Many doubts about Christianity

[WayneB]

Not true at all, just because one is born again, it doesn;t mean doubt never comes in. Howmany people do you think have been born again and later dumped christianity as a religion. I'm sure tons of people have done it, but that doesn;t mix well with that bullcrap doctrine of once saved always saved, so the excuse is you were never really born again, well my friend I am born again.

With respect then, maybe you need to ask yourself... will you endure to the end? [Matthew 24:12,13] Doubts and questions can be healthy if they lead to the TRUTH. The question is, what is the foundation of your FAITH? If it is shifting sand, you will never find the TRUTH... BUT if it is God's Word as the Holy Spirit gives understanding? The TRUTH will be revealed and become so obvious that nothing Satan throws your way will have any effect on your FAITH.

Christianity for the believer is NOT a religion. It is a relationship with the Way, the Truth and the Life. The way I look at the world, whether it be science, religion, philosophy, politics, whatever, is all viewed from the perspective of eternity and my relationship with Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.

If you were "born again" into a "religion" and do not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, then you need to reconsider what it truely means to be "born again". Why?

"I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins." John 8:24

May the Lord Bless you richly,

Wayne

[Guest shiloh357]

Not true at all, just because one is born again, it doesn;t mean doubt never comes in. Howmany people do you think have been born again and later dumped christianity as a religion. I'm sure tons of people have done it, but that doesn;t mix well with that bullcrap doctrine of once saved always saved, so the excuse is you were never really born again, well my friend I am born again.

How do you know you are born again?

[Guest yod]

I have yet to see any reason to think that he is...or ever was.

Not that he has to prove anything to me, but a person who has a relationship with Yeshua usually has an inkling of knowledge about Him.

All this guy has is doubts; and is more interested in disproving Yeshua than edifying the Body.

[bgoalie35]

jesusismylord,

Let me try to clarify for you. People here are doubting your statements about being "born again" because you have raised so many questions and been openly hostile to Christianity. Perhaps you could silence them by saying what it is you DO believe about Christianity. If you do not believe any of it, if you believe it is all a lie, than wouldn't you agree that you are NOT a Christian?

I agree with Wayne B., when he states that questions and doubts are fine in certain contexts, and in fact, I believe they are essential for strengthening one's faith. I suppose a person could be perfectly faithful living in ignorance of all the questions raised about Christianity, but how much stronger, how much more useful as an evangelist could you be if you ask yourself all of these questions and find the answers to them?

I don't want to condemn people too quickly for asking questions and bringing forth their doubts about Christianity. I think the only reason it has been brought up in this case, jesusismylord, is because you have shifted from topic to topic without ever stopping to directly address the answers given to you on each topic. When a satisfactory answer has been given, you have ignored it and moved on to something new. Try interacting more with the people on this board, and you may get a better response. Just an idea for you to ponder...

[Smalcald]

Yes I agree doubt is not necessarily a bad thing, and can strengthen our faith if confronted honestly.

I think what one must ask, is am I looking for an excuse to believe or an excuse not to believe? I read the bible trying to understand why God would have said xyz. Sometimes things don't make total sense, particularly if we take an extreme literal reading of the bible, even when the bible is not meant to be literal in some places. Apologetics helps me reconcile certain things. But I must say most of the seeming contradictions in the bible are over minor points, things like generation counting (which to me is a big yawn anyway), but these don't impact the essential message of redemption through the and resurrection of Jesus Christ, a personal God who loves us individually. Why do so many human beings cleave to this message? It is a bizarre one if we really look at it, yet as Lewis points out; it has just that strange ring of truth that real things have.

Jesusismylord, I would only suggest that you stick to the essentials, we can argue about the literal understanding of minor points, but the essentials are fact. I think we must decide who we trust, whom we believe in life. Well when I see the persons of Peter, John, Paul, and Luke, the major authors of what is in the New Testament, they don't come across to me as liars at all, I trust them and their Word to us which God gave them. I trust them over all of the modern critics and ne-sayers, all of the deconstructionist junk that gets thrown at the bible on these atheist and academic web sites. Who would know the truth about Christ? Those who knew Him, those such as Peter or academics living 2000 years later with an anti-religious axes to grind? Who would have a better historical understanding of Jesus and who He was? Look at the first three paragraphs of 1Peter, this man new Jesus personally and that book is historically authenticated by most secular scholars to have actually been penned by Peter and Silas his aid, so why not take His word about who Christ is?

But I think it is okay to ask, well why doesn't this add up? What are some explanations, and consider those. I am not that good at answering those questions, but I think some people here have pretty good answers.

