What is Christianity All About?
By Brent Davis, Campus Ministry Coordinator
Songs and hymns sometimes sum up our most important beliefs and values. If you were to pick a song that encapsulated Christianity, what would it be? Amazing Grace? Absolutely amazing, but is grace the goal of a Christian or the means? Clearly the means—to what? Sometimes it helps to look at the conclusion to find the main idea of a document. What do we find at the end of the Bible? 3 I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them.[a](Revelation 21: 1-3). This theme of being with His people is not just at the end, but is repeated throughout the Bible: “I will reside among the Israelites, and I will be their God,” (Exodus 29: 45); “14 So the Word became human[d] and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness.[e] And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son” (John 1: 14, NLT). So, God wants to be with us, and for us to be with each other: “19 So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family. 20 Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. 21 We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord” (Ephesians 2: 19-21). To be together, we need to be Jesus’s disciples, obeying His commands and serving one another: ““All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them” (John 14: 23). A few verses later Jesus declares:
12 This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. 13 There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. 16 You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. 17 This is my command: Love each other. (John 15: 12-17, NLT)
In Salt and Light, we are not just trying to teach you good values and ways to be a better person, we are seeking to love you in the way Christ loves us. This is why we need to spend time with each other. Love at a distance is not real love. For all these reasons, I think the hymn that sums up what Christianity is all about is “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”
