John D. Basie - Know. Be. Live.®: A 360 Degree Approach to Discipleship in a Post-Christian Era

Impact 360 Institute

Know. Be. Live.

A 360 Approach to Discipleship in a Post-Christian Era

John D. Basie

Editor

Foreword by J.P.Moreland

Know. Be. Live.

A 360 Approach to Discipleship in a Post-Christian Era

2021 Impact 360 Institute

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, magnetic, and photographic, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

Unless otherwise noted, the Scriptures quoted are from the NET Bible http://netbible.com copyright 1996, 2019 used with permission from Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version NIV Copyright 1973 1978 1984 2011 by Biblica, Inc. TM Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from The Holy Bible, King James Version (public domain).

Published by Forefront Books.

Cover Design by Bruce Gore, Gore Studio Inc.

Interior Design by Bill Kersey, KerseyGraphics

ISBN: 978-1-63763-021-1 print

ISBN: 978-1-63763-022-8 e-book

To all Impact 360 Institute alumni and staff who, like Daniel in Babylon, are compassionately seeking the good of the city, even as they risk intentionally in holding fast to Gods loving, unchanging, revealed truth.

Soli Deo Gloria

J.P. Moreland

O ur children are growing up in a post-Christian culture in which the public often views people of faith as irrelevant or even, in some cases, harmful extremists. In this context, the world (and the church) desperately need a new kind of Christiana new generation of Jesus-followers who know what and why they believe; who are being formed and mentored carefully and wisely; and who are activists in whatever way God has gifted them for the cause of Christ. In our cultural Babylon, we need to raise up a new generation of Daniels to be ambassadors for Christ.

So how do we do that?

Before offering an answer to this question, let me say a word about my own journey. I received Christ as a chemistry major at the University of Missouri in 1968. Upon graduation, I served for 10 years with Cru (then called Campus Crusade for Christ). Seeing the great need for Christian thought leaders, I went to Dallas Theological Seminary, and then earned my Ph.D. in philosophy at USC under Dallas Willard. While there, I met and married Hope Coleman, and today we have two married daughters and five grandchildren. For the last thirty-five years or so, I have taught undergraduate and graduate students, with the last thirty at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. I have also planted three churches and two Cru ministries.

During my fifty years of serving Christ, I have spoken and debated on 200 college campuses, have lectured in 400 churches, and have been featured numerous times on radio, social media, and television. Hopefully, I have accumulated some wisdom from which to speak about where we Christians need to go from here to practice and propagate a biblically-centered, vibrant form of Christianity. As I see it, we must thoughtfully and carefully re-emphasize three central needs.

Christians must be taught not only what they believe but why they ought to believe it in todays world. Scripture recognizes several definitions of the world:

1. the entire created order (see, for example, Ps. 24:1);
2. the entire class of human persons (see John 3:16);
3. that part of culture, especially non-Christian culture, that is contrary to the kingdom of God and Scripture (See Eph. 2:23).

It is this last sense I want to address.

In every culture in which the church is present, Gods people are to avoid adopting particular manifestations of the world in that culture. At the same time, we are to be in the world, saturating it with a Christian worldview combined with spiritually mature, informed activism. To do so, we must understand both Scripture and the worldly systems of thought, practice, and value in our culture. We need to know how to help fellow Christians recognize those ungodly systems and refute them using both biblical and nonbiblical evidence (see 2 Cor. 10:35).

This will especially involve exposing and undermining secular ideas hostile to truth, including issues relating to science and the Bible. With glorious exceptionsand as my colleague Dr. Gene Fant points out in his chapter of this volumethe local church is a complete failure in this regard. Anti-intellectualism has derailed the church from making disciples and has made Christian parenting less effective. We practice ostrich Christianitywe put our heads in the sand and hope that these ideas will just go away and leave us alone.

Unfortunately, our failure to address them effectively is encouraging young people to leave the church. In an interview in Leadership Journal, Barna Group president David Kinnaman listed six reasons young people leave the church. Four are especially relevant to our current discussion:

• the churchs shallowness of thought, including its biblical teachings and practices;
• the feeling that it is an unsafe place to express doubts and get answers to questions;
• its isolationism; that is, its failure to interact fairly with the surrounding culture;
• the churchs anti-science attitude, including being out of step with scientific developments and debate.

Instead of equipping disciples, especially Generation Z disciples, to understand and meet the world head-on, giving solid reasons for their Christian beliefs, the church has become its own gravedigger. The very practices that cause its numbers to rise and its budgets to be met are making the church increasingly anemic and marginalized. What are those practices? We try to grow the church by emphasizing worship and good Christian music; by offering watered-down, intellectually vacuous, simplistic preaching that is always applied to a parishioners private life while failing to deal with the broad cultural, intellectual, and moral issues facing us all; and by trying to get people into small groups.

There is nothing wrong with the first and last practices. Clearly, they are of crucial importance. But conspicuously absent is any place in weekly church practice for people to learn; for their minds to be stretched; for learning to defend their faith; for becoming godly, intelligent ambassadors for Christ. People lack the courage to stand up for their faith in a non-defensive, winsome way because they lack the requisite knowledge for doing so. Thus, when challenged, Christians get defensive. If the church wants to avoid getting drawn into the worlds way of thinking, we need to prioritize teaching Christians how to respond to pervasive cultural ideas. Knowledge confers authority and courage.