{"id":8419,"date":"2020-08-13T19:23:44","date_gmt":"2020-08-13T19:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/?p=8419"},"modified":"2022-11-11T16:46:24","modified_gmt":"2022-11-11T16:46:24","slug":"who-is-not-a-christian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/?p=8419","title":{"rendered":"Who Is Not a Christian?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Views: 2<\/p><p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\">[<strong>Note<\/strong><strong>:\u00a0 <\/strong>This MS is available in larger font on our <strong>Brief Articles<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>3<\/strong> page.]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\">The word <em>Christian <\/em>appears three times in the New Testament (Acts 11:26; 26:28; 1 Pet. 4:16). This term is used interchangeably with <em>disciple, <\/em>but only after Jesus died and built His church. Most people apply <em>Christian <\/em>indiscriminately to anyone who gives even the least lip service to Jesus and\/or his doctrine. But by Bible definition, who, in fact, is a Christian? Determining who is <strong>not <\/strong>a Christian may help us answer this question.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><strong>No Old Testament saints <\/strong>were Christians. Verily, many godly men and women lived before\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Christ came, but <\/span><em style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Christian <\/em><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">never applied to any who lived before Jesus died and built His<\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">\u00a0church (cf. passages cited above.)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><strong>Not all \u201cgood people\u201d <\/strong>are Christians, although all true Christians are good people. Cornelius<\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">\u00a0was \u201ca devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, who gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God always\u201d (Acts 10:1\u20132). He lived a good life and had a good reputation (v. 22), but he was not a Christian until he heard, believed in, and obeyed Christ in baptism (vv. 33, 47\u201348). A morally upright life is commendable, but it does not make one a Christian.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><strong>Not all religious people <\/strong>are Christians, although all true Christians are religious. Paul described the Athenians as \u201cvery religious\u201d (Acts 17:22), but they were devoted to paganism; they were not Christians. The great crowd on Pentecost was composed of \u201cdevout people\u201d (2:5), but they were Jews, not Christians. The same was true of the Ethiopian (8:27\u201328), Lydia (16:13\u201315), and Saul of Tarsus (26:5).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><strong>Not all church members <\/strong>are Christians, although all true Christians are members of Jesus\u2019 church. The Lord built His church (Mat. 16:18). It began on the Pentecost after God raised Him from the dead (Acts 2:47). It is composed of Disciples\u2014Christians (8:1\u20133; 9:1; 11:26). One becomes a Christian by confessing his faith, repenting of his sins, and being baptized to receive forgiveness of his sins (Acts 2: 37\u201338, 41, 47). Membership in a denomination does not make one a Christian. The Bible knows nothing of the denominational system that came into existence in the 1500s.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><strong>Not all believers in Christ <\/strong>are Christians, although all true Christians must believe in Christ. If mere \u201cfaith\u201d were sufficient, the demons would be Christians (Jam. 2:19). Inactive \u201cfaith\u201d is dead \u201cfaith\u201d (vv. 20, 24, 26; Gal. 5:6). Saying \u201cLord, Lord\u201d is not enough to make one a Christian. One must obey God\u2019s will through Christ (Mat. 7:21\u201323).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\">[<strong>Note: <\/strong>I wrote this article for and it was published in <em>The Lighthouse, <\/em>weekly bulletin of Northpoint Church of Christ, Denton, TX, October 2, 2011, of which I was editor.]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><strong>Attribution:<\/strong> From <em>thescripturecache.com<\/em>; Dub McClish, owner and administrator.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Views: 2[Note:\u00a0 This MS is available in larger font on our Brief Articles\u00a03 page.] The word Christian appears three times in the New Testament (Acts 11:26; 26:28; 1 Pet. 4:16). This term is used interchangeably with disciple, but only after Jesus died and built His&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"easywp-readmore\"><a class=\"read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/?p=8419\">Continue Reading&#8230;<span class=\"easywp-sr-only\">  Who Is Not a Christian?<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,561,84,140,79,129,142,36,411,153,202,38,154],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baptism","category-church-of-christ","category-the","category-confession-of-faith","category-denominational-doctrines","category-denominationalism","category-discipleship","category-faith","category-faith-only","category-forgiveness","category-practice-of","category-repentance","category-sincerity","wpcat-37-id","wpcat-561-id","wpcat-84-id","wpcat-140-id","wpcat-79-id","wpcat-129-id","wpcat-142-id","wpcat-36-id","wpcat-411-id","wpcat-153-id","wpcat-202-id","wpcat-38-id","wpcat-154-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8419"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21133,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8419\/revisions\/21133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}