WikiChristian - User contributions [en]

Jesus Christ

2006-05-30T07:33:51Z

JordanBarrett:

{{stub}}

''In brief'': Jesus Christ is the central figure that separates Christianity from other religions. Christians believe that he is both God and a man. They believe he created the world and mankind, and that he is alive today. He was born around the 4 BC and grew up in Palestine where he taught about God's love and the repentance of sin. He died on a cross for the sins of all humanity and rose again 3 days later. A Christian believes that faith in him brings salvation.

----

'''Overviews'''
* [[An introduction to the Christian understanding of Jesus]]
* [[Jesus (overview)]]
* [http://www.theopedia.com/Jesus_Christ Jesus Christ] (theopedia)
* [[Bible Dictionary: Jesus]]
* [[Bible Dictionary: Christ]]
* [[Jesus (compass)]]

'''Topics'''
* [[The nature of Christ]]
* [[Jesus, our Lord and God]]
* [[Historical evidence Jesus Christ]]
* [[Jesus, the man]]
* [[The birth of Jesus]]
* [[The miracles of Jesus]]
* [[The parables of Jesus]]
* [[The teachings of Jesus]]
* [[The death of Jesus]]
* [[The resurrection of Jesus]]
* [[Ascension of Christ]]
* [[Jesus: Miscellaneous topics]]

'''Articles / opinions'''
* [[Comments about Jesus Christ]]
* [[Comments on the historical evidence of the existence of Jesus Christ]]

'''Quotes'''
* [[Bible quotes about Jesus]]
* [[Quotes about Jesus]]

'''See also'''
* [[Justification, salvation and grace|What are grace, salvation and justification]]
* [[God]]

----

Go to the [[God]] contents page

Jesus Christ

2006-05-30T07:33:39Z

JordanBarrett: linked to updated/current theopedia article

{{stub}}

''In brief'': Jesus Christ is the central figure that separates Christianity from other religions. Christians believe that he is both God and a man. They believe he created the world and mankind, and that he is alive today. He was born around the 4 BC and grew up in Palestine where he taught about God's love and the repentance of sin. He died on a cross for the sins of all humanity and rose again 3 days later. A Christian believes that faith in him brings salvation.

----

'''Overviews'''
* [[An introduction to the Christian understanding of Jesus]]
* [[Jesus (overview)]]
* [[http://www.theopedia.com/Jesus_Christ Jesus Christ]] (theopedia)
* [[Bible Dictionary: Jesus]]
* [[Bible Dictionary: Christ]]
* [[Jesus (compass)]]

'''Topics'''
* [[The nature of Christ]]
* [[Jesus, our Lord and God]]
* [[Historical evidence Jesus Christ]]
* [[Jesus, the man]]
* [[The birth of Jesus]]
* [[The miracles of Jesus]]
* [[The parables of Jesus]]
* [[The teachings of Jesus]]
* [[The death of Jesus]]
* [[The resurrection of Jesus]]
* [[Ascension of Christ]]
* [[Jesus: Miscellaneous topics]]

'''Articles / opinions'''
* [[Comments about Jesus Christ]]
* [[Comments on the historical evidence of the existence of Jesus Christ]]

'''Quotes'''
* [[Bible quotes about Jesus]]
* [[Quotes about Jesus]]

'''See also'''
* [[Justification, salvation and grace|What are grace, salvation and justification]]
* [[God]]

----

Go to the [[God]] contents page

Wiki

2005-08-07T18:54:12Z

JordanBarrett: revert

A '''Wiki''' or '''wiki''' (pronounced "wicky", "weekee" or "veekee"; see pronunciation section below) is a website (or other hypertext documents collection) allowing users to add content, as on an Internet forum, but also allows anyone to edit the content. "Wiki" also refers to the collaborative software used to create such a website.

