I spent a long time as a Christian. I’m able to look back on much of that time very fondly. I loved my fellow brethren, and I truly wanted to learn more about God’s will and do my best to follow it. But there was also a deep fear tied to my belief. I think that’s fairly common among fundamentalists, but it may apply to more moderate Christians as well.
Where did this fear come from? There are certainly a number of passages that talk about God’s love for mankind:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. – John 3:16
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? – Rom 8:31
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Rom 8:38-39
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. – 2 Pet 3:9
But despite his love, God can get angry too. And you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry:
For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. – Heb 10:26-31
The scariest thing about this is that facing God’s wrath will be a complete shock to some people. There are those who think they’re doing what God wants, but are completely missing the mark:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” – Matt 7: 21-23
What if you believe in Jesus and love God, but aren’t doing God’s will? Is your sincerity enough? This was a thought that plagued me when I believed. If some people would get to Judgment Day only to find that they weren’t acceptable, then why couldn’t such a thing happen to me? How did I know my beliefs were the correct ones? My brother and I used to talk about this a lot. Through study, he and I both began to think that a couple of the doctrines we had always been taught in the Church of Christ were incorrect. Coming to that conclusion was extremely difficult. Were we reading and understanding our Bibles correctly?
As an illustration, consider a minor passage: 1 Corinthians 11. The beginning of this chapter says that women should have their heads covered when they pray. But the passage is confusing. Paul says that since women have long hair, they should also wear a covering when they pray or prophesy. He spends several verses giving reasons why a woman should cover her head, but then in verse 15, he also says that her long hair is given to her as a covering. So do they still need a separate one? Most confusing at all, verse 16 says:
If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God.
What does that even mean? Does it mean there’s not a practice of being contentious? That sounds like a crazy thing to have to say. So maybe he’s saying that the head covering is not supposed to be a practice if anyone makes a fuss over it. But that doesn’t make sense either. I mean, what other doctrines are given that caveat? Did any of the 10 Commandments have such an escape clause? The whole passage is confusing. What are Christians supposed to do? Either God wants the covering, or he doesn’t, but that passage can be read any number of different ways.
And of course, that’s far from the only vague passage. When you’re raised in a denomination, you’re taught to read the Bible a particular way. “Predestination” means something very different, depending on who you’re talking to. Who’s right? And what if you were raised in one of the groups that thinks they’re right, but to whom God will say “depart from me, I never knew you”? My brother and I realized how difficult it is to unpack all those preconceptions in order to clearly see the scriptures for what they really say. It’s scary.
Here’s the Point
But eventually, I realized that my fear was needless. The Bible says that God is fair, he doesn’t play favorites, he loves us, and he wants us to find the truth. Jesus said “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matt 7:7). If those things are true, then there’s no reason for us to be so worried about getting it wrong, as long as we’re sincerely seeking the truth.
It’s important to realize how significant that point is. If we’re really looking for the answers, then no question is going too far. So if we dig into the Bible and think “it doesn’t make sense to me that God would send people to Hell,” we shouldn’t run from that thought — we should investigate it. It’s okay for us to ask why God would command genocide in the Old Testament. It’s okay to wonder why he seems so hidden. It’s okay to ask why he would inspire people to write a message, but not protect the originals or ensure its accuracy. If God supports our search for truth, then all of these questions are valid. In fact, the people who pursue these questions obviously take the issue seriously. Wouldn’t that be more pleasing to God than those who never question what they’ve been told?
If you believe in God, then have faith in his character. Have faith in his promises. And take him seriously enough to challenge those who claim to speak for him (the writers of the Bible). Don’t let people tell you that you can’t question God whenever you express doubt about a passage. The Bible is not God. So show God the respect he deserves and critically examine the Bible before you accept the claim that he inspired it. If he’s real, he’ll be much more pleased with an honest seeker than with someone who’s too scared to ask the tough questions.
Finding Truth 
William,
It is such a shame that you are so obsessed with process and are completely oblivious to actual content of the Bible.
Just as one need not believe in the gods Zeus or Athena to be aware of the literary greatness of Homer’s Iliad, one need not believe in God or Jesus to see the greatness of the Bible.
But upon seeing the greatness of the biblical content, the thinking, reasoning human being is drawn naturally to God, our Creator and Jesus or Savior.
That’s one reason why the Bible was compiled and published by the Catholic Church at the end of the 4th century, in fact.
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Silenceofmind, you do err not knowing the scriptures.
We’re not speaking about literary qualities, but on the divine nature of this book and the supporting evidences (or lack thereof) that accompany its far fetched claims.
I am both aware of biblical content and logical processes. The two do not go well together.
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William,
Faith comes by grace, not physical evidence. Without grace, even physical evidence isn’t enough to cause faith to happen.
That is one of the teachings of the Bible. The Hebrews demonstrated that time and again in Old Testament stories such as the Ten Commandments and The Golden Calf.
In the New Testament, the Apostles demonstrated that too.
In fact, one of Jesus’ most famous statements after performing a miracle of healing was, “Your faith has saved you.”
