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Christian Basics- Chapter 1, The Bible
AUTHOR: Guenther, Herb and Debbie
PUBLISHED ON: May 5, 2003
DOC SOURCE: CCN
PUBLISHED IN: Bible Studies

Christian Basics

Bible Studies on basic Christianity for group or individual use.

Table of Contents

1  The Bible                            pages 1-5

2  God                                  pages 6-10

3  Man and Sin                          pages 11-17

4  Jesus Christ                         pages 18-26

5  Christ’s Death                       pages 27-33

6  Assurance of Salvation               pages 34-40

7  The Holy Spirit                      pages 41-47

8  The Character of a Christian         pages 48-54

9  Prayer                               pages 55

10  The Church                          pages

11  Baptism and the Lord’s Supper       pages

12  Bible study                         pages

13  Christian Fellowship                pages

14  Sharing your faith                  pages

Introduction

This study resource is designed to help you learn about
Christianity in a group or by yourself.  We hope to be able to help
answer your questions about basic Christian doctrine and beliefs.  You
can also use it as a reference to help you to answer other people’s
questions when they ask you about being a Christian.

We hope that the following pages will also encourage you to search
the Bible for the answers you need by yourself.  Ultimately you need to
be able to go to the Bible for God’s fresh word for your specific
needs.  As you are learning, God will use many people to teach you many
things.  But remember the wisdom and the power come only from Him.

The purpose of these pages is to help you understand some of the
basic tenants of Christianity.  The ideas and ideals presented are
important for you to understand.  We will attempt to show you in a
logical fashion what a relationship with Jesus Christ is like.  As much
factual information as possible will be presented while keeping with a
general survey format.

We believe that the Christian faith is something held both in our
hearts and in our minds.  Because a growing Christian has an
inquisitive and active mind we will present many facts and cross-references.  This together with the footnotes will give you a place to
look when you, or someone you know has a question.

God has given us the power to understand many things. One of the
most important is to learn about Him.  Challenge yourself to learn as
much as you can about our Christian faith, its history, and people.
Most of us will be limited in our understanding, not by the limits of
our minds, but by the lack of energy we allot to learning.

However we wish to make something clear.  There is no escaping
that a step of faith is necessary to achieve salvation and a
relationship with Christ. The primary residence of the Holy Spirit in
us is in our hearts.

The field of argument encompassing proofs of Christianity is
called apologetics.  It is an important field.  Many great scholars
have devoted their lives to it.  Some of what we will present is the
result of their labors.  It provides us comfort and room to grow
intellectually and spiritually to understand some of their ideas.  But
again that step of faith is necessary.

We believe that no satisfactory “proof” of the effectiveness of
the Christian faith exists outside of the spiritual realm.  Our limited
resources and minds will not allow us to have a complete understanding
of God.  As Corrie Ten Boom said “A God small enough for our
understanding will not be large enough for our need.”

Who are we?  I (Herb Guenther) am an engineer who works with
security equipment and other electronic devices.  I have been a “born
again” Christian for about 10 years at this point (1990).  Debbie is a
Pharmacist and accepted Christ as her savior about 12 years ago.  We
have been married 8 years and have two girls (Sarah and Abby) ages 6
and 4.

We are writing this study for use in a neighborhood Bible study
held in conjunction with our church.  The neighborhood group is a study
that has people from many different backgrounds ages and situations.
It is our hope that God will continue to make our time together with
them profitable.  We dedicate this study to the members of the
Shorewood WI neighborhood Bible study group, of Elmbrook Church.

Special thanks to Tim and Bonnie Tesch for their encouragement and
for proofreading the text.  Their suggestions have been very helpful.

We welcome your questions and comments.  You may use the “Ask a Question” form to do so.

You may use these chapters for your personal use or in a group as
long as you do not change them in any way.  Remember to duplicate the
footnotes as well to give credit where credit is due. You are free to
select individual chapters if you wish.

