The Kingdom Come

This week we tried something a little different in the Bible study. Instead of having a specific topic or specific verses to examine, we each took a blank piece of paper and divided it into two categories:

1. What a person must believe/accept to be "saved".
2. What a person must believe/accept to be part of the Christian community.

At first, there was a little confusion (as is to be expected) as to what the difference is between being saved and being part of the Christian community. Once it was related that to be "saved" is more about a person's eternal situation whereas to be part of the Christian community is about status with a collective, historically and ideologically speaking; then the group was able to make lists for the two categories.

Most cited in the "saved" category at least these 4:

1. Belief in Jesus (as God, Son of God, Savior)
2. Repentance
3. Adherence to the Bible as God's Word
4. Justificationⁱ by faith alone

In the Christian community category, these 3 were common:

1. Belief in Trinityⁱ
2. Participation in Christian practices; baptism/Lord's Supperⁱ
3. Exhibiting Christian "morals"

We then went through both of the lists and discussed the Biblical basis for them. Then we discussed what groups of people the lists would allow and exclude. It was interesting to see how groups we may have considered excluded actually couldn't really be excluded unless the lists were further clarified.

There was much discussion on why Roman Catholics might be excluded from either category. Ultimately it came down to the idea that as a collective, Roman Catholicism doesn't seem to advocate a "new creature" nature change but instead a "works" or merit-based religion that requires a person to work toward salvation.

The study concluded that we all must do better to define what we believe and why and that the contrast between salvation and being part of the Christian community is one where salvation is very basic and being part of the community is more detail oriented.

Some associated verses

• Eph 2:8-10
• 1 John 5:7-8
• Acts 15:5