Atheism is so obviously ridiculous that its devotees close themselves off to both reason and faith.
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@SOnoM
Hey, Dickhead, you are like the “light relief” on every blog you visit. When anyone humours you with a comment there is no need to think.
When discussing anything with a monkey one downshifts several mental gears and with you we don’t even need gears….
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Knat,
Without God, human beings are nothing but naked apes, naked apes that make monkeys of themselves frequently unless of course they have chose the brain of a knat.
Consequently, it is the atheist who is the monkey and it is the atheist with the critical need to dumb everything down.
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Oook?
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Silenceofmind, let’s not discuss atheism vs Christianity. If you’re inclined to believe that atheism is ridiculous, that’s fine with me – i wont argue with you on that.
let’s just discuss the good news. You seem a bit unfair to apply so much “reason” to atheism, but then abandon it when defending Christianity by saying that faith trumps the bible’s factual and logic short comings.
isn’t that too dismissive? shouldn’t we at least expect the bible to be internally consistent and free of errors?
how is ignoring the flaws of a book, because the same flawed book says your faith should trump that, make it okay to believe in its ridiculousness?
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atheists aren’t naked apes though. They do wear clothes. knats dont do that.
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“Without God, human beings are nothing but naked apes, naked apes that make monkeys of themselves frequently unless of course they have chose the brain of a knat (gnat).”
is that why you believe in god? because you want special recognition, providence and acceptance?
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If faith comes by God’s grace, why are you bothering to argue with people that God hasn’t given faith to yet?
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Nate,
Faith in God is human nature.
All human beings are capable of being open to faith.
From what I have seen and in my own personal experience, not having faith, being hostile to faith or losing faith results from errant teachings or not being taught to sufficient depth of knowledge.
It wasn’t until the later decades of my life that I became properly educated in Christianity and the Western Heritage.
Grace has illuminated my mind to understand things that were staring me in the face since childhood.
Life is a journey of illumination.
The atheist has discontinued his journey by throwing himself under the bus.
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And with god, any god, human beings are nothing but naked apes who believe in fairy tales.
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Arch,
All the great civilizations grew up around religion.
The greatest civilization of them all, Western Civilization, grew up around Christianity.
Atheists have the greatest mass murders in human history as their signal achievement.
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@SOnoMind
Lol…
Wrong again, Dickhead. Your god wiped out humankind – its right there in that little book you read. But guess what? we got our own back and nailed his arse,didn’t we?
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Yes, most people throughout history have been religious. Most of them thought the earth was flat as well.
Your statement about mass-murdering atheists is ridiculous. Even if the people you’re referencing were atheists (and not all of them were), their killing people had nothing to do with their atheism. They were ideological fanatics. Fanatics of any stripe — religious, political, etc — are dangerous. It’s the fanaticism that’s the problem — not their particular religious or political position. Otherwise, we could say Christianity is evil because of the Crusades, Inquisition, and witch trials. But it would be irresponsible to make such a sweeping accusation.
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Knat,
Citing a source you think is ridiculous, is ridiculous.
But maybe it all just depends on what the meaning of is, is.
I cite a fact. You get ridiculous.
Me Christian. You atheist.
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You know, this may be a good place to wrap the conversation. It’s not going anywhere, and I’m afraid to see how much worse it might get.
Thanks for all the comments — hope you guys enjoy the holidays!
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Nate,
You have cited the absurd atheist dogma that everything can come from nothing.
Religion is critical to the formation of civil society.
Without religion human culture devolves to violent barbarism as atheist societies have already proven.
You atheists completely ignore the undeniable proof that atheism leads to social disaster yet you demand proof from Christians concerning their own beliefs.
If you can’t believe your own eyes about your own faith (yes atheism is a 100% faith-based belief) then you will be equally oblivious to any other proofs concerning God, man and universe.
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Nate,
Your clarion call to malignant ignorance and intolerance is typically atheist.
And that is precisely why atheism needs to be flushed down the intellectual toilet.
An atheist wishing everyone Merry Christmas is a cry of desperation if ever there was one.
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SOM:
Jim Jones wasn’t an atheist. He was very religious. And very faithful to his religion. Granted, it was his own brand of religion, but he wasn’t an atheist.. And what about David Koresh? He was also very religious. Both (along with others that I won’t name right now) carried out some pretty bad mass murders. You simply can’t say that all the bad stuff comes from atheists.
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Off to do last-minute shopping. Wishing all HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
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Utterly untrue. Unless Sweden seems barbaric to you?
?
Not sure what this means, but I got a good chuckle at least!
Take care, SOM.
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Nate,
Sweden is a product of the Christian West.
As with the Roman Empire, demise is gradual. Once the Romans forgot who they were their civilization went into decay.
Likewise, with the ever greater rejection of Christianity, we are seeing Western Civilization decay.
Atheism is a return to barbaric past.
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Okay. If you’re right, then time will tell.
Take it easy.
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Wow, you learn something new everyday. I didn’t realize the Roman empire began as a group of Christians founded on christian dogma or the leaