THE BASICS
REVISED EDITION
As Jesus Christ prepared to send the disciples for the first time throughout Israel with His message, He included in their instructions this admonition: “Freely you have received, freely give” Matthew 10:8. This six–word summary of grace explains the financial policy of the publications and audio ministries of Basic Training. All audio materials and publications are provided without charge to anyone who requests them. For information on available materials, write:
www.basictraining.org
of Christ Jesus.”2 Timothy 2:3
This book is edited from the 30-tape series, “The Basics,” taught by Gene Cunningham in 1988–1989.
Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Occasional quotations (marked NKJV) are from the New King James Version, © 1979, 1980, 1982, by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission.
Whenever words are bolded in quoted Scripture, it is the author’s emphasis and not part of the biblical text.
Printed in the United States of America
Material in this publication may be reproduced without permission from the author so long as the material is distributed without charge and the source is noted. Please include the Basic Training Bible Ministries’ address with distributed material. If you are interested in translating this book into another language, please contact Publication Department, Basic Training Bible Ministries.
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
Ephesians 2:4–10
Before you begin any study of the Word of God, take a few moments to make sure that you are in fellowship with God, filled by means the Holy Spirit. Comprehension, like everything else in the Christian life, is a gift that can be appropriated only by faith. The Bible clearly lays out three requirements that must be met before we can expect to understand God's Word. All three require nothing from us but faith.
- We must be believers in Jesus Christ John 3:1. It is impossible for unbelievers to understand the Word of God 1 Cor. 2:14. Jesus declared to the leading religious leader of His day that apart from spiritual birth man is blind to the things of God. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit ... You must be born again" John 3:6–7
- We must be filled by means of the Spirit 1 Cor. 2:12. Only the Spirit of God knows the thoughts of God. As believers we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, but when we sin, we break fellowship with God and cease to function in the power of the Spirit. When we confess our sins, God is always faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness 1 John 1:9. The moment we confess, we are restored to fellowship and are again under the control of the Holy Spirit and, therefore, able to learn.
- We must approach in faith Heb. 11:6. Only when we approach in humility, with child-like faith, will the Word of God make sense to us Matt. 18:4; Heb. 11:3. Where we find Scripture at odds with our ideas or our desires, we must submit to the authority of the Word. Intimacy, understanding, and power are reserved for those who are willing to do God's will John 7:17.
To express my gratitude to all of the wonderful people who have made this book a reality is a difficult task for me. I do not want to overlook anyone and, yet, so many have been involved, it would be impossible to name each and every one. You all know who you are, if you are not named. More importantly, our gracious God knows, and He keeps the books!
After a mission trip to Nigeria and Ghana in 1989, I taught a series of 25 classes at Harlan Park Bible Church, in Conway, Arkansas (one of the finest congregations any pastor could ever have), which I called simply, “The Basics,” to send via cassette to the pastors to whom I had ministered.
My mother Ruth Cunningham was one of the first to insist that it be made into a book. The first book was called The ABCs, and the format did not follow the original plan of the classes. It was not very “user friendly.” At this point, one of our members, Jo Ann Pryor, who had been trained in journalism, took up the challenge and spent about two years, with very little compensation, to bring it into its present format. Thank you, Jo Ann for your tenacity!
Many members of our church at that time spent countless hours transcribing the tapes to word-for-word notes, which Jo Ann then edited. My secretary, Alice Smith, did hours and hours of typing. When we did the first printing, members of the church would gather around tables with the pages laid out and walk around them for hours to collate the material in order to save money. Thank you to all who put their “fingerprints” on this book, which has now sown seed all over the world.
A new team of volunteers has accomplished our current revisions. My deepest thanks to Col. Ken Curcio (USMC Ret.), President, Basic Training Bible Ministries Board of Directors, and his wife Sharon (our “Editor-in-Chief”), who have led the way and spent hours revising, verse-checking, and communicating with me. Thanks to Margi Robison, who provided a digital copy from which to do the editing. A special thanks to Claudia Dideum, co-Editor, whose fingers just fly over the keys, formatting and making corrections in record time.
A special thanks to Benjamin Phenicie who, once again, has provided us with a fresh, new cover for this revised edition.
Many have volunteered to read and verse-check the present copy: Paul Stanton (our web-master) and his wife Phyllis, Amber Dewitt, Blair and Aurora Buselli, Susan Doran, and Gloria Bassett—thanks to all of you!
This list wouldn’t be complete without thanking my sister, Cheryl Watkins, BTBM Administrator, who literally receives thousands of requests for copies of The Basics. She faithfully sends them out all over the world!
I simply cannot name all the translators and helpers who have produced this book into many languages around the world. God knows!
In writing this, I am reminded of Paul’s “thank you” section in Romans 16:1–16 to those who labored with him. Truly, none of us stands alone. How I thank God for the gracious, patient, and faithful service of every one of you. By the grace of God, we will celebrate the impact of this book throughout eternity!