We would enjoy hearing your comments and suggestions and request
your prayers as we write.  No money is asked for or expected.

In Christ’s Love;

Herb and Debbie Guenther
August 1990

THE BIBLE

SCRIPTURE

We believe the Scriptures, both Old and New Testament, to be the
inspired Word of God, without error in the original writings, the
complete revelation of His will for the salvation of men and the Divine
and final authority for all Christian faith and life. 1

The above statement about the Bible comes from Elmbrook Church’s
Statement of Faith.  Where do these ideas come from, and why are they
so important that we have chosen to begin here?  Lets spend some time
finding out.

The Bible is the best selling book of all time, and has been for
many centuries.  It is available in an incredible number of languages.
Even now men are working to translate it into even more languages, so
that all people may have the Scriptures available in their native
tongue.  At every moment we can see the active hand of God motivating
us to use and share this book called the Bible.

The question of the Bible is an important one.  Without it there
are some things that mankind would never know from our own limited
searching.  The Spiritual world is fundamentally different from the
physical world we are so comfortable exploring.

If we are to know even the most basic things about God, He must
tell us. God has revealed Himself in several ways.  Nature and
ourselves are two examples.  Anyone who has ever owned a body (all of
us) know that in the course of time things do not get better, but
rather tend to decline without some active work.  In science this is
called the law of entropy.  The guidance of some outside force in the
universe can be seen, but only dimly.  Read Job 11:7-9

Another way God has told us about Himself is through His
relationship with the nation of Israel and those around them.  He
demonstrated His love, mercy, and sometimes His power in this way.
However all of these ways do not give us a very clear picture of Him.
None of us for instance have seen God’s involvement with history, or
the events surrounding Christ’s ministry on earth personally.

Therefore it is necessary for God to reveal Himself to us in
another way.  The way He chooses is through the Bible.  The question
then arises, how do we know that the Bible as we know it is the
complete and actual word of God?  For this we will examine the external
and internal uniqueness of the Scripture.

Historical facts about the Bible

The Bible was written over a 1600 year span by over 40 authors, on
three continents, in three languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek).
The Bible is by far the most widely circulated book ever.  Remember
Mao’s “little red book”.  Twenty years ago it was read by a billion
Chinese.  Now it has fallen into disfavor, less than 15 years after
Chairman Mao’s death.

Bible Publication Statistics

13,000 manuscript copies of all or part of the N.T. 2
(1)
Jews preserved the O.T. as no other book has ever been.
They counted each letter, syllable, word, and
sentence.  They had special classes of men in there
culture whose job it was to preserve the Scripture.
As of 1904 the Britain Bible Society had printed 409,000,000
Bibles
By 1932 the German Bible Society had produced 1,330,213,815
Bibles.
In 1966 America produced 87,398,961 Bibles.
The O.T. was translated into Greek (The Septuagint) in about 250
B.C.
By 1966 the whole Bible had been translated into 240 languages and
dialects and parts of the Bible into 739 additional ones.
Today it is rare for another book to out-sell the Bible for even a
one month period. 3

The Internal Uniqueness of the Bible

The Bible reveals many things that we by ourselves have no way of
knowing.  Many of the old testament prophesies for instance were
written hundreds of years before they came to pass. (Ps 22, Isa 53)
There are still prophesies in the Bible that have not yet come to
pass.  In this way the Bible is able to show us its accuracy by
itself.

Accepting that the Bible is the word of God therefore hinges on
faith, historical evidence, and the fact that it is performing a living
work in millions of lives today.

The Canonization of Scripture

But how do we know that the Bible is the complete and accurate
word of God.  Who decided what should be included?  The Old Testament
is easy.  This body of literature had been stable for at least 300
years before the birth of Christ.  Therefore we know that Christ’s view
of the Old Testament should be ours because it is the same text.

