The Bible is the only authoritative source from which Christianity is derived. Sound strange? That used to be the defining characteristic of evangelicalism.
Collectively evangelicals seem to have drifted far from that principle, and evangelicalism is taking on some strange shapes.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcv7oZLwi8Q
So the first thing that is true about the delivered, the true Christians, is that they do not believe error because they have come to the light. They have come to the truth. To borrow the language of Ephesians chapter 6, they are engaged in a battle against the spiritual forces of darkness but they are triumphant because they have put on the armor of God and the first piece of armor is the belt or the girdle of truth.
A Christian is someone then who understands the truth, who has been delivered from Satan’s lies to God’s truth. To be saved, according to 1 Timothy 2:4, to be saved is to come to the knowledge of the truth. That’s a very important verse, write that down, 1 Timothy 2:4, “To be saved…and translating it this way…even to come to the knowledge of the truth.” That is to say, one and the same. Being saved is not some kind of mystical cryptic, some kind of inexplicable feeling. Being saved is come to the knowledge of the truth. Luke tells us in the book of Acts that when the gospel was preached on the day of Pentecost, 3,000 people believed and they continued in the Apostles’ doctrine. They started there and they continued there. A true Christian is a person who has been deposited, rescued out of ignorance and deposited in the realm of truth. They came into the realm of truth and they continue in the realm of truth. To be saved is to come to the knowledge of the truth. The Christian is someone who understands the truth, who believes the truth, who embraces the truth, who loves the truth and who submits to the truth.
And, you know, it amazes me that there are so many people in evangelicalism today, leaders in evangelicalism, pastors and writers, who believe a person can be a Christian without ever being delivered from error to truth.