Christian Basics is written by Kent Philpott, thirty-one years the pastor of Miller Avenue Baptist Church in Mill Valley, California, and is written for that congregation. It is helpful for new believers and also for those with a more mature biblical orientation. Philpott earned an M.Div. from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary and a D.Min. from San Francisco Theological Seminary. He has authored some fifteen books starting in the 1970s and has been published by Zondervan Publishing House, Logos International, Bible Voice, and Evangelical Press in the UK. Christian Basics is structured around "Lessons, Debates, and Conversations." Section One consists of sixteen lessons in three parts. Part One: The God Who Reveals Himself. Its seven lessons are The God of the Bible, Revelation, Scripture, The Old Testament, The New Testament, How We Got the Bible, and The Great Paradoxes of the Bible. Part Two looks at The Great Themes of the Bible in five lessons: Election, Presence, Rest, Peace, Two Messiahs, Judgment, Persecution/Triumph of Christ's Church. Part Three considers Christianity in four lessons: The Church, The Christian Ethic, The Christian Life, and Church History. Section Two contains fifteen lessons in two parts: Four Debates and Eleven Conversations. The Four Debates: The Exclusiveness of Jesus, The Authority of Scripture, Heaven and Hell, and Same-Sex Marriage. These debates are extramural in nature, meaning that they define biblical Christianity and are essential to the Christian identity. The Eleven Conversations: Abortion, Baptism and Lord's Supper, Church Government, Divorce and Remarriage, Ecumenism, End Time Scenarios, Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Music in the Church, Origins, Politics and War, Reformed vs. Arminian Theology, and Women in the Church. These conversations are intramural in nature, being issues that Christians may disagree on, but they invite differing interpretations. They are squabbles taking place within the Family.
