A simple Question for you...yes, you.

I’m going to make some assumptions about you, yes you, the person reading this article. I am going to assume that you were born in the United States and you consider yourself to be a Christian. If that is the case, this article is meant for you. You are part of the 70ish% of the population of the United States that self identifies as Christian, but only about 24% of you actually are, but that’s a story for another day. 

Today, I want to ask you a question. It is meant for you, and only you can answer this. It will be very difficult for you to give an honest answer because it is hypothetical…but it’s extremely important to consider. Before I ask this question, I want you to think about why you are a Christian. Not the part about the desire for an eternity with our creator but the logistics for you coming to Christ.  

Were you like me and were fortunate enough to grow up in a Christian home and it was all you ever knew? Did you have a friend who was a Christian and invited you to church with them? Or, did you have a life-changing experience that brought you to Christ?  Probably a better way to put it is how did you come to experience Christ for the first time? There are many ways to have had this experience, especially in the United States wherein certain communities it is part of the culture.  

I grew up in the South and one of the first questions someone will ask you when you meet is, where do you go to church? It’s often assumed that you do because it is so common in the Bible belt to attend church. In other areas of the country, it is not as common but still common, especially when you consider that 70ish% of the country self-identify as Christian.  

So here is the question…If you were born in Iran, which is 99.7% Muslim, would you still be a Christian?  

If you grew up in a place where Christianity is so uncommon, would you have had the pull towards Christ or would you have just followed suit and been Muslim, after all, 99.7 % do? If you had followed the statistically logical path and been Muslim, would you have at least researched your beliefs to make sure you hold the proper beliefs? Maybe at that point through your research you would have landed on the belief you hold now, that Christianity is the only way to eternal life, but would you have done the research? Or would you have just settled into your life as a Muslim, since that’s what everyone else you knew was doing? All of your friends and family would likely be Muslim, and it would likely be the community you would be plugged in to.  

If you had been born in Iran, you might have grown up in a nice home that was Muslim, and it would have been all you ever knew. Possibly you would have had a friend who was Muslim, who asked you to go to the mosque with them. Or maybe you would have had a life-changing experience that led you to Islam since it is the common religion of the region.  

The reason for this question is not because I believe you don’t have the proper beliefs as a Christian, but because I think it is likely that you don’t know for sure that you hold the proper beliefs as a Christian and why it is correct. Like so many self-professing Christians you have never investigated it like we are told in (1 John 4:1), Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. You have just accepted it and most likely don’t know what you really believe and definitely can’t give a defense for your beliefs as (1 Peter 3:15) says, but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.  

I also believe that it is very likely that you have never had a heart change, only a head change. I believe that because I don’t think that you are consumed with following Christ that is the result of a heart change as Paul wrote in (Romans 10:10), One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.  

If 70ish% of the US truly were followers of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, then I have no doubt that this would be a very different country. We would not have more than 3,700 babies killed by abortion, 2,400 divorces, and 44 murders each and every day. Also, pornography wouldn’t be a $4 billion-dollar industry. But all those things are happening and it’s not the remaining 30% of the population who are fully responsible.  

It is very easy to be a Christian in the US today, which is probably why we as Christians are so complacent. It is getting more difficult to be a true Christian, but very much socially acceptable to say you are one, as long as you tailor your beliefs to fit with what secular society says is an acceptable form of Christianity.  

So, if you were born in Iran, would you be a Christian? Of course, the Calvinist point of view means that none of this matters anyway.     

Lord, Lord…you never knew me.

Lord, Lord…you never knew me.

To me, there are no more frightening verses in the Bible than Matthew 7:21-27.

The thought of thinking you were living a good life and doing the church thing only to find out that you were never actually saved, is terrifying.

Today, I believe, we are seeing an up swell in people who will fit this category. The person who sat in church every Sunday, but never really believed, never really trusted in God. People who have decided that they know better than the word of God.

Matthew 7 makes it very clear that it will not turn out well for these people. And it makes me sad.

This article from Faith Family America perfectly shows people who are sprinting towards this reality.

TheVeracity

Christians, please stop telling your children Bible stories.

When most of us were children we heard in school the story about how a young George Washington after receiving a hatchet from his father cut down a cherry tree. When confronted about who cut down the tree the young Washington declared that he could not tell a lie and admitted to the act, which only made his father proud of him because of his honesty.

When we got older we found out that this well-known story was, in fact, a lie, which, ironically, contradicts the moral of the story.

We tell children stories to entertain them, we tell stories to get them to go to sleep, or we tell them stories to teach them a moral lesson, and then, when they tell us a lie, we ask them if they are telling us a story.

The word story for a kid generally has the meaning of something that is not true…something that is made up. It can be difficult for young minds to know the difference.

So, we Christians, need to stop telling our children, who we want to grow up to be Bible believing adults, Bible stories.

We want them to know that everything we are telling them about the Bible is true and not associate biblical truth with made up stories of their youth.

In Sunday school, we regale them with the sensational story of Noah and his big zoo boat and then when they get older neglect to explain to them how that is the most likely story of how the Grand Canyon was formed and probably what killed the dinosaurs.

At Easter, we allow stories of the Easter bunny to dominate the narrative because the story of Jesus dying on the cross is too difficult to explain to such young ears.

At Christmas, we include stories about Santa Claus because secular society has adopted that aspect of Christmas and at least we can get some semblance of acceptance on a national level, but of course we get angry when those same people, who deny Christ the other 364 days a year, refuse to say Merry Christmas rather than Happy Holidays.

The story of Noah is a wonderful story about a man who showed almost unequalled trust in God in the face of ridicule and hardship, and it is a great example of how we should trust God, but there is also a historical element to it, and actually a geological element to it that we completely ignore, which, in the end, makes it appear to be nothing more than allegory.

It becomes just a nice children’s story that is fun for the kids when you pull out the felt board in Sunday School.

As adults both young and old, we ignore this story, because it’s maybe too much for us to believe. We often take a small God approach to these aspects of the Bible, because it’s just too difficult to explain.

We must find a way to differentiate between the fairy tales that children hear and the Bible stories that they are taught in church.

Now, I’m not saying that we need to pull out a copy of The Passion of the Christ at Easter and force a bunch of 6-year-old kids to sit through the torture scene, but we need to make it real, we need for it to be seen as history and not just another story, or even worse make it about something else like a giant bunny that delivers, and sometimes hides, eggs and candy.

This means that we must deal with the difficult questions about the Bible, we can’t just glaze over it.

The answers are there, but we must be willing to go find them and make sure that our children don’t think that the Bible stories they heard as a kid were not just an attempt to teach them a moral through a fantastic story.

So, Christians, please stop telling your children Bible stories, tell them Bible history.