Christian Foundations

‘That’s not the way you learned Christ!’ So Paul tells the followers of Jesus in Ephesus (Eph. 4:20). As far as Paul is concerned, the Gentile way of life is characterised by futility, callousness, indecency, impurity and greed, and that is because they don’t know any better; their minds are closed to the light of Christ (4:17-19). But it is different for those who have heard about Christ and have been taught the truth that is in Jesus: they are renewed in the spirit of their minds and to put on the new identity they have been given, made to be like God in the righteousness and holiness that come from the truth (4:21-24). In short, what you know and what you believe impacts who you are and how you live.
 
So from time to time, it is good to pause and to ask ourselves the question: how much difference does knowing Christ make to who I am and how I live? It should make all the difference in the world!
 
When I teach students at the London School of Theology about what it takes to be a good interpreter of Scripture, I point them to Kierkegaard’s work, For Self-Examination, in which he offers an extended meditation on James 1:22-27, and poses the question, “What is Required in Order to Look at Oneself with True Blessing in the Mirror of the Word?” He warns about the danger of losing oneself in considering the ‘thirty thousand’ different interpretations of the Bible found in the commentaries, and says, “when you are reading God’s Word, it is not the obscure passages that bind you but what you understand, and with that you are to comply at once. If you understand only one single passage in all of Holy Scripture, well, then you must do that first of all, but you do not first have to sit down and ponder the obscure passages. God’s Word is given in order that you shall act upon it, not that you shall practice interpreting obscure passages.” As someone who sets great store by the importance of reading and understanding the Bible correctly, it is good for me to be reminded that I will be held to account, not just for how I have taught Scripture, but for how I have lived it. Knowing the truth changes who we are and how we live.
 
That is one of the reasons why we are commencing a discipleship course entitled Christian Foundations, which has been developed by Tim Wagg in Leamington Spa. Some of the subjects covered in that material may well be familiar to us, but the ultimate test is not how well we know it, but how well we live it.
The subjects covered will be:
What is God really like?
What can we learn from the life of Jesus?
Why did Jesus have to die?
What changes should I expect as I follow Jesus?
How can I develop my friendship with God each day?
How can I go deeper in my prayer life?
How can I use the Bible to strengthen my faith?
Shining as lights in this world
Inviting the Holy Spirit to work in my life
Worshipping God
Engaging in the reality of spiritual warfare
Facing up to hard questions
 How do I connect with my new church family?
Using my tongue to build others up
Living a disciplined life in order to follow Jesus
Finding the unique purpose God has for my life
 
Tim Wagg introduces the course by describing his own spiritual journey; he recalls that as a teenager, he got the negative impression from his next-door neighbours, the local church warden and his wife, that Christianity was a Sunday Club for old and miserable people. It was a perception that was challenged and altered at university, where he found that his most interesting and agreeable friends were Christians…
The vision behind his material is that people would gather in small groups of three or four to use the studies to encourage each other to obey the gospel of Jesus, and to develop the kind of deep relationships where we build each other up in the faith by being devoted to each other, caring for each other, praying for each other, being open and honest with each other. So it is ideal material to use in house groups, prayer triplets, or with a couple of friends over coffee.
 
The subjects will be covered (in the above order), on consecutive Sunday mornings from 14th April onwards. Leaders’ and participants’ booklets are available on the Hub – please help yourself, but we would ask you to sign up if you take a copy of the leaders’ guide, please. The material that Tim Wagg provides will be supplemented by our own material on the ‘Bible Notes’ section of our website.
That’s all I have to say this week... Now, it’s over to you!
God bless.
Tim Carter