Gospel Truth Project

Introduction: The Question We Can No Longer Avoid

I want to start by saying this plainly: this is a question every person who uses the word “Christian” should be willing to ask. Truth welcomes scrutiny. If you are living in the truth, then questioning it with the intent to grow, understand, or strengthen that truth is not dangerous. It is beautiful. Christ is not afraid of honest examination. His foundation is a rock. And if your faith feels fragile, if asking questions feels threatening, or if you have been taught that inquiry is disobedience, then this is for you. Christianity is not blind faith. It is a faith grounded in truth, confirmed by history, and revealed by God.

Christianity is not a political party. It is not a nationality. It is not a race. It is not a tribe, a platform, or a cultural badge. In every generation, people attempt to drape Jesus in their flag and recruit Him into their agenda, but Christ is not the mascot of any earthly kingdom. His kingdom is not of this world, and His people are called to a loyalty that rises above geography, ethnicity, and ideology.

I used to think being a Christian was mostly about what I thought. If I believed Jesus was real, believed the Bible was true, or believed the right ideas about the cross, then I assumed I was fine. Christianity, to me, was primarily intellectual agreement. But over time, Scripture dismantled that assumption. I realized Christianity is far more beautiful, and far more demanding, than simply holding correct thoughts about Jesus. The gospel does not merely inform the mind. It transforms your life.

That realization forces a question modern Christianity often avoids: What is a Christian? Not according to tradition. Not according to culture. Not according to personal experience or upbringing. But according to Scripture.

Acts 11:26 tells us that “the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.” That statement sits within a much larger story (Acts 11:19–26). Persecution scattered believers from Jerusalem, and the gospel spread farther than anyone anticipated. Jewish and Gentile believers began worshiping Christ together in Antioch, exactly as Jesus said would happen when He promised the message would reach the nations (Acts 1:8). This new community was so distinct that the surrounding world gave them a name. “Christian” was not a self-chosen identity. It was a public label, and very likely a term of mockery at first, meaning “of the party of Christ,” a reality Peter later alludes to when he speaks of suffering “as a Christian” (1 Peter 4:16).

In other words, the earliest believers did not define themselves by cultural alignment or political identity. They were defined by their allegiance to Jesus, and the world noticed.

That brings us to a necessary conclusion: Christianity is defined in Scripture, so we must listen to Scripture’s definition. The early Church wrestled with questions of identity, obedience, and allegiance just as we do today. The New Testament does not leave those questions unanswered. To understand them rightly, we must practice careful exegesis, meaning we draw meaning out of the text in its full context rather than forcing our assumptions into it.

This is not about individual reinvention of faith. It is about the sound mind of the believer submitting to the whole Word of God, allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture, and allowing Christ, not culture, to define what it truly means to be a Christian.

Is Belief Alone Enough?

In modern Christianity, belief is often reduced to mental agreement. If someone affirms that Jesus existed, that He died on a cross, or that the Bible is true, that affirmation is frequently treated as the defining mark of a Christian. Faith becomes something we think rather than something that reshapes how we live. This reduction feels safe because it demands very little, and it allows us to retain control. But Scripture does not define faith that way.

I was taught that becoming a Christian meant “accepting Jesus into my heart” and believing the right things about Him. That understanding shaped how I viewed myself and others. It quietly produced pride. I began to think that I had arrived, that I had the right knowledge, and that those who struggled or disagreed simply needed more study. That mindset damaged relationships and left me with a growing sense that something was wrong. The theology felt cheap, even though I believed I was doing everything right. Eventually, I could no longer ignore the tension. I stopped assuming I understood faith correctly and began to put my beliefs under scrutiny. I was done with inherited phrases and arrogant certainty. I wanted Scripture, not slogans.

That reexamination exposed a problem. While phrases like “accept Jesus into your heart” may gesture toward the reality of the Holy Spirit dwelling in the believer, they are not how Scripture itself defines conversion. The biblical pattern begins with repentance, continues through faith, and results in a transformed life. Salvation is God’s work, accomplished by grace. But grace does not leave us unchanged. It gives us a new identity in Christ and calls us into a life that reflects that reality.

Jesus Himself addresses this misunderstanding directly. In Luke 6:46, He asks, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” This question comes at the conclusion of the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:17–49), where Jesus lays out the demands of discipleship. He has just called His followers to forgive enemies, reject hypocrisy, and cultivate a good heart that produces good fruit. He then invites the crowd to build their lives on the foundation of His words, comparing obedience to a house built on rock. The issue is not perfection. It is direction. Do we call Him Lord because we like what He gives us, or because we are willing to submit to what He commands?

