“I’m a Christian”
What does it mean when someone says: “I’m a Christian”?
What some people mean by that is, they’re not a Muslim, a Jew, a Buddhist, or a Hindu. But you’re not a Christian simply because you’re not part of other religions. You’re a Christian only to the extent that you’re a follower of Christ as Savior and Lord.
Simply saying you’re a Christian doesn’t make you one.
We all know people who say they are a part of the church, but spend a little time with them, and you discover they don’t embrace Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and they don’t follow the teachings of the Bible.
Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”
The real church consists of those who authentically embrace Christ as one who forgives their sins and who is to be Lord—directing their lives!
Manipulating History?
As some critics of the Bible purport—were the writers of the Bible trying to manipulate history in their favor?
If they were, why would they include so many accounts of the failures of their “star players.”
Adam and Eve disobeying God and bringing death on us all!
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob lying and deceiving others.
How about Moses committing murder? Or David covering up his affair with a married woman by having her husband killed?
If the pages of the Bible had been tampered with or re-written to make its cause look good, those stories and others would’ve been deleted! In their place would be stories of perfect men and women.
The Church doesn’t have to re-write history to hide anything.
As someone has said: “the Church is not a museum of saints, but a laboratory for sinners!”
The First Feminist
Early feminism was biblical feminism based on a scriptural understanding of women—totally unrelated to today’s radical pagan feminism!
You could say Jesus was the first feminist—IF that means Jesus was always for the outcast, the forsaken, the mistreated, and the hopeless. It was Jesus after all, not the pagan world that surrounded Him, who began to turn the tide in the way women are to be treated.
By treating women as equals, Jesus also criticized the evil of male chauvinism. And the same must be said of the apostles who followed Him. But there’s one more thing I want to underscore!
Jesus also knew that God the Creator, as the crowning of His work, created males and females to be different. This is the beautiful balance that the Bible seeks to maintain, which Jesus maintained—males and females gloriously different, but unquestionably equal!
Women in Church History
As a Christian parent—share with your daughters and sons the spectacular contributions women have made in Church history!
Perpetua—a 26-year-old mother displayed unequaled courage as she was martyred for her faith in 205.
Monica in the 4th century was the most significant influencer, as the mother of Augustine, one of the most influential persons of Christianity.
Katherina von Bora! Without her, Martin Luther might never have become the leader of the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s.
Susana Wesley—gave birth to nineteen children, a brilliant thinker and theological mentor of her son, John Wesley, leader of the massive Evangelical Awakening in the 1700s.
Catherine Booth co-founded, with her husband, the Salvation Army in the late 1800s in England.
These were strong women—respected leaders. They and others who followed were all part of the inexpressible contributions of women in Christian history!
Made in the Image of God
Talk about miss-information! If you want reliable information for how Christians are to view women—you need go no further than the Bible itself!
There are many Old Testament examples portraying women as model leaders.
Esther was courageous to the point of defying the king himself, an action that usually resulted in death. Ruth was loyal, astute, and shrewd! And she was obedient, marrying a stranger who ended up loving and caring for Ruth and her family.
In Judges 4, we see Deborah—a wife, mother, and judge in Israel.
Proverbs 31 affirms the greatness of women, demonstrating their ability to juggle the amazing pressures as community leaders, businesswomen, wives, and mothers.
Do these sound like repressed women?
In Genesis 1:27, we learn that both males and females receive their identity, their sense of value, from their relationship with the Creator—being made in the image of God!
The “Ancestors of our Faith”
In the rush of contemporary life, it’s easy to forget the “ancestors of our faith”—those who stood firm for the gospel in the early Church!
Unfortunately we have little time or interest in people who lived in the second and third centuries. Yet we owe these “ancestors of our faith”—Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen and others on whose shoulders we stand, to pause at least long enough to realize what they did. If they had not been faithful in articulating the gospel, in many cases dying for their stand—you and I might not have the gospel. They brilliantly defended what we so often take for granted.
Our American culture has become increasingly pagan-like, and new defenders of the faith are needed—those who’ll study the skills and understanding of these early apologists!
As the Church is able to defend its faith, it becomes stronger!