Salute!
Gene
~ 17th Century Samurai Code
Preface________________________________________
The fundamental principles which underlie any course of study are called simply “the basics.” The basics are the ABCs—the nuts and bolts. They are the essentials, the things we must master before we can become proficient in any particular field. But the basics are also the things to which we must return when we lose our bearings. They are the bedrock, apart from which we have no hope of standing.
As new believers, we learn the basic principles: the love of God, the destructiveness of sin, salvation by faith, the authority of the Word, the sufficiency of grace. We begin to practice the basic exercises: confession, prayer, study, service.
As we mature, we come to realize that proficiency, skill in living the Christian life, is not a matter of moving beyond the basics, but is a matter of delving more deeply into them. We will never outgrow our need for confession or prayer or service; in fact, growth intensifies our need for and our pleasure in these things. And even though we learn more promises, more principles, more doctrines every day, we will never plumb the depths of even the most basic truths of God’s Word.
The more we grow in the grace and knowledge of God, the less impressed we will be with ourselves and the more impressed we will become with the Lord Jesus Christ, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” Col. 2:3.
As a pastor-teacher, my goal in teaching “The Basics” series from which this book was written was to lead my sheep to a more intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. My prayer is that this book will be used by God to encourage others to study with renewed enthusiasm and diligence the written Word, through which alone we can come to know the Living Word—the Lord Jesus Christ.
G.C.
Introduction________________________________________
God has a desire for every one of His children to become great. In eternity past, He designed a plan that would bring us to greatness. He foresaw everything we would need to fulfill our destiny, and He set aside a lifetime of provisions for each of us.
The purpose of this book is to lay out that plan, to show from the Word the goal He wants us to reach and the means by which He intends we get there.
Unit 1: The Plan of Redemption, explains why man is in the mess he is in and how God saw the problem before time began. It describes the work of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit in providing the solution and tells us how to lay hold of it.
Unit 2: The Provisions of God’s Grace, outlines five essential provisions that God has given to every believer. In Christ, we are incredibly rich, but these riches are of no practical value to us until we know what they are. Not until we understand what is available to us can we begin to grow spiritually
Unit 3: Spiritual Growth, describes the upward path from infancy to maturity in the spiritual realm. Once we know what God has made available, the next logical step is to use those resources, to let ourselves be trained for the work God has prepared for us. This unit explains both the alternative to growth and the joys of growth and describes the goal of growth—spiritual maturity.
Unit 4: The Christian Way of Life, describes the greater spiritual riches and the more subtle spiritual tests that accompany maturity. In maturity, it is imperative that we have 20/20 spiritual vision. This is the point at which the “normal” Christian life really begins. The kind of life God intends to be “normal” for His children is the kind of life hinted at by men like Joshua, Caleb, Daniel, Gideon, and exemplified in Paul—men who God could entrust with the work because He knew they would trust Him.
Unit 5: Spiritual Warfare, opens the curtain on the spiritual battle that rages on this Earth, describing both the strategy of the enemy and the ultimate futility of his cause. Focusing on Job, it puts into perspective the suffering and pain through which heroes of faith are forged.
Four of these units describe phases of spiritual growth to the point at which we must make a decision. Our freedom to choose is important to God. He is a gentleman; He will never force us to go any further with Him than we want to go. He wants to take us all the way to greatness, but He has chosen to limit Himself by our faith.
In Unit 1, the Gospel is made absolutely clear. It takes us, therefore, to the point at which we face the most important decision anyone ever makes: What will I do with Jesus Christ? Our eternal destiny hinges on how we answer that question. If we believe in Him, we enter eternal life. If we reject Him, we remain in death—and doom ourselves to an eternity in Hell. God sends no one to Hell; men go there by their own free choice.
Believing in Jesus Christ is only the first of many choices that will determine the course of our lives and the rewards that will—or will not— be ours in Heaven. Unit 2 takes us to the point at which we have to ask ourselves: Do I want to grow? If we say yes, all we have to do is receive and use the resources God has given.
By the end of Unit 3, we will be beginning to understand the next great decision we must make. In order to reach the high ground of spiritual maturity, we have to choose to present ourselves as living sacrifices to God, to subordinate everything we want in life to the plan of God.
Of the few who choose to press on to spiritual maturity, fewer still will make it through the minefields described in Unit 4 to the point at which we must decide: Do I want to become a hero of the faith? To move beyond this point, we must have come to the place where the spiritual realm is more real to us than the physical.
By the time we reach the end of what is described in Unit 5, we will have no more decisions to make. The day will come when each of us will face the result of all our previous decisions. On that day, we will stand alone before the Lord Jesus Christ. If we have chosen for the plan of God and have finished the race He set before us, we will hear the only words that a disciple wants to hear His Master say “Well done, good and faithful [servant]!” Matt. 25:21