This is where the relationship between salvation and obedience is often misunderstood. Some frame the issue as a choice between salvation by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8–9) and James’ insistence that “faith without works is dead” (James 2:17). But Scripture does not present these ideas as opposites. Ephesians 2:10 completes the thought: we are saved by grace, through faith, for good works that God prepared beforehand. The sequence matters. Grace saves. Faith receives. Repentance turns. Obedience follows. All of it is empowered by the Holy Spirit. If there is no repentance and no obedience, then Scripture does not describe that state as saving faith.

Matthew 7:21–23 reinforces this truth with sobering clarity. Jesus warns that not everyone who calls Him “Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven. Some will even point to religious activity and spiritual experiences as evidence, only to be rejected because they never truly submitted to the will of the Father. In context (Matthew 7:15–23), Jesus is warning against false discipleship. Just as false teachers can appear righteous while producing bad fruit, individuals can claim allegiance to Christ without actually belonging to Him. External works can deceive others and even ourselves, but they do not deceive God.

James addresses the same problem from another angle. In James 2:14–26, he explains that faith which produces no action is not saving faith at all. It is empty opinion. To believe certain facts about God without responding in obedience is no different than wishing a hungry person well while refusing to help them. James never denies that salvation is by faith. He never claims that works earn or preserve salvation. He insists instead that genuine faith cannot exist without evidence. Faith that never acts is dead because it is not truly faith.

The Greek word often translated as “faith,” pistis, helps clarify this. In the New Testament, pistis does not merely mean intellectual agreement. It carries the sense of trust, loyalty, and allegiance. Biblical faith is relational and active. It is placing one’s life under the authority of Christ. This is why Scripture consistently links faith with obedience without ever confusing obedience as the source of salvation.

So the question is not “How much must I obey to be saved?” That question misunderstands the gospel. The real question is whether our claimed faith has produced repentance, submission, and a transformed life. Jesus is not merely Savior. He is Lord. Scripture does not allow us to separate the two.

What Does Scripture Say Defines a Christian?

If belief alone is not the definition of Christianity, then the question naturally follows: what does Scripture actually say defines a Christian? This is where clarity matters most. Christianity is not undefined, nor is it endlessly adaptable to culture or personal preference. Scripture presents a faith with real content, real boundaries, and real continuity.

One of the most important disciplines in my own walk has been learning to ask a simple but uncomfortable question: define that. I wrote a book largely because I kept pressing on definitions. What is faith? What is salvation? What is grace? What is obedience? What is the gospel? It is easy to speak Christian language and repeat familiar phrases, but understanding what those words actually mean according to Scripture is another matter entirely. This is the beauty of true exegesis. We are not importing our assumptions into the text. We are letting Scripture define its own terms.

The New Testament is clear that Christianity is not something the Church continually reinvents. Jude tells us that “the faith” was “once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3). In context (Jude 1:1–4), Jude explains that he originally intended to write about salvation in general, but under the guidance of the Holy Spirit he felt compelled instead to urge believers to contend for the faith already handed down through the apostles. This language matters. The faith was delivered, not discovered later. It was entrusted, not endlessly revised. False teachers did not merely misunderstand it. They distorted it by adding to it or subtracting from it.

This understanding of continuity is reinforced throughout the New Testament. Peter reminds us that Scripture does not originate in human will, but that men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21). Paul affirms that “all Scripture is breathed out by God” (2 Timothy 3:16), using the Greek word theopneustos, meaning God-breathed. Human authors wrote with distinct styles and personalities, but the source of Scripture is divine. This is why Scripture stands as the final authority for defining the Christian faith. It is not the product of religious creativity, but the result of divine revelation.

Because Scripture defines the faith, it also defines its core content. There are doctrines that are not denominational preferences, cultural interpretations, or secondary disagreements. They are foundational to Christianity itself. These truths were confessed by the early Church, defended against heresy, and affirmed across Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions, even where those traditions later diverged in structure or practice.

At the center is the identity of God Himself. Christianity is unambiguously Trinitarian. Jesus commands His disciples to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). This is not a later theological invention. It is the baptismal identity of the Church from the beginning. God is one in essence and three in persons.