I would also read the best overall apologist I have read which is still CS Lewis.

[JesusismyLord]

I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, second person of the trinity, the incarnation of God. The more I s tudy religions, the more they have one thing in common, love your fellow man and treat them right.

All I am saying is that if you look at Judiasm, they also have a relationship with God, but they beleive we live life to to do the right thing, to make God hapy by doing the things he has commanded. The laws of the OT for the Jew, so there is no difference , we both as christians and jews love God, we just have different motivations for following his commandments. As a christian, thats what Jesus said was the greatest commandment, love the LORD your God and love your fellow man.

If you look at Judiasm, and look thorugh a jews eyes, I can understand there position. According to the OT, they awaiting another King David, another messiah that would deliver the Jewish people, that would bring all men to the Love of the one true God. Bring peace on earth. Rebuild the temple and establish the Torah. Return the exiled Jewish people. Every thing they expected didn't happen after Jesus came, in fact everything went completely opposite, more wars have been fought and men killed in the name of Jesus than any other name. The temple was destroyed after Jesus, the jewish people have been in exile until 1948.

It's that simple, the prophecies the Jews see in there Bible point to this, and there prophecies actually say the Lord says this will happen. Jesus did not fulfill any of these prophecies, and from a jewish standpoint I can understand why they don't believe Jesus. I know as a christian we are taught that Jesus is God and the thought of rejecting him is blasphemy and worthy of hell so we can't comprehend why people reject him or would even dare.

When we as christians say you need Jesus to have a relationship with God and everlasting life, the Jew already has that. God came to them and handed down the Torah at Mount Sinai, they already have a everlasting relationship with God.

I am born again, Jesus changed my life, I was a lowly scumbag before I met Jesus, and then it all changed. I have no doubt that Christ changed me. I am having a hard time, because I have never bothered to look at Judiasm or any other religion without disagreeing with them before I even heard of it. If you really look at Judiasm and what they believe, I can understand why they reject Jesus, but the christian faith is based on Judiasm. It is the foundation for what we believe, you can't look at the NT iwthout first looking at the OT, the OT is the basis for your faith.

This is where I am having a hard time, if we really look at the OT. We can see

God had direct relations with humans

God forgave humans of sin

God would accept outsiders into his family without any mediator

God never condemmed people to hell or was hell spoken of

People didn't need a mediator between them and God

One can pray to God directly

repentance was key and God honored people who repented, we can see some of the most disgusting kings of Israel that would repent and God forgave them

God choose the Jewish nation, they are the chosen people, they have an everlasting covenant with God, how many times would God tell them to pass this down to generation after generation forever, this marks an eternal covenant.

Messiah just means annointed one, messiah is not an uncommon person in jewish history, preists and kings of Judah and Israel were all messiah's, as a christian we are taught that Messiah means God and is a specific and chersihed name

the prophecies from the OT we use for christainity are mostly taken out of context. Look at the main OT story, its always this, God loves and choose his people, they sin and casts them away to there sins, as soon as they repent God accepts them again.

Judiasm is the only religion that I know of that believes in God but doesn't exclude anyone in other religions. Sometimes we wonder why as christians the jews dont accept Jesus or why they hate christians, now I know why.

Edited October 31, 2005 by JesusismyLord

[nebula]

The more I study religions, the more they have one thing in common, love your fellow man and treat them right.

Is that your interpretation of the heart of Christianity - how you behave?

All I am saying is that if you look at Judiasm, they also have a relationship with God, but they beleive we live life to to do the right thing, to make God hapy by doing the things he has commanded. The laws of the OT for the Jew, so there is no difference , we both as christians and jews love God, we just have different motivations for following his commandments. As a christian, thats what Jesus said was the greatest commandment, love the LORD your God and love your fellow man.

What became Christianity began with a group of Jews who never forsook Judaism - they just found Jesus to be the fulfillment of the Torah, as Jesus showed them.

If you look at Judiasm, and look thorugh a jews eyes, I can understand there position. According to the OT, they awaiting another King David, another messiah that would deliver the Jewish people, that would bring all men to the Love of the one true God. Bring peace on earth. Rebuild the temple and establish the Torah. Return the exiled Jewish people. Every thing they expected didn't happen after Jesus came, in fact everything went completely opposite, more wars have been fought and men killed in the name of Jesus than any other name. The temple was destroyed after Jesus, the jewish people have been in exile until 1948.

