What does being Christian have to do with the Bible?

Question

Jesus never spoke of following scripture, did he? He never wrote down his own teachings. Do you need a Bible to be Christian?

Answer 1

Actually, the largest Christian denomination, Catholicism, considers the Bible important, but not the one-stop dogma shop a lot of people on this forum seem to make of it. This is also true for various other major Christian denominations. Their teachings and traditions extend well beyond strict scriptural interpretations. So the short answer, is no, but "good Christians" should still have a good feel for what is in the bible. (BY the way, I'm an atheist, but have a large number of Christian friends.)

Answer 2

Old Testament = Old Covenant. New Testament = New Covenant. Jesus (Yeshua) followed Jewish Old Testament teachings as a youth. He then further fulfilled the law and prophecies by becoming the last "lamb" sacrifice so to speak, thus ushering in the New Covenant. Yes lamb were sacrificed for sin in the Old.

The Old Covenant was always correct. Some things don't change such as Love thy neighbor, don't murder, keep the Sabbath holy...God doesn't change. He gave a deeper spiritual understanding of the law and prophets and established the New. Jesus was there in the Old Testament. He made a physical presence in the New Covenant. And yes, he did speak of doing the will of the Father. Which is scripture. The Apostles furthered the teachings of scripture when they wrote the manuscripts that became the New Testament.

God bless

Answer 3

Jesus quoted from scripture, and He used scripture all the time in His teachings. Read, and find out. You need the Bible to learn what we are suppose to do.

Answer 4

No, you don't. There are a ton of illiterate Christians out there. and historically it was the priests who studied the bible then told you what it meant. Personally though I think it's the most helpful tool for the religion, particularly if you can get good guided study. incidentally, Jesus said follow his teachings, he couldn't say follow scripture because it wasn't written down yet.

Answer 5

The New Testament part is the written part of what Jesus was up to. If you have something in writing, you can go back and read it again if you forget.

Nope. You don't need a Bible to be a Christian. Most early Christians couldn't read, anyway. Everything was by word of mouth.

Answer 6

Well, Jesus did talk about the only Scriptures that existed in his context, the Jewish Scriptures, and on the one hand he seems to have regarded them highly, while on the other hand he clearly relegated some parts to a secondary status, for example by touching people with eczema who were excluded for purity reasons, and saying that while Moses gave a law permitting divorce because people were hard-hearted, it wasn't that way from the beginning, and so clearly the Law does not give perfect expression to God's will and intentions.

Answer 7

Actually, Jesus was well versed in scripture and taught from it constantly. He never wrote down anything but God gave his followers the desire to write down what Jesus said so it would not be lost and would be passed on to others. The word of God includes many lessons and a great deal of information about the attributes and heart of God. We learn much from reading it and it helps to keep us balance when our minds want to run off on their own thoughts and ideas.

Answer 8

Umm Christians are a group of people who follow the teachings of the Bible. So yes you need a Bible to be a Christian

Answer 9

You need a Bible to be a Christian. How would someone know that they needed to believe in Jesus Christ unless they read it in the Bible? OK, I believe in Jesus Christ now what does he want me to do? It's in the Bible. The Bible has the instructions of how to be a Christian.

Answer 10

Apparently you have negliented to read the entire Bible. Jesus did write several portions of the Bible. He etched much of the Old Testament commandments into stone with his own finger in Exodus and Dueteronomy.
He wrote part of the book of Daniel on a wall with his own hand
He dictated several portions of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other OT prophecy books word for word. Same with much of the book of Revelation, dictated to John with instructions to write it word for word.

As for following the scriptures, the last act that Jesus performs in the gospel of Luke is to sit down with two of his disciples and go line for line through the scriptures to saw them how they relate to him and their relationship with him. So he saw it as important enough to make it his final action.