''Wiki'' (with an upper case 'W') and ''WikiWikiWeb'' are both used to specifically refer to the Portland Pattern Repository, the first-ever wiki. This usage's proponents suggest a lower-case 'w' for wikis in general. ''Wiki wiki'' comes from the Hawaiian term for "quick" or "super-fast."; sometimes, '''wikiwiki''' or '''WikiWiki''' or '''Wikiwiki''' are used instead of ''wiki..''

==Controlling changes==
Generally, Wikis practice the philosophy of making it easy to correct mistakes—rather than making it difficult to make them. Thus, while wikis are very open, they provide means to verify the validity of recent additions to the body of pages. The most prominent, on almost every wiki, is the "Recent Changes" page—a specific list numbering recent edits, or a list of all the edits made within a given timeframe. Some wikis allow the list's filtering, so that minor edits—or edits made by automatic importing scripts ("bots")—can be excluded.

From the change log, two other functions are accessible in most wikis: the Revision History—showing previous page versions, and the diff feature—highlighting the changes between two revisions. The Revision History allows the editor to open and save a previous version of the page, thereby restoring the original content. The diff feature can be used to decide whether or not this is necessary. A regular wiki user can view the diff of an edit listed on the "Recent Changes" page and, if it is an unacceptable edit, consult the history, restoring a previous revision; this process is more or less streamlined, depending on the wiki software used.

[[Image:History comparison example.png|thumb|History comparison reports highlight the changes between two revisions of a page.]]

In case unacceptable edits are missed on the "Recent Changes" page, some wiki engines provide additional content control. It can be monitored to ensure that a page, or a set of pages, keeps its quality. A person willing to maintain pages will be warned of modifications to the pages, allowing him or her to quickly verify the validity of new editions.

==Vandalism==
The open philosophy of most wikis—of letting anyone edit content—does not ensure that editors are well-intentioned. Most public wikis shun mandatory registration procedures, nevertheless, many major wiki engines (including MediaWiki, MoinMoin, UseModWiki and TWiki) provide ways to limit write access. Some wiki engines allow individual users to be banned as editors—accomplished by blocking their particular IP address or, if available, their usernames, however, many Internet service providers (ISPs) assign a new IP address for each login, so IP bans often can be circumvented relatively easily, and may prevent legitimate users from accessing features. To deal with this problem, temporary IP bans are sometimes used—and extended to all IP addresses within a particular range—ensuring, thereby, that the vandal cannot edit pages within a given time; the underlying assumption is that this often is sufficiently deterring. It may, however, still prevent some non-problematic users, from the same ISP, from using the service for the ban's duration.

A common defense against persistent vandals is simply to let them deface as many pages as they wish, knowing that they can easily be tracked and reverted after the vandal has left. This policy quickly becomes impractical, however, in the face of systematic defacements born out of either anger or frustration.

As an emergency measure, some wikis allow the database to be switched to read-only mode, while others enforce a policy in which only established users—registered prior to an arbitrary cutoff date—can continue editing. Generally, any vandal's vandalism can be reverted, quickly and easily. More problematic, though, are subtle, undetected errors inserted to pages—for example, changing album release dates and discographies.

Many wikis allow pages to be protected from editing; in most wikis, this is used only in extreme and rare cases. Protected pages on Wikipedia, for example, can be edited only by the administrators, who can also revoke the protection. Generally, such actions are considered as against the basic wiki philosophy, and, therefore, are usually avoided. At any given time, the English Wikipedia has perhaps thirty protected pages, out of hundreds of thousands.

==Wiki engines==
Given the wiki concept's relative simplicity, many implementations now exist—ranging from very simple "hacks"—implementing only core functionality, to sophisticated content management systems. For detailed discussions, along with a list of some available systems, see ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki_software Wikipedia - Wiki Software]''; usually, they provide some lightweight markup language.

