Categories: thinking
Date: 17 September 2009 09:35:55
The bible study went ahead yesterday evening; we're working through a course called Discipleship Explored. The readings come from the book of Philippians in the New Testament.
Trying, at the very start, to think through quite a difficult question - which the course raises, and perhaps tries to answer. I guess that now, in my fifties, I reckon that even how you formulate the question differs for different branches of Christianity. But one version is: how do I know that I am a Christian? Not a problem, if you define a Christian as, for example, someone who attends church. But if you incorporate into your definition ideas like 'born again', or 'saved', then you may have to consider the possibility that, outwardly, you appear to be a Christian, but something inside is missing.
And when Jesus tells the parable of the sower (which I shan't attempt to link to, but shouldn't be difficult to find), he does imply that an individual can receive the word of God, but fail to reach fruition. Whereas, as the speaker on the DVD reiterated: what God starts, he finishes ...