What Part of Christianity Don't You Understand
By Wayne LaidackerAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 Wayne Laidacker
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4520-4540-5 Chapter One
It seems like, every time I open up a newspaper or turn on the television, somebody is telling me what it means to be Evangelical, Conservative, or Christian. So I figured, since I like to think that I'm all of the above, I would put in my two cents.
I am not a writer. I am not a preacher, although I have been guilty of pretending on this count a couple of times. Actually, if we are going to be honest with each other, I may as well confess that I am a dummy! This is without a doubt my one and only qualification to write this book. As a matter of fact, when I decided to do this, I intended to use as a title "Christianity for Dummies". However, after I thought about it, I realized that somebody had already published a whole bunch of books about this and that for dummies. I figured they might have a problem with me horning in on their turf, and besides, if you write a book for dummies and expect people to read it, what does that say about the guy who wrote the book?
I have been a Christian for a long time. Let's not go into any more detail, or to quote Forrest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that". One thing that has never ceased to amaze me is the number of people I talk to who have gone to church all their lives and refer to themselves as Christians, but when Christianity is explained to them, their comment is, "Wow, I never heard that before". I certainly don't consider these folks dummies. They are simply smart people who are uneducated in a particular area of knowledge.
Enough of that! Let's get down to business. First of all, some people call Christianity a religion. Wrong! Christianity is not a religion. Unfortunately, I cannot take credit for this revelation. One of my best friends (I don't have an overabundance of friends, so I consider every one of them a best friend) reached this conclusion shortly after he joined the ranks. Christianity is not a religion; it is a relationship. It is a relationship with a man. It is a relationship with a man who is also God. Oops.... I bet you are saying "whoa.... hold on.... back up here.... you're going too fast for conditions". Okay you're right, I was getting a little carried away. We'll go back to the relationship thing.
Christianity is a relationship with Jesus Christ. A no-brainer, right? Christ; Christian; makes sense, right? You would be surprised at the number of people who call themselves Christians today, but don't recognize Jesus or the influence His life has had on our civilization. Although Jesus or any reference to Him is not considered politically correct in our society today, His existence and life on earth is probably one of the most documented facts in history.
I guess this is as good a time as any to tell you that I am going to be basing all the conclusions that I will be sharing with you on one reference book, and in case you haven't already figured it out, that would be the Holy Bible. Now don't get all fussy! I know the Bible isn't thought to be politically correct either, but even us dummies realize that if we are going to talk about the main character in a book, we almost have to refer to the book. With your permission, I would like to draw a few conclusions about the Bible.
Number one; the Bible is God's word. Oh, you know what? I forgot to tell you, but from time to time I am going to make note of some Bible verses or references in case you want to check up on me. You can look them up or not.... your choice.... but at least you'll know I'm not just pulling comments out of my hat. For instance, a couple of references for conclusion number one would be II Peter chapter 1, verses 19 through 21; Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12; Revelation chapter 22, verses 18 and 19.
One of the questions that is commonly asked of Christians is "You say the Bible is God's word, but it was written by men". Absolutely. The men who wrote the Bible were inspired by God. To use the Bible's own words, they were moved of God. This just means God told them what to write and they wrote it.
Conclusion number two; the Bible is the truth. Some of the references you can use to prove this fact are; II Timothy chapter 2, verse 15; II Timothy chapter 3, verses 15 thru 17; Proverbs chapter 30, verses 5 and 6.
The Bible has been around for centuries longer than our nation has been in existence. Although I wasn't there, I have it on good authority that the Bible arrived in this country on the Mayflower. Many of our past presidents and political leaders read, believed, and based their decisions on the moral values established by the Bible. With your permission, I would like to go into a little more detail about what they believed.
Chapter Two
We've established that the Bible is the word of God, and that it is true. What does it tell us? Let's open it up. Before we do, I better remind you the Bible is in two parts; the Old Testament and the New Testament. Some folks say "Oh, we don't need the Old Testament; that's ancient history". Maybe so, but since God is eternal, it doesn't seem so ancient to Him. Okay, from the beginning. The Bible is divided into books. There are 66 of them in all. The first one is Genesis. When I open my Bible to the first page of the first book (Genesis), guess what hits me right between the eyes. "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth".
Awesome! Don't forget, we're talking about truth here. You know, there's a pretty interesting debate going on in our society today. The two sides of the debate are referred to as evolution and intelligent design. The folks who are doing the debating sometimes get pretty fanatical about their positions, but like a lot of other debates it seems like nobody really knows what they are talking about. In one corner we have the 'evolutionists'. Evolution is a theory. I don't know a lot about these guys, so I guess anything I say concerning them would be a theory too. I mean, I'm entitled to a theory, right? It works for them. Now a theory is something somebody thought up, but nobody was ever able to prove it, so whoever thought it up figured because he thought it up it oughta be right. Maybe that statement is slightly redundant, but I didn't know any other way to say it.
I don't believe in evolution, and since it is a theory I think everybody should have that option. I do remember years ago, when this first started to be an issue, that folks thought that evolutionists believed they were descended from monkeys. The only expert I can quote on that idea is a gentleman by the name of Ernest Ford, a figure from the history of folk music who some of you might recognize more readily by his professional name as Tennessee Ernie Ford. In one of his popular musical productions Mr. Ford summed up the situation by singing (and I'm paraphrasing here), if you believe your ancestor was a monkey, I'd rather be that monkey than you.
Don't get me wrong, I don't put a lot of stock in the term 'intelligent design' either. If we attribute the existence of the earth and all it incorporates to anybody's intelligence, I'm sure Mr. Darwin or somebody like him would likely be taking credit for that too. Remember Genesis chapter 1, verse 1; "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth". It doesn't get much plainer than that! A while back this debate boiled over in a town in southeast Pennsylvania. It seems that the school board in this town voted to allow teaching both the theory of evolution and intelligent design, since theoretically they...