What does Christ say?  In Luke 24:44 He says “… Everything must
be fulfilled that is written about me in the law of Moses, the
Prophets, and the Psalms.”  In Luke 10:35 … and the Scripture cannot
be broken…”.  And for Jesus’s thoughts on the difference between
man’s tradition and the Scripture read Mark 7:1-13 looking closely at
vs 13.  It tells us that it is wrong to put tradition above the
Scriptures.

The New Testament is somewhat more complex in its origin.
Christ’s life and work on earth produced quite a stir as you can well
imagine.  It seems as if everyone with a pen and some papyrus had
something to say about Jesus of Nazareth.

This was an age when communication and travel were not as easy as
they are today.  Because of this sometimes someone would hear about
Jesus or His works and be affected by them.  Later this person would
share verbally or in written form his beliefs and experiences.  Since
there was little communication between many of the so called Christian
sects some truely bizarre ideas started to develop.

(2)
By the third century AD it was clear for a number of reasons that
something had to be done to protect the Church from heresy.  Many
Churches were using books of doubtful origin in their services.
Furthermore in A.D. 303 the edict of Dioclectian called for the
destruction of the sacred books of the Christians.  Who wanted to die
for just a book?  Christians needed to know what was actually the
Scripture, and worth protecting with their lives.

The basic test for the canonization of a book of the Bible was
it’s apostolic origin.  The value of the words was that they were
taught directly or inspired by Christ.

Athanasius of Alexandria (A.D. 367) gives us the earliest list of
Scripture that is exactly the same as our own.  However as early as
A.D. 115 Polycarp, Clement, and others use the term “as it is said in
these scriptures” and “It is written”.  Polycarp was a disciple of the
apostle John.  We can see the high view with which the written
scripture is held from Ignatius (A.D. 50-115) when he says “I do not
wish to command you as Peter and Paul; they were apostles…”.  From
this we see that the apostolic origin of the written word was
considered of the first importance from the very earliest times.

It may be that some works of genuine value are not included in our
present Bible.  However it is most important to know without any doubt
that the scripture that we use is 100% reliable.  Anything that had a
questionable origin was therefore not included.  This was much better
done in the early church than now.  At the time that the process began
there were still people living who had sat at the feet of the
apostles!

The Extent of Inspiration

Another popular topic of discussion regarding the Bible is the
extent of inspiration.  Two of the terms used are plenary and verbal
inspiration.  Plenary means full.  When used in connection with
inspiration it means that all scripture is of God and without error.
This is restricted to the original text in the original language.

The term verbal inspiration indicates that the inspiration extends
to the words of the Bible themselves, not only the ideas.  Verbal
inspiration holds that God through the Holy Spirit has guaranteed the
authenticity and reliability of the very words used, without depriving
the writers of their individuality. 4  (II Peter 1:20-21)

Some argue that the Bible contains the word of God rather than is
the word of God.  This however presents us with a problem.  How can we
know what parts of the Bible are reliable and what parts are not?  If
we are going to pick and choose the parts of the Bible we are going to
believe, we are choosing on the basis of personal need or desire.  This
is a shaky basis on which to proceed. 4

There have been three bases for religious authority.  The first is
tradition, or the authority of the church, which Roman Catholics have
held.  The second is human reason to which liberal thinkers have held.
The third is the Bible itself, to which evangelicals have held.
Evangelicals do not deny the value of human reason or tradition but
submit them in the case of conflict to the authority of Scripture.

(3)
A person holding a high view of Scripture uses tools to study the
text and relate it to the original words and language. For this reason
even though the vast majority of us (myself included) do not know
Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic, it is important to use Bible translations
that are direct translations from the original texts.  It is also
important to not base our arguments on one verse of any one
translation.  A good Bible student will have at least two translations
at his elbow.  Two good ones are the New International Version 5 , and
the King James or Authorised 6 version.  Other good translations are
the Revised Standard 7 , New American Standard 8 , and The Amplified
Bible 9 versions.

However accepting the authority of the Bible does not guarantee
instant understanding on our part.  The primary source of guidance
should always be the Holy Spirit.  Scripture must be opened for us by
the Holy Spirit.

