What is a Christian!

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A Christian person is a religious person, like many other religious people in the world. I often wonder over why people fight over which religion is the best, when all religions are just different doors to home.

reply to post by newnature


You need to do more than just post a Youtube link.

Post the link ... give a synopsis of it ... give your own information/opinion as well.

Otherwise we have no idea what the thread is supposed to be about.

shrug i've been listening to it

he made some good points, but the video is redundant, and could have been reduced to a minute long.

reply to post by newnature


2 Timothy 2:15
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.
(2011 NIV)
A "workman" who's tools are the word, so a good workman will use them properly.

The pastor in this video I don't think knows what he is talking about.
He is confused as to what the word "saved" means in the New Testament.
"Saved" is a descriptive term for the church.
Before Christ, "saved" meant being a Jew.
That was the group that you belonged to to be God's special people who were set apart from the wold to be a holy people to Him.
The gospel is that "the saved" is expanded to include not just the Jews but everyone who believes the Gospel and believe in Jesus and accept that faith and to follow the path of Christ through the spirit of God that comes to us by way of Jesus.

If we are saved (in the modern pop-culture religion definition of the term) because "Christ died for our sins", then everyone is saved since the Letters of John says that not just for your sins, but the sins of the entire world.
Since this is not the case, then we need to understand that "saved" in the New Testament means something completely different than it does according to modern pop-culture religion, and that just because Jesus died, that doesn't somehow absolve us of sins.
We need to actually not commit sins and to actually behave in a way that is right. No one is going to heaven while actively committing criminal acts against our fellow man.

reply to post by jmdewey60


i think his point was to believe, or trust, etc. etc..
while i agree with you that we should repent, i can't say that it is completely possible to be absolutely free of all sin, which is why we needed Christ in the first place.

reply to post by Jarring

i think his point was to believe, or trust, etc. etc..

In who or what?
He says, "A sacrifice was necessary."
Apparently to him, that's the end of story.
Just trust him when he says nothing else is needed.
Hmm, I would rather not trust my eternal soul to some Pastor So-and-So on a YouTube video.
There is nothing biblical to substantiate his claims.

i can't say that it is completely possible to be absolutely free of all sin

Maybe you just don't know, and if you don't then maybe it is better not to say one way or the other.
We are free in that we are no longer slaves to sin.
We are sin, in that we live in natural bodies until we are resurrected.
If we give into sin then we are basically taking the mark of the beast and saying "the natural is just fine".
We don't want a natural death.
We want a transfiguration where we pass from life into life but life everlasting.

reply to post by jmdewey60


trust in Christ, not the pastor or reverend, whatever he was.
basically all i got from the vid is that a Christian's salvation is strictly through Christ, not through works, going to church, etc. etc. etc.
and i could understand that as most all of Christianity does.

As far as the OP title Q, "What is a Christian?"

A: "For the most part, hypocritical and submerged in false dogma."

I offer no offense, though, and love the nicer NT portions and general idea... but the devil might literally be in the details, heh.

My definition of a Christian: someone who identifies themselves as a Christian.

This is I think a realistic one for the non-religious to use. Any reasoning as to whether they are 'true Christians' takes faith. Faith in whatever particular scriptural interpretation is being used in comparison to determine someone else is not a "true Christian". A secularist has no reason to concern herself with those nuances.

As for the one Christendom should use..

Thousands of denominations demonstrates how futile it would be to get a unified definition from Christendom. Unless someone can show me I am wrong. Is there a more elaborate definition that would appease to the variance among the denominations of Christianity?

Using these branches: Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Protestant, Anglican, Restoration.

Are there essential doctrinal beliefs shared among all these faiths?

A Christian is, as the name implies, someone who believes that Jesus is the Christ, or Messiah, that was prophesied by the Jews and documented in their religious books, including the Christian Old Testament. That is all that the name means. Technically speaking, a true Christian should follow all of the tenets the religion lays down, however, Christianity also recognizes that people aren't perfect. They make mistakes. They are supposed to be able to ask for forgiveness for their mistakes, and then they are supposed to make a genuine effort to avoid those mistakes in the future.

Many times I have heard people deride those who claim to be Christian for something they did that was not very nice. That doesn't mean the person is not a Christian. If someone knows enough to accuse a Christian of not acting Christian-like, how is it that they believe it is okay for non-Christians to do the same types of things? Otherwise they wouldn't call out a Christian for doing something, or they wouldn't specifically mention that aspect. They would simply tell the same thing to anyone, Christian or not, and wouldn't bring their religion into it at all. But the real reason people do this is because they are, probably subconsciously, attempting to validate their own non-belief, or are attempting to validate their decision to reject religion, by pointing out how "bad" religious people act.

No matter that everyone basically does the same types of things. They try to hold the religious to higher standards than anyone else, since, as I said, they wouldn't call out just those people, or wouldn't make it a point to call out their religion.

A teaching about Paul, our Apostle!

www.youtube.com...

reply to post by newnature

A teaching about Paul, our Apostle!

Dispensationalist nonsense, since Paul says that there is no longer Jew and gentile.