The Most Important Verse in Christianity

What do you think is the most important Bible verse in Christianity?

The Reformer Martin Luther would have likely said the tail end of Romans 1:17: “The righteous will live by faith.”

It would be easy to make a case for verses like Genesis 1:1, because it shows us God is our Creator. Or John 3:16, because we see how God loved the world in sending Jesus to die in our place and give us eternal life. However, in my devotions today I came across a verse I’ve easily read dozens of times.

This time it hit me: this is the most important verse in Christianity.

It’s in the middle of Peter’s powerful sermon on the Day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit had just fallen on 120 believers with hurricane-force winds. Tongues of fire leapt from their foreheads. And most curiously, they began to speak no fewer than 15 languages none of them were fluent in!

The scene was so exceptionally wild hundreds, and then thousands, of “God-fearing Jews” gathered “from every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5). Their question: “How on earth can these Galileans speak our language?”

The Holy Spirit enabled these first disciples to speak fluently in these languages to witness to Jesus and God’s fresh power on this new movement. Peter shared the Gospel with them, and smack dab in the middle we come to it.

The Most Important Verse in Christianity Click To Tweet

I believe this because it reveals two fundamental truths our entire belief system rests upon:

1. Jesus was raised to life.
2. The disciples were witnesses who gave their lives testifying to this truth.

Here it is my friends: If Jesus is still dead, we have no hope because we can’t trust God’s promises—especially the promise of eternal life. And how can we believe that Jesus is alive?

The disciples experienced the entire saga and gave their lives to share this message—for no monetary or personal gain.

Without a resurrected Jesus, we have no reason to study this book, pray, or expect eternal life. Acts 2:32 is a compelling and succinct summary of why Jesus stands alone in human history.

Are you living with the absolute conviction of our resurrected Jesus and his mission for us, today?

---

Today’s devotion by Jordan Loftis, bestselling author of Today We Win, host of The Bible Better Podcast, and editor of Short Daily Devotions.