Flowing directly from this is the identity of Jesus Christ. Scripture presents Him as fully God and fully man, the eternal Son who took on flesh. The gospel Paul delivered and received is clear and concise: Christ died for our sins, was buried, and was raised bodily from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). This is not symbolic language. Paul anchors the gospel in real history, real witnesses, and a real resurrection. Without the bodily resurrection of Jesus, Christianity collapses.

Equally non-negotiable is the exclusivity of Christ as Savior and mediator. Scripture leaves no room for universalism or alternative paths to God. Peter proclaims that “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Jesus Himself declares, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). In Greek, Jesus does not say He is a way or a truth. He identifies Himself as the way (hodos), the truth (aletheia), and the life (zoe). Christianity is not one spiritual option among many. Christ stands at the center, exclusive by nature because salvation is found in Him alone.

Scripture also defines how salvation is received. Salvation is by God’s grace, not by human effort, and it is received through faith (Ephesians 2:8–9). This truth is affirmed across historic Christianity, even where debates later arose about sacraments, church authority, or structure. Grace is God’s initiative. Faith is the means by which we receive it. Works are not the cause of salvation, but they are the inevitable fruit of it, as Scripture consistently teaches.

Finally, Scripture teaches that history is moving toward a conclusion. Christ will return. The dead will be raised. God will judge the world in righteousness. This expectation shaped the earliest Christians and continues to define the faith today. Christianity is not merely about personal spirituality in the present. It is rooted in what God has done in Christ and oriented toward what He will do when Christ returns.

These doctrines do not replace faith. They define the faith. They mark the boundary between Christianity and something else. Within those boundaries there is room for disagreement on secondary matters such as church governance, sacramental theology, and worship practices. But at the core, the faith is shared. Christ is the center. Scripture is the authority. The gospel is fixed.

To deny these truths is not to disagree about tradition. It is to step outside the Christian faith itself. And to affirm them is not merely to hold correct ideas, but to place one’s allegiance, trust, and life under the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Obedience Is the Evidence, Not the Entrance

Before anything else, this must be said clearly: obedience is not the means of salvation. We are not saved by moral effort, discipline, or religious performance. Scripture is explicit that salvation is by grace, through faith, and not the result of human works (Ephesians 2:8–9). No amount of obedience can earn forgiveness, and no Christian stands before God on the basis of personal merit.

At the same time, Scripture is equally clear that grace cannot be redefined as permission to continue in sin. Paul confronts this misunderstanding directly: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!” (Romans 6:1–2). Grace does not excuse rebellion; it ends our slavery to it. To claim grace while clinging to sin is not freedom. It is self-deception.

The New Testament presents a clear pattern for the Christian life. The gospel is heard. Repentance follows. Jesus is confessed openly as Lord. Baptism marks the beginning of a new life. The Holy Spirit indwells the believer. From that point forward, a life of sanctification begins. None of this earns salvation. All of it flows from salvation. Obedience is the response, not the cause.

Paul explains this transformation in Romans 6:1–14. When we are united with Christ, we are united with Him in His death and resurrection. Spiritually speaking, we died to sin and were raised to new life. Because of this, Paul commands believers not to present their bodies as instruments of unrighteousness, but as instruments of righteousness to God. The logic is identity-based, not performance-based. We no longer belong to sin, so we no longer live as if we do.

This is why repentance is essential, not optional. The Greek word metanoia means a change of mind that results in a change of direction. Repentance is not merely feeling regret. It is agreeing that Christ is right and we are wrong, and willingly turning away from the old life. This repentance is inseparable from confessing Jesus as Lord. In Scripture, calling Jesus “Lord” (kyrios) is not a polite title. It is a declaration of authority. To confess Christ as Lord is to submit oneself under His rule.

John speaks with striking seriousness about this reality. In 1 John 2:1–6, he reassures believers that when they sin, they have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Christ has already borne the punishment for their sins. But John immediately issues a warning: anyone who claims to know Christ while refusing to obey Him is lying. This is not a minor error. John repeatedly associates such false claims with a rejection of truth itself. To claim fellowship with Christ while walking in disobedience is to contradict the very nature of that fellowship. Obedience, for John, is evidence that the truth truly abides in a person.

Paul echoes this in Titus 2:11–14. Grace does not merely forgive; it trains. The grace of God teaches believers to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives. Grace produces a people eager for good works, not indifferent to them. Paul commands Titus to teach this boldly, because misunderstanding grace always leads either to pride or to lawlessness.

