His church better, and that is exactly what we hope to accomplish through this study. If you ever have any questions about what we discuss or about the passages that we use, feel free to reach out and we will be happy to discuss more with you!
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