==History==
Wiki software originated in the design pattern community as a way of writing and discussing pattern languages. The Portland Pattern Repository was the first wiki, established by Ward Cunningham in 1995 [http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiHistory]. He invented the wiki name and concept, and implemented the first wiki engine. Some people maintain that only the original wiki should be called Wiki (upper case) or the WikiWikiWeb; nevertheless, Ward Cunningham's Wiki is the most popular wiki site.

Cunningham coined the term ''wiki'' for the "wiki wiki" or "quick" shuttle buses at Honolulu Airport. ''Wiki wiki'' was the first Hawaiian term he learned on his first visit to the islands, when the airport counter agent directed him to take the ''wiki wiki'' bus between terminals. According to Cunningham, "I chose wiki-wiki as an alliterative substitute for "quick" and thereby avoided naming this stuff quick-web." [http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiHistory] ''.

In the final years of the 20th century, wikis increasingly were recognized as a promising way to develop private- and public-knowledge bases, and this potential inspired the founders of the Nupedia encyclopedia project, Jimbo Wales and Larry Sanger, to use wiki technology as a basis for an electronic encyclopedia: ''Wikipedia'' was launched in January 2001, it originally was based upon UseMod software, but later switched to its own, open source codebase, now adopted by many other wikis.

Today, the English-language Wikipedia is, by far, the world's largest wiki; the German-language Wikipedia is the second-largest, while the other Wikipedias fill many of the remaining slots. The fourth-largest wiki is Susning.nu, a Swedish-language knowledge base running UseMod software. The all-encompassing nature of Wikipedia is a significant factor in its growth, while many other wikis are highly specialized. Some also have attributed Wikipedia's rapid growth to its decision not to use CamelCase. In any case, its being the largest wiki has led to its being referred to, sometimes, as the Mother wiki on smaller, subject-specific wikis.

==Wiki communities==
All known public wikis are listed at
[http://www.worldwidewiki.net/wiki/SwitchWiki WorldWideWiki: SwitchWiki], which currently lists about 1000 public wiki communities (as of 2004-06-12).

The 30 largest wikis are listed at
[http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?BiggestWiki#Biggest_wikis_by_page_count_on_July_3_2004 Meatball: Biggest wikis].

==References==
*Aigrain, Philippe (2003). The Individual and the Collective in Open Information Communities. Invited talk at the 16th Bled Electronic Commerce Conference, Bled, Slovenija, June 11th 2003. Available at: http://www.debatpublic.net/Members/paigrain/texts/icoic.html
*Aronsson, Lars (2002). Operation of a Large Scale, General Purpose Wiki Website: Experience from susning.nu's first nine months in service. Paper presented at the 6th International ICCC/IFIP Conference on Electronic Publishing, November 6–8, 2002, Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic. Available at: http://aronsson.se/wikipaper.html
*Benkler, Yochai (2002). Coase's penguin, or, Linux and The Nature of the Firm. The Yale Law Jounal. v.112, n.3, pp.369–446.
*Cunningham, Ward and Leuf, Bo (2001): The Wiki Way. Quick Collaboration on the Web. Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-71499-X.
*Jansson, Kurt (2002): "Wikipedia. Die Freie Enzyklopädie." Lecture at the 19th Chaos Communications Congress (19C3), December 27, Berlin, Germany. Online description: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Kurt_Jansson/Vortrag_auf_dem_19C3
*Möller, Erik (2003). Loud and clear: How Internet media can work. Presentation at the Open Cultures conference, June 5–6, Vienna, Austria. Available at: http://opencultures.t0.or.at/oc/participants/moeller
*Möller, Erik (2003). [http://www.humanist.de/erik/tdg/ Tanz der Gehirne]. ''Telepolis'', May 9–30. Four parts: (i) "Das Wiki-Prinzip", (ii) "Alle gegen Brockhaus", (iii) "Diderot's Traumtagebuch", und (iv) "Diesen Artikel bearbeiten".
*Nakisa, Ramin (2003). "Wiki Wiki Wah Wah". Linux User and Developer v.29, pp.42–48. Available at: http://194.73.118.134/lud29-Collaborative_Software-Wiki.pdf
*Remy, Melanie. (2002). Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Online Information Review. v.26, n.6, p.434.