It's that simple, the prophecies the Jews see in there Bible point to this, and there prophecies actually say the Lord says this will happen. Jesus did not fulfill any of these prophecies, and from a jewish standpoint I can understand why they don't believe Jesus. I know as a christian we are taught that Jesus is God and the thought of rejecting him is blasphemy and worthy of hell so we can't comprehend why people reject him or would even dare.

Shiloh is more an expert on this than me, but there was a dispute between schools of thought over the prophecies of the Messiah as the Conquoring King vs the prophecies of the Messiah as the Suffering Servant. I believe it's been written up on the board somewhere, if it can be pulled up.

I am born again, Jesus changed my life, I was a lowly scumbag before I met Jesus, and then it all changed. I have no doubt that Christ changed me. I am having a hard time, because I have never bothered to look at Judiasm or any other religion without disagreeing with them before I even heard of it. If you really look at Judiasm and what they believe, I can understand why they reject Jesus, but the christian faith is based on Judiasm. It is the foundation for what we believe, you can't look at the NT iwthout first looking at the OT, the OT is the basis for your faith.

Again, Shiloh or yod or M(can't remember all the numbers) or Zayit could explain this better, but the Judaism we have now is not the faith of the people of Israel before the last Temple was destroyed.

A famous rabbi redefined "Judaism" after the Temple was destroyed to make up for the fact that they could no longer offer sacrifices. Hopefully one of them will pick this up and eplain it better than I can?

This is where I am having a hard time, if we really look at the OT. We can see

God had direct relations with humans

God forgave humans of sin

God never condemmed people to hell or was hell spoken of

People didn't need a mediator between them and God

One can pray to God directly

repentance was key and God honored people who repented, we can see some of the most disgusting kings of Israel that would repent and God forgave them

God choose the Jewish nation, they are the chosen people, they have an everlasting covenant with God, how many times would God tell them to pass this down to generation after generation forever, this marks an eternal covenant.

Messiah just means annointed one, messiah is not an uncommon person in jewish history, preists and kings of Judah and Israel were all messiah's, as a christian we are taught that Messiah means God and is a specific and chersihed name

the prophecies from the OT we use for christainity are mostly taken out of context. Look at the main OT story, its always this, God loves his people, they sin and casts them away to there sins, as soon as they repent God accepts them again.

Judiasm is the only religion that I know of that believes in God but doesn't exclude anyone in other religions.

But they needed the sacrifices.

What do you understand about God's requirement for sacrifices and the shedding of blood?

Sometimes we wonder why as christians the jews dont accept Jesus or why they hate christians, now I know why.

Well, Jewish persecution by "Christians" might have a big part in that, too.

They still blame us for the deaths of their people over the past 2000 years.

[Smalcald]

Ahhh, okay I don't have a problem with much of what you said. Sorry for jumping in so much without reading all of your posts. We are not required to believe that every other faith is wrong in all aspects all of the time. There is no doubt that God is at work in many other people of other faiths, but as Christians we do know that Christ is the one area that we cannot compromise on, that what we do know and believe about Christ is true, and true for all people. It would seem that Christ would not be Christ, would not be God, if He only worked in a subset of people that He was not offered to all people. Lewis said that as Christians we know that salvation is only found in Christ, what we don't know is if only those who know Christ will be saved by Him.

But I don't feel an overwhelming need to judge other people of other faiths and their path for salvation, the main thing is to keep my eye on my own multitude of problems and walk and to spread the word to everyone as best I can, which really is not very good.

But as far as the OT prophesies go I think after looking at Christ they do make sense and point to Christ, but if we don't look at Christ, then no they may not. I think we have some messianic Jews on this board which can make a very good case though, much much better than myself. I am weak on the OT, frankly and am working to learn more.

As far as war goes I would argue your point, it is a common canard of the Internet anti-Christians and it simply is not true. The largest and most savage societies the world has ever known, have all been in general Godless, ranging from Ghengis Khan, through Stalin, through PolPot, through Hitler, through Communist China, etc. Not that we have anything to brag about we as Christians have not stood up against violence, and those misusing Christ

[Guest shiloh357]

Lewis said that as Christians we know that salvation is only found in Christ, what we don't know is if only those who know Christ will be saved by Him.

Lewis is wrong. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; No man comes to the Father but by me." John 14:6

[JesusismyLord]

I am weak on the OT, frankly and am working to learn more.

You have to know the OT better than the NT, it is the beginning point of faith, any faith. No matter what anybody says, this is the first book that God handed down to man. It's like a mormon looking at his book of mormom, doctrine of covernants and never bothered with his OT or NT, if they claim to be christians, then they need to study and know the ground work for there faith inside out, before they start with there books.