Christian Beliefs, Revised Edition

Twenty Basics Every Christian Should Know

Wayne A. Grudem, Elliot Grudem, Elliot Grudem

• Publisher: Zondervan Academic
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9780310124344
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Théologie chrétienne

Learn the Teachings of the Bible that Every Christian Must Know.

Now Revised and Updated. Over 300, 000 Copies Sold!

Not every Christian needs to go to seminary, but there are certain teachings of the Bible that every Christian should know. Whether you're a relatively new believer in Jesus or a mature Christian looking for a better understanding of basics of the faith, Christian Beliefs is for you.

This readable guide to twenty basic Christian beliefs condenses Wayne Grudem's award-winning book Systematic Theology, prized by pastors and teachers everywhere. He and his son, pastor Elliot Grudem, have boiled down the essentials of theology for everyday Christians and made them both clear and applicable to life. Each brief chapter concludes with questions for personal review or group discussion.

In this revised and updated edition of Christian Beliefs, you will learn about:

• The Bible and its authority for our lives
• The characteristics of God
• The importance of prayer
• Angels and the reality of spiritual warfare
• What it means that we are created in the image of God
• What God has done for us in Christ
• The purpose of the church
• What will happen when Christ returns
• The biblical understanding of heaven
• And much more

Christian Beliefs is the ideal book for every Christian who wants a solid foundation for understanding the most basic and essential teachings of the Bible.

chapter
1

WHAT IS THE BIBLE?

Any responsible look at a single Christian belief should be based on what God says about that subject. Therefore, as we begin to look at a series of basic Christian beliefs, it makes sense to start with the basis for these beliefs—God’s words, or the Bible. One topic the Bible thoroughly covers is itself; that is, the Bible tells us what God thinks about his very words. God’s opinion of his words can be broken down into four general categories: authority, clarity, necessity, and sufficiency.

The Authority of the Bible

All the words in the Bible are God’s words. Therefore, to disbelieve or disobey them is to disbelieve or disobey God himself. Oftentimes passages in the Old Testament are introduced with the phrase, “Thus says the LORD” (see Ex. 4:22; Josh. 24:2; 1 Sam. 10:18; Isa. 10:24; also Deut. 18:18–20; Jer. 1:9). This phrase, understood to be like the command of a king, indicated that what followed was to be obeyed without challenge or question. Even the words in the Old Testament not attributed as direct quotes from God are considered to be God’s words. Paul, in 2 Timothy 3:16, makes this clear when he writes that “all Scripture is breathed out by God.”

The New Testament also affirms that its words are the very words of God. In 2 Peter 3:16 Peter refers to all of Paul’s letters as one part of the “Scriptures.” This means that Peter, and the early church, considered Paul’s writings to be in the same category as the Old Testament writings. Therefore, they considered Paul’s writings to be the very words of God.

In addition, Paul, in 1 Timothy 5:18, writes that “the Scripture says” two things: “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and “The laborer deserves his wages.” The first quote, regarding an ox, comes from the Old Testament; it is found in Deuteronomy 25:4. The second comes from the New Testament; it is found in Luke 10:7. Paul, without any hesitation, quotes from both the Old and New Testaments, calling them both “Scripture.” Therefore, again, the words of the New Testament are considered to be the very words of God. That is why Paul could write, “The things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord” (1 Cor. 14:37).

Since the Old and New Testament writings are both considered Scripture, it is right to say they are both, in the words of 2 Timothy 3:16, “breathed out by God.” This makes sense when we consider Jesus’ promise that the Holy Spirit would “bring to” the disciples’ “remembrance” all that Jesus said to them (John 14:26). It was as the disciples wrote the Spirit-enabled words that books such as Matthew, John, and 1 and 2 Peter were written.

The Bible says there are “many ways” (Heb. 1:1) in which the actual words of the Bible were written. Sometimes God spoke directly to the author, who simply recorded what he heard (Rev. 2:1, 8, 12). At other times, the author based much of his writings on interviews and research (Luke 1:1–3). And at yet other times, the Holy Spirit brought to mind things that Jesus taught (John 14:26). Regardless of the way the words came to the authors, the words they put down were an extension of them—their personalities, skills, backgrounds, and training. But they were also exactly the words God wanted them to write.

Though every word in the Bible was written by a human person, the words are more than merely human writings. They are also the very words of God himself, the very words God claims as his own.

This view—that the human words of the Bible are also God’s very words to us—is the primary difference between Bible-believing (or evangelical) Protestant theology and liberal Protestant theology. People who hold to liberal Protestant theology would say that the words of the Bible are merely human words that bear witness to some ancient writers’ understandings of their experience of God, and therefore they might be inconsistent or contradictory or untrustworthy in various places.

