Quote Source – Medium Reader
A Biblical Christian worldview perspective – This comment from a reader hits at the heart of the underlying motivation of a Christian in America today. The full text of the short comment is below.
I love to read my Bible daily. But I am not in favor of performance based Christianity. It does not make you a “bad” Christian if you do not read your Bible daily in my opinion. There were no Bibles in the early church.
One should view reading the Bible from two perspectives, similar to any other Christian practice.
We can go to church, to small group, participate in public or private prayer, tithe, fellowship with other believers, help the poor, etc. …
With one of two goals in mind …
- First, these behaviors can have at their core the desire to draw closer to the Lord … or …
- Second, they can be “performance-based.”
The Point on Christian Practices
It is important that we do not identify reading God’s love letter to mankind as simply “performative” as it then becomes an excuse for rejecting the practice.
We need to ask ourselves, are we doing Christian behaviors (Bible, Church, Prayer, etc.) out of pride and/or pressure? Or, are we exercising our faith because we love the Lord and want to fellowship with Him among other believers and, consequently, “love to read the Bible” for that reason?
The Point on Early Church Bibles
The “early church” had very few books in print given the printing press was not invented until 1440. Oral communication was the way Christianity was being communicated (Acts 2:46 forward). Had Bibles been available for the common man in the first century, they would have been in every household of believers and assuredly read more fervently than American Christians read their Bibles today.
Salvation – Eternal Life in Less Than 150 Words
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