While Christ was walking here on earth with His disciples He took
many opportunities to explain both Himself and the Old Testament
Scriptures to them.  We however do not have that opportunity. Before
Jesus ascended into Heaven He promised to send a counselor, the Holy
Spirit.

In Luke 24:45 Jesus opened their minds so that they could
understand the Scriptures.  In John 16:13 He says that He will send the
Spirit of Truth to guide us to truth.  When you read the Bible pray
that God will make it plain to you through the ministry of the Holy
Spirit.

When looking at and reading the Bible it is important to realize
that it is not a science text or a daily diary of Christ’s life.  There
appear to be legitimate conflicts in parallel accounts of the same
events and other difficulties, although not near as many as some would
have you believe.

The Bible describes events as they appear to happen.  For instance
we describe the sun as “rising in the east” even though we have known
for centuries that it doesn’t rise at all.  In the same way the
Scriptures uses common terms which are generally understood to describe
events.

The Bible also uses allegories or parables (stories) to illustrate
a point.  We should be careful when we look at scripture in a literal
way.  After all would you want to date the woman described in Song of
Songs 4:1-5?  All in all much of what we receive from reading the
Scripture has to do with the attitude with which we approach it.  This
does not mean that the substance of what it says changes with our
outlook however.

In conclusion we can see that the Bible as we have it today is the
vital and living word of God.  We know this from the impact it is
having on our lives today.  No other ancient text has nearly as many
manuscripts surviving from dates close to the original writing.  No
other text has had the impact it has and continues to have on millions
of lives.  No other text is printed in anywhere near its quantity or in
as many languages.  Voltair predicted that Christianity would be dead
within 100 years after his death in 1778.  Fifty years after he died
the Geneva Bible Society was using his house, and printing press, to
print stacks of Bibles! 3
(4)

I paused last eve beside the blacksmith’s door,
And heard the anvil ring, the vespers chime,
And looking in I saw upon the floor
Old hammers, worn with beating years of time
“How many anvils have you had?” said I’
“To wear and batter all those hammers so?”
“Just one,” he answered.  Then with twinkling eye:
“The anvil wears the hammers out, you know.”
And so, I thought, the anvil of Gods Word
For ages skeptics’ blows have beat upon,
But though the noise of falling blows was heard
The anvil is unchanged; the hammers gone. 10

Discussion Questions

Why is the origin of the Bible important?

Why is it important to believe in the authority of scripture?

What does it mean that the Bible is inspired?

How is the ministry of the Holy Spirit essential to the understanding
of the Scripture?

List some reasons why it is important to know what the Bible says
thoroughly.

1 Constitution of Elmbrook Church  Adopted 9/11/83  Elmbrook Church
777 South Barker Road  Waukesha WI, 53186  (414) 786-7051
2 A. T. Robertson a noted authority on NT grammar and Bible History.
3 Quoting figures from Bible Societies, found in Evidence that Demands
a Verdict by Josh McDowell c1972 p Campus Crusade for Christ.  His
sources were Encyclopedia Britannica, Americana, One Thousand
Wonderful Things About the Bible (Pickering), All About the Bible
(Collet), Protestant Christian Evidence (B. Ramm), and A General
Introduction to the Bible (Geisler and Nix)
4 Know What You Believe by Paul E. Little c 1970, 1985, 1987  SP
publications Inc.  Victor Books, Wheaton Il.
5 The Holy Bible, New International Version  c 1978  by New York
International Bible Society  published by Zondervan
6 The King James or Authorised version was translated in 1611 and is in
the public domain.
7 The Revised Standard Version is a revision of the King James.  It was
revised in 1885, 1901, 1946, and 1952.  The current revision is c
1962 by the World Publishing Co
8 The New American Standard Bible  c 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971,
1972, 1973  The Lockman Foundation.  Published by Foundation Press
9 The Amplified Bible  c 1965 Zondervan Publishing House.
10 John Clifford, 1836-1923
(5)

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