If God claims that the words of Scripture are his own, then there is ultimately no higher authority one can appeal to for proof of this claim than Scripture itself. For what authority could be higher than God? So, Scripture ultimately gains its authority from itself. But the claims of Scripture only become our personal convictions through the work of the Holy Spirit in our individual hearts.

The Holy Spirit doesn’t change the words of Scripture in any way; he doesn’t supernaturally make them become the words of God (for they always have been). He does, however, change the reader of Scripture. The Holy Spirit makes readers realize the Bible is unlike any book they have ever read. Through reading, they believe that the words of Scripture are the very words of God himself. It is as Jesus said in John 10:27: “My sheep hear my voice . . . and they follow me.” Other kinds of arguments (such as historical reliability, internal consistency, fulfilled prophecies, influence on others, and the majestic beauty and wisdom of the content) can be useful in helping us see the reasonableness of the claims of the Bible.

As God’s very words, the words of Scripture are more than simply true; they are truth itself (John 17:17). They are the final measure by which all supposed truth is to be gauged. Therefore, that which conforms to Scripture is true; that which doesn’t conform to Scripture is not true. New scientific or historical facts may cause us to reexamine our interpretation of Scripture, but they will never directly contradict Scripture.

The truth of the Scriptures does not demand that the Bible report events with exact scientific detail (though all the details it does report are true). For example, in Matthew 13:32 Jesus says that a mustard seed “is the smallest of all seeds.” Jesus was not speaking to a group of modern seed scientists but to a group of first-century agrarian people. They would understand seed to refer to an agricultural seed planted in the ground to grow crops. In that sense, Jesus spoke truly and rightly.

The truth of the Scriptures also doesn’t demand that the Bible tell us everything we need to know or ever could know about a subject. It never makes either of these claims. For example, Acts 5:34–39 records a speech by a Pharisee named Gamaliel, in which he talks about two Jewish revolutionaries, Theudas and Judas. Luke records Gamaliel claiming the Theudas-led revolution came before the Judas-led revolution. This seems to contradict the account of the Jewish historian Josephus, who wrote in AD 95 that a Judas-led revolution came before a Theudas-led revolution.

This apparent contradiction doesn’t require us to admit an error in the Scriptures, however. It could be that Josephus, writing fifty years later, made a mistake about the order. Or it could be that Gamaliel and Josephus are writing about two different revolutionaries named Theudas (which was not a rare name then).

The Bible was written by ordinary men in an ordinary language with an ordinary style. Therefore, it does contain loose or free quotations and some uncommon and unusual forms of grammar or spelling. However, these are not matters of truthfulness. The Bible does not, in its original form, affirm anything contrary to fact.

If the Bible does affirm something contrary to fact, then it cannot be trusted. And if the Bible cannot be trusted, then God himself cannot be trusted. To believe that the Bible affirms something false would be to disbelieve God himself. To disbelieve God himself is to place yourself as a higher authority with a deeper, more developed understanding on a topic or topics than God himself.

Therefore, since the Bible affirms that it is the very words of God, we are to seek to understand those words, for in doing so, we are seeking to understand God himself. We are to seek to trust the words of Scripture, for in doing so, we are seeking to trust God himself. And we are to seek to obey the words of Scripture, for in doing so, we are seeking to obey God himself.

The Clarity of Scripture

As we read Scripture and seek to understand and obey it, we discover that some passages are easier to understand than others. Peter affirmed this when he wrote the following about Paul’s letters: “There are some things in them that are hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:16).

That said, you don’t need an advanced degree to understand the teachings of Scripture. For over and over again the Scriptures affirm that the Bible is written in a way that is understandable for all Christians. Right understanding requires time, effort, the help of the Holy Spirit, and obedience. Though we won’t understand everything rightly in our lifetime, we can understand a remarkably large amount of the Bible’s teachings.

Although there are some mysteries in Scripture, they should not overwhelm us. For “the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple” (Ps. 19:7). And “the unfolding” of God’s “words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple” (Ps. 119:130). God’s Word is so understandable and clear that even the simple (people who lack sound judgment) can be made wise by it.

In Deuteronomy 6:1–9 we read that God commanded Moses to teach God’s law to God’s people. They were expected to understand, internalize, and obey it. This allowed each Israelite to teach God’s words “diligently” to their children (Deut. 6:7) so their children could understand, internalize, and obey them. The expectation was that this pattern would continue through each generation. Moses taught God’s people, and then he died. God’s people continued to listen to the public reading of God’s words (what we now call the Old Testament) and continued to teach what they understood to their children.