==External links==


Adapted from [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wiki Wikipedia]'s article on Wiki licenced under [GNU FDL].

User talk:Graham grove/Archive 1

2005-07-28T20:42:50Z

JordanBarrett:

Hi Graham (my name also happens to be Graham), I was just reading through some of the articles and I notice that frequently in the articles you write you use first person voice liberally. Not that I object to this in general, it's definitely a great tool for communicating Christian truth. However, since this is an Encyclopedia, perhaps we should consider using a more objective (third person) voice as much as possible? In articles and opinions, of course, first person is entirely acceptable. But in the more historical and factual entries, I wonder whether the first person voice comes off as scholarly or merely as "preachy," thus turning off potential believers and causing WikiChristian to be viewed as "just another evangelist website." Again, not that I object to your writing style in general, I think you're doing a great thing by devoting so much of your time to this project! [[User:Avertist|Avertist]] 09:07, 23 Apr 2005 (PDT)

----

Hi Avertis. I've really enjoyed learning from your articles. You're doing a great job.

It's quite true that I do write opinions often. I try to make it clear that it is an opinion - which is why I write my name next to the article - so that a user can skip stuff I write if they don't want to read opinions, or so they can click on my name and read my background and understand my biases. You're also right in saying that using the first person doesn't always come off as scholarly. But when discussing Christianity, does it always have to be scholarly? Can experience or a testimony or even just a gut feeling be as worthwhile?

I guess I disagree with you on one point. You say that this is an Encyclopedia. My hope is that this is not only an encyclopedia - if it were only an encyclopedia then why not just write in Wikipedia? I hope this is a place where people can write their views and opinions including their understanding of history. The way I am going to write about about the Reformation is probably going to be quite different than the way a Roman Catholic would write about the Reformation, or again different from the way an atheist would write about it. Although there are historical facts involved, I think there will usually be a slant in one direction or another. I think it is best to allow multiple articles on the history of the reformation (or any other topic). Perhaps there should be the main article that is dry and factual only, but I think it is fine also for there to be lots of other articles which tend to have a slant in one way or another. Sometimes that will be "preachy" but hopefully at least it will be open for dialogue, discussion and rebuttal. I also don't think making this a purely factual Encyclopedia is likely to help brng people to Christ. Maybe I'm wrong - I'd be interested to know if anyone has been significantly drawn to Jesus by looking up information about Christianity on wikipedia.

If you look at the [[baptism]] page you'll see that I've written an article there which is clearly my own opinion. Obviously there will be people who have different opinions on this topic. I think it would be great if other people add links for new articles where they can explain their alternate views. Even the writer of Easton's Bible Dictionary is pretty biased (and this is supposed to be a dictionary which I would imagine shouldn't be biased). If you read [[Bible Dictionary: Baptism]] you'll see that there is clearly a particular point being pushed.

What you say is important though. I shouldn't be writing things that turn people away from Christ - I guess what I want to do is write things that say what I believe and challenge people to think about what they believe - be it the same or different from my belief. Sometimes I fail at that task. If you let me know which comments I make in which articles that are specifically preachy and that you think would really offend people, let me know and I'll try and fix them up.

Your brother in Christ,

Graham Grove

----

Hi Graham, I worry that I may have overstated the problem in my first post. In the vast majority of your articles I don't see anything to worry about. But take, for instance, in the conclusion section of [[An overview of the main denominations and the history of the Christian Church (By G.G.)]]. The rest of the article is mostly factual, but the conclusion is definitely composed mostly of opinion. It's an opinion I share completely, so I'm not objecting to the content of it, but it seems to me that the best place for that section would be in a separate article discussing your opinion on the unity of the Church, etc. And though it does not sound particularly preachy to me, I can almost guarantee you that some of my atheist/agnostic friends would read it as trying to "explain away" the "fact" that Christianity just "can't figure itself out," or something to that effect. Would minor reorganizations like this actually convert them? Probably not, but it would remove that small objection they may have.