This transformation is not self-generated. It is the work of the Holy Spirit within us. When Scripture speaks of submission to Christ, it uses language of yielding and alignment. The believer does not overpower sin by willpower, but by offering themselves to God, trusting the Spirit to produce obedience from the inside out. Sanctification is not instant perfection. It is an ongoing work of renewal that begins the moment new life begins.

The early Church understood this clearly. The Didache opens with a stark contrast: the way of life and the way of death. This was not presented as a means of earning salvation, but as the inevitable outworking of belonging to Christ. From the earliest generations, Christianity was understood as a lived allegiance, not merely a set of beliefs held privately.

Scripture never asks us to measure how obedient we must be to qualify for salvation. That is the wrong question. Instead, it asks whether our lives reflect the reality that we have been made new. Obedience does not open the door to grace. Grace opens the door to obedience.

The Narrow Path and Rival Allegiances

If obedience flows from grace and faith expresses itself through allegiance to Christ, then the question becomes unavoidable: who or what actually holds our trust? Jesus never presented discipleship as one option among many. He described it as a narrow path, not because God delights in exclusion, but because truth is specific and allegiance cannot be divided.

Scripture consistently warns that the greatest threat to faith is not outright atheism, but substitutes. Anything that promises life, power, protection, or identity apart from Christ becomes a rival allegiance. This is not limited to overtly pagan practices. It includes anything, religious or spiritual, that competes with Christ for trust, authority, or hope.

In our time, many people openly turn to tarot, astrology, crystals, manifestation rituals, divination, and moon ceremonies. These practices present themselves as harmless tools for clarity or control, but Scripture is unambiguous. “There shall not be found among you anyone who practices divination, tells fortunes, interprets omens, or consults the dead” (Deuteronomy 18:10–12). These are not neutral activities. They represent a transfer of trust away from God. What they promise is insight or power, but what they produce is bondage.

The danger, however, does not stop outside the Church. Rival allegiances can wear Christian language. Rituals can replace repentance. Sacraments can be treated as automatic grace dispensers rather than signs pointing to Christ. Spiritual experiences can be pursued for their own sake, detached from obedience and submission. When practices are trusted apart from Christ Himself, they cease to be means of grace and become substitutes for Him.

The New Testament makes clear that spiritual opposition does exist, but it also clarifies how deception works. Paul warns that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). Demons do not need rituals to “work.” Their goal is far simpler: to convince people that Christ is unnecessary. If trust can be redirected elsewhere, allegiance has already been compromised.

This is why Scripture consistently ties freedom to Christ alone. “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13). Freedom does not come from mastering spiritual techniques or learning secret knowledge. It comes from belonging to Christ. Anything that replaces trust in Him, even subtly, becomes an idol.

The early Church understood this clearly. When people in Ephesus came to faith in Christ, they publicly burned their books of magic (Acts 19:18–20). Not because those books held real power, but because allegiance had shifted. Christ was now King, and no rival loyalty could remain. The issue was never fear. It was faithfulness.

Jesus Himself framed discipleship this way. A tree is known by its fruit. A house stands or falls based on its foundation. A master cannot be served alongside another. The narrow path is not narrow because God withholds grace. It is narrow because truth is not negotiable. Allegiance cannot be divided.

Christianity does not ask us to add Jesus to an already crowded spiritual shelf. It calls us to abandon substitutes and cling to Christ alone. Anything that competes with Him for trust, control, or authority ultimately leads away from life, no matter how spiritual it appears.

Christ is not one option among many.
He is Lord.
And the narrow path is the path of undivided allegiance to Him.

Why the Early Church Matters

If Christianity is rooted in a faith “once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3), then history matters. The question is not whether the early Church is important, but how it is important. To answer that, we must first understand where Christian doctrine comes from.

At the foundation of the Christian faith stand Jesus Christ and His apostles. The Twelve were uniquely appointed by Christ to bear authoritative witness to His life, teaching, death, and resurrection. The New Testament exists because of that apostolic witness. It is the testimony and teaching of Jesus and those He personally commissioned. This is why the Church has always recognized the writings of the apostles, and those directly connected to them, as Scripture. The authority does not come from the Church creating Scripture, but from recognizing what was already apostolic in origin.

Everything beyond the apostles is witness, not new revelation. That distinction is essential. Church history helps us understand how the earliest Christians lived out the faith they received, how they defended it against error, and how they interpreted the Scriptures already given. But history does not add to the deposit of faith. It testifies to it.

This is where figures like Clement of Rome are helpful. Clement is mentioned in Scripture as a fellow worker known to the apostles (Philippians 4:3). His letter, commonly called 1 Clement, offers valuable insight into how early Christians understood obedience, humility, unity, and church order. But Clement was not one of the Twelve. His letter was not treated as Scripture. Instead, it functions as a historical witness to the faith already delivered through the apostles. Reading Clement does not give us new doctrine. It shows us how apostolic teaching was received and applied by the next generation.

This same pattern holds true across the early Church. Pre–AD 300 writings consistently appeal backward, not forward. They do not claim new revelation. They point to what was already taught. When the early Church spoke with clarity and unity, it was because they were guarding what they had received, not inventing what they had not. This shared witness is one of the strongest arguments for the stability of core Christian doctrine across history.

That stability also gives us a way to evaluate later developments. Scripture becomes the measuring standard. When reading early Church writings, the questions are not hostile, but faithful:
Is this consistent with the teaching of the apostles?
Is this drawn from Scripture already received?
Or is this presented as a new tradition grounded in new revelation?

This matters because the New Testament itself warns against additions that distort the faith. Jude speaks of defending what was delivered once for all. Paul warns that even if an angel were to preach a different gospel, it must be rejected (Galatians 1:8). The standard is not age, tradition, or authority alone, but faithfulness to the apostolic witness.

It is also important to clarify a common misunderstanding. When the Catholic Church speaks of “giving Scripture to the people,” what historically occurred was recognition, not creation. The writings of the apostles were already circulating among the churches. Councils did not manufacture the canon; they acknowledged what the Church had already been using and receiving as apostolic. This distinction preserves both the role of the Church and the authority of Scripture without confusing the two.

Church history, then, is not a rival authority to Scripture, nor is it something Christians should ignore. It is a witness that helps us see how the earliest believers understood the faith, guarded it, and passed it on. When read rightly, history does not replace Scripture. It points us back to it.

The apostles are the foundation.
Scripture is the rule.
The early Church is the witness.
And Christ remains the center.

Christ Is King, Everything Else Is Secondary

Christianity is not complicated, but it is precise. Throughout Scripture, the dividing line is never intelligence, spiritual curiosity, or religious effort. It is allegiance. Who do we trust? Who do we submit to? Who defines truth, power, and life?

Christ is King. That confession is not poetic language. It is a claim of authority. To confess Jesus as Lord is to acknowledge that no ritual, object, practice, or declaration has power apart from Him. This is where clarity matters. Saying Christ is central does not mean everything else becomes harmless. Practices that shift trust away from Christ do not become acceptable simply because we also believe in Him. Wearing blessed objects, performing spiritual rituals, declaring outcomes, or relying on symbolic acts for protection or favor are not neutral add-ons. If they become sources of confidence, they function as rivals.

Scripture does not allow divided trust. We are not called to mix Christ with spiritual substitutes. The narrow path Jesus describes is narrow because allegiance cannot be shared. Anything we rely on besides Christ, even if it feels spiritual or comforting, ultimately pulls us away from dependence on Him.

I hope this study brings clarity, because it brought clarity to me over years of careful examination. Wrestling through these questions strengthened my assurance of salvation rather than weakening it. Scripture teaches that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the mark of salvation, and that the evidence of the Spirit’s presence is visible in a transformed life (Galatians 5). When I see that fruit growing, even imperfectly, I see confirmation of God’s work, not my own effort. That assurance does not produce complacency. It produces gratitude, humility, and perseverance.

The Christian life is not lived in blind faith. It is lived in informed trust. We are called to pursue Christ with our whole heart and to seek genuine understanding of Scripture through careful exegesis. Asking questions is not rebellion. It is often obedience. Truth does not fear examination, and faith rooted in Christ grows stronger when tested honestly.

This is why Scripture matters. This is why history matters. This is why definitions matter. Christianity is not something we invent or adjust to fit our preferences. It is something we receive, live, and proclaim. The gospel was delivered once for all. Christ has spoken. The Spirit has been given. Our calling is to follow faithfully.

Only Jesus saves.
Only Jesus frees.
Only Jesus has authority over darkness.

So cling to Him.
Trust Him fully.
Submit to Him completely.
Christ is King.

Everything that competes with Him is a counterfeit. So with that I say blessings upon you, brother or sister as you pursue Christ and continue on your journey. God bless.