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Brand

What is Christianity?

It Is Finished

March 24, 2013 • Joel Reynolds • John 19:28–30

Change

March 17, 2013 • Chris Edmondson • Matthew 5:1–16, John 13:35

Today, we associate Rome with the Catholic Church, but if you could go back in time and tell 1st century Christians living in Rome that their city would one day be full of ornate crosses celebrating Jesus, they wouldn’t believe you. They lived in an environment hostile to their faith. People around them considered them members of a strange cult. They faced intense persecution. The emperor Nero falsely accused them of setting the Great Roman Fire of 64 AD and punished them by crucifying them and feeding them to dogs. The apostles Peter and Paul were martyred during Nero’s persecution. Yet by the 3rd century, Christianity had grown into the official religion of Rome. How did such a hated, powerless people become so influential?

Insiders and Outsiders

March 10, 2013 • Chris Edmondson • Matthew 28:19, 1 Corinthians 9:19, 1 Corinthians 5

Author Anne Rice (Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession) has a powerful personal story about her relationship with Jesus. She grew up in the church, but left it as a young adult. In her fifties, she rejected her decades-long atheism and returned to http://church...for ten years. And then she made this announcement on her Facebook page: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. Rice’s statement stirred controversy, but let’s be honest: the idea that Christians can be quarrelsome, hostile, and difficult isn’t exactly surprising. How is it that people like Anne Rice—people devoted to Jesus—sometimes feel driven from Christianity? Could it be that if you’re a follower of Jesus, nonbelievers expect you to act like Jesus. They expect you to care about and value the things that Jesus cared about and valued. They judge your likeness to Jesus largely on the way you react and respond to people outside the faith. And you know what? They’re right to do so. Given that truth, what does the Bible say about how followers of Jesus should treat nonbelievers?

Brand Recognition

March 3, 2013 • Chris Edmondson • Acts 9:26–36, John 13:34–35, Acts 11:25–26, Acts 6:7

Ask ten different people and you’ll probably get ten different answers: someone who goes to church every Sunday; someone who was born into a Christian family; someone who believes Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead three days later; someone who celebrates Christmas and Easter; someone who doesn’t drink, smoke, or use profanity. Others take a darker view. They’d say Christians are judgmental, homophobic moralists who think they’re the only ones going to heaven and secretly relish that everyone else is going to hell. If there’s so much disagreement about what a Christian is, how are we supposed to know who to trust on the matter?