Jesus assumes a right understanding of God’s Word in answering the challenges of the Pharisees (religious scholars), for he often starts with a phrase like “Have you not read in the Law . . .” (Matt. 12:5). The letters that make up the majority of the New Testament were most often written and read to the entire church (not just scholars and leaders), which would include both adults and children.

Both Jesus and the New Testament writers expect their original audience not only to know what the Old Testament taught but also to understand and obey it, even though they were living over a thousand years after much of it was originally written. Christians today, now two thousand years removed from the original audience of the New Testament, are expected to be able to understand all the Scriptures as well.

Though Peter affirmed some of Paul’s teachings were “hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:16), he didn’t say they could never be understood. Christians need to put in time and effort to rightly understand the Bible. We are to “delight” in it and meditate on it “day and night” (Ps. 1:2). Understanding of Scripture doesn’t come at once but can increase over a lifetime. It doesn’t just take time; it also takes effort. The Bible presents Ezra as a model priest who put in effort to understand God’s Word: he “set his heart to study the Law of the LORD” (Ezra 7:10) so he could obey it and teach it. If Christians want to understand the Bible well, they need to put in the time and effort to do so, by reading it in a translation they can understand, listening to their pastor preach biblical sermons, reading books and commentaries about the Bible, studying what the church believed about biblical teaching throughout history, and talking with fellow believers about it.

We do not arrive at an understanding of God’s Word on our own. We need God to open our minds “to understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45), for the things of God are “spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). Like Jesus’ disciples, we need the help of the Holy Spirit to “teach” us “all things” (John 14:26). The Holy Spirit is given to us “that we might understand the things freely given us by God” (1 Cor. 2:12).

A right understanding of Scripture is often more the result of our spiritual condition than our intellectual ability. Disobeying God can hinder our fellowship with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:30). Obeying God deepens our fellowship with the Holy Spirit and our understanding of God and his Word. This is why the truth of Scripture often appears to be “folly” to those who reject the claims of Jesus (1 Cor. 2:14). In contrast, those who love God pray prayers like the ones found in the Psalms: “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Ps. 119:18), and “Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart” (Ps. 119:34). The Holy Spirit helps us understand and obey the Bible. Our obedience increases our fellowship with the Holy Spirit and our understanding of the Bible.

This does not mean, however, that every Bible-related misunderstanding is due to a person’s spiritual condition. There are many people—many godly, Christian people—who have greatly misunderstood some part of Scripture. Often the disciples misunderstood what Jesus was talking about (see Matt. 15:16, for example). Sometimes this was due to their hardened hearts (Luke 24:25); at other times it was because they needed to wait for further events and understanding (John 12:16). In addition, members of the early church did not always agree on the meaning of what was written in Scripture (see Acts 15 and Gal. 2:11–14 for examples of this).

When individuals disagree on the proper interpretation of a passage of Scripture, the problem does not lie with Scripture, for God guided its composition so that it could be understood. Rather, the problem lies with us. Sometimes, as a result of our shortcomings, we fail to properly understand what the Bible is teaching. Even so, we should prayerfully read the Bible, asking the Lord to reveal the truth of his words to us.

The Necessity of Scripture

We need God to reveal the truth of his words to us so we can know what it means to become a Christian, live as a Christian, and grow as a Christian. Without the Bible we could not know these things. The necessity of Scripture means that it is necessary to read the Bible or have someone tell us what is in the Bible if we are going to know God personally, have our sins forgiven, and know with certainty what God wants us to do.

Paul hints at this when he asks how anyone can hear about becoming a Christian “without someone preaching” (Rom. 10:14). For “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). If no one is preaching the word of Christ, Paul says, people won’t be saved. And that word comes from the Scriptures. So in order to know how to become a Christian, ordinarily one must either read about it in the Bible or have someone else explain what the Bible says about it. As Paul told Timothy, “The sacred writings . . . are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15).

The Christian life not only starts with the Bible but also thrives through the Bible. Jesus said in Matthew 4:4, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Just as our physical lives are maintained by daily nourishment with physical food, so our spiritual lives are maintained by daily nourishment with the Word of God. To neglect regular reading of the Bible is detrimental to the health of our souls.

In addition, the Bible is our only source for clear and definite statements about God’s will. While God has not revealed all aspects of his will to us—for “the secret things belong to the LORD our God”—many aspects of his will are revealed to us through the Scriptures, “that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut. 29:29). Love for God is demonstrated by keeping “his commandments” (1 John 5:3). And his commandments are found on the pages of Scripture.

While the Bible is necessary for many things, it is not needed for knowing some things about God, such as his charact...