I completely agree that Wikichristian should be much more than a dry encyclopedia; my concern is that the division between fact and opinion might become blurred if we are not careful about this. [[User:Avertist|Avertist]] 00:26, 24 Apr 2005 (PDT)

----

Thanks Avertis. I think you were quite right - that was out of place in an article that probably should have remained neutral and factual. I've moved my conclusion into a separate article. Thanks for the advice. Graham Grove, 24 April

----

Hi Graham, I'm glad we agreed on this :). On a semi-related note, I thought more about what you said about wikipedia being the place for a "dry encyclopedia" and I thought that perhaps just to save time and effort, we could import articles en masse to wikichristian on historical and factual matters. Since wikipedia articles are generally pretty reliable, this way we'll be able to concentrate more of our efforts on dialogue and writing opinion articles (which I agree should be the core of wikichristian). Since you're one of the "main guys" here, I figured I'd ask your thoughts before I started doing it a bunch. But just so you can get an idea of what I mean, I imported the [[Arianism]] article from wikipedia on top of my old entry. As helpful as it is to me to write up my own short explanations of things, I think this would probably be more efficient and beneficial to wikichristian as a whole. I'm interested to know your thoughts. [[User:Avertist|Avertist]] 09:39, 24 Apr 2005 (PDT)

----

G'day Avertist. Go for it, transfer any articles you think a worth transferring. I've noticed sometimes that I've got to have my thinking hat on when reading articles from Wikipedia. For instance, in the article on Christianity, it has a list of famous Christians, one of whom is Joseph Smith. He's the founder of the Mormon religion, so I don't think it is accurate to say he is a famous Christian. Certainly he was a very influential man and a famous religious leader who has had a major impact in history, but I think most Christians would agree that he should be left off a list of famous Christians. In general though, like you've suggested, Wikipedia is pretty reliable and thorough, so go for it and transfer away.

----

I have noticed that you have some users who are constantly editing the articles to say nasty things. They switch words, screw up spelling so that links do not work, and seem to be somewhat of an annoyance. Is there any way to stop this? It may be that this is the downside to a website like this where users can freely edit each other's work. [[User:JordanBarrett|JordanBarrett]] 13:42, 28 July 2005 (PDT)

User talk:Graham grove/Archive 1

2005-07-28T20:41:44Z

JordanBarrett:

Hi Graham (my name also happens to be Graham), I was just reading through some of the articles and I notice that frequently in the articles you write you use first person voice liberally. Not that I object to this in general, it's definitely a great tool for communicating Christian truth. However, since this is an Encyclopedia, perhaps we should consider using a more objective (third person) voice as much as possible? In articles and opinions, of course, first person is entirely acceptable. But in the more historical and factual entries, I wonder whether the first person voice comes off as scholarly or merely as "preachy," thus turning off potential believers and causing WikiChristian to be viewed as "just another evangelist website." Again, not that I object to your writing style in general, I think you're doing a great thing by devoting so much of your time to this project! [[User:Avertist|Avertist]] 09:07, 23 Apr 2005 (PDT)

----

Hi Avertis. I've really enjoyed learning from your articles. You're doing a great job.

It's quite true that I do write opinions often. I try to make it clear that it is an opinion - which is why I write my name next to the article - so that a user can skip stuff I write if they don't want to read opinions, or so they can click on my name and read my background and understand my biases. You're also right in saying that using the first person doesn't always come off as scholarly. But when discussing Christianity, does it always have to be scholarly? Can experience or a testimony or even just a gut feeling be as worthwhile?

I guess I disagree with you on one point. You say that this is an Encyclopedia. My hope is that this is not only an encyclopedia - if it were only an encyclopedia then why not just write in Wikipedia? I hope this is a place where people can write their views and opinions including their understanding of history. The way I am going to write about about the Reformation is probably going to be quite different than the way a Roman Catholic would write about the Reformation, or again different from the way an atheist would write about it. Although there are historical facts involved, I think there will usually be a slant in one direction or another. I think it is best to allow multiple articles on the history of the reformation (or any other topic). Perhaps there should be the main article that is dry and factual only, but I think it is fine also for there to be lots of other articles which tend to have a slant in one way or another. Sometimes that will be "preachy" but hopefully at least it will be open for dialogue, discussion and rebuttal. I also don't think making this a purely factual Encyclopedia is likely to help brng people to Christ. Maybe I'm wrong - I'd be interested to know if anyone has been significantly drawn to Jesus by looking up information about Christianity on wikipedia.

If you look at the [[baptism]] page you'll see that I've written an article there which is clearly my own opinion. Obviously there will be people who have different opinions on this topic. I think it would be great if other people add links for new articles where they can explain their alternate views. Even the writer of Easton's Bible Dictionary is pretty biased (and this is supposed to be a dictionary which I would imagine shouldn't be biased). If you read [[Bible Dictionary: Baptism]] you'll see that there is clearly a particular point being pushed.

What you say is important though. I shouldn't be writing things that turn people away from Christ - I guess what I want to do is write things that say what I believe and challenge people to think about what they believe - be it the same or different from my belief. Sometimes I fail at that task. If you let me know which comments I make in which articles that are specifically preachy and that you think would really offend people, let me know and I'll try and fix them up.

Your brother in Christ,

Graham Grove

----

Hi Graham, I worry that I may have overstated the problem in my first post. In the vast majority of your articles I don't see anything to worry about. But take, for instance, in the conclusion section of [[An overview of the main denominations and the history of the Christian Church (By G.G.)]]. The rest of the article is mostly factual, but the conclusion is definitely composed mostly of opinion. It's an opinion I share completely, so I'm not objecting to the content of it, but it seems to me that the best place for that section would be in a separate article discussing your opinion on the unity of the Church, etc. And though it does not sound particularly preachy to me, I can almost guarantee you that some of my atheist/agnostic friends would read it as trying to "explain away" the "fact" that Christianity just "can't figure itself out," or something to that effect. Would minor reorganizations like this actually convert them? Probably not, but it would remove that small objection they may have.

I completely agree that Wikichristian should be much more than a dry encyclopedia; my concern is that the division between fact and opinion might become blurred if we are not careful about this. [[User:Avertist|Avertist]] 00:26, 24 Apr 2005 (PDT)

----

Thanks Avertis. I think you were quite right - that was out of place in an article that probably should have remained neutral and factual. I've moved my conclusion into a separate article. Thanks for the advice. Graham Grove, 24 April

----

Hi Graham, I'm glad we agreed on this :). On a semi-related note, I thought more about what you said about wikipedia being the place for a "dry encyclopedia" and I thought that perhaps just to save time and effort, we could import articles en masse to wikichristian on historical and factual matters. Since wikipedia articles are generally pretty reliable, this way we'll be able to concentrate more of our efforts on dialogue and writing opinion articles (which I agree should be the core of wikichristian). Since you're one of the "main guys" here, I figured I'd ask your thoughts before I started doing it a bunch. But just so you can get an idea of what I mean, I imported the [[Arianism]] article from wikipedia on top of my old entry. As helpful as it is to me to write up my own short explanations of things, I think this would probably be more efficient and beneficial to wikichristian as a whole. I'm interested to know your thoughts. [[User:Avertist|Avertist]] 09:39, 24 Apr 2005 (PDT)

----

G'day Avertist. Go for it, transfer any articles you think a worth transferring. I've noticed sometimes that I've got to have my thinking hat on when reading articles from Wikipedia. For instance, in the article on Christianity, it has a list of famous Christians, one of whom is Joseph Smith. He's the founder of the Mormon religion, so I don't think it is accurate to say he is a famous Christian. Certainly he was a very influential man and a famous religious leader who has had a major impact in history, but I think most Christians would agree that he should be left off a list of famous Christians. In general though, like you've suggested, Wikipedia is pretty reliable and thorough, so go for it and transfer away.

I have noticed that you have some users who are constantly editing the articles to say nasty things. They switch words, screw up spelling so that links do not work, and seem to be somewhat of an annoyance. Is there any way to stop this? It may be that this is the downside to a website like this where users can freely edit each other's work.

Denominations

2005-07-28T20:37:53Z

JordanBarrett: spelling

''In brief,'' although there is only one universal Christian Church, there are hundreds of Christian denominations or churches. These denominations have formed and divided since the time of Christ, because Christians have had differences in beliefs and practices. Some of the main groups include the Eastern Orthodox churches, the Roman Catholic Church, Protestant churches, and Pentecostal churches.

----

[[Overviews and introductions to the different denominations and their formation]]

[[Eastern Orthodoxy]]

[[Eastern Oriental churches]]

[[Roman Catholicism]]

[[Protestant churches|Protestant churches including the Anglican church]]

[[Pentecostal churches]]

[[Denominations: Miscellaneous topics]]

----

Return to [[Church history and denominations]] contents page

Becoming a Christian

2005-07-28T20:33:12Z

JordanBarrett:

''In brief,'' to become a Christian, you must believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord. When you accept the fact that you have disobeyed God, but also accept Jesus' death on the cross as punishment for your sins (in your place and on your behalf), you have become a Christian. In doing so, you will live forever, except that you will die. Believing that Jesus is Lord means glorifying Him and trying to learn what pleases Him (I reccommend fellatio). God will forgive you when you make mistakes because Jesus took your punishment for those mistakes, but if you are truly serving Him then you will also want to try to do His will.

----

{{Christianity}}

''Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God... ([[John]] 1: 12-13)''

----

'''See also'''
* [[Important Christian doctrines and beliefs]]
* [[Repentance]]
* [[Faith]]
* [[Justification, salvation and grace]]

'''Thoughts and opinions on becoming a Christian'''
* [[To become a Christian you must believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord]]
* How to be [[born again]]?
* [[Some short comments on becoming a Christian by different users]]

'''Testimonies'''
* [[Biblical stories of people turning to Christ]]
* [[Other accounts of people turning to Christ]]

'''Quotes'''
* [[Bible quotes about becoming a Christian]]
* [[Famous quotes about becoming a Christian]]

'''External Links'''
* [http://www.zoe-ministries.org/message_salvation.html Message of Salvation]
* [http://www.fbcwillowpark.com/message_of_salvation.htm How to Become A Christian]
* Read the message of salvation in [http://www.greatcom.org/laws/languages.html 74 languages]
* [http://www.whoisjesus-really.com/main.htm WHO IS JESUS-Really?]

----

Return to [[The essence of Christianity]] contents page

User:JordanBarrett

2005-07-28T20:30:17Z

JordanBarrett:

I am a follower of Jesus and the Christian faith, and I currently live in La Habra, CA (that's in Southern California) and work at [http://www.eccu.org Evangelical Christian Credit Union.] I was recently married (Jan 1st, 2005) to the most beautiful and wonderful woman, Erin. I currently attend [http://www.graceevfree.org/ Grace EV Free.]

I graduated from Biola University in May of 2005 with an undergraduate degree in Biblical Studies. I plan to go on to seminary and get an MA in NT and potentially a Th.M. with an emphasis in Moral and Philosophical Theology (basically I am looking at Talbot School of Theology - you should check it out).

I love to study the Mormon faith, and plan on living in UT soon... some day. I'm excited to write and learn from everyone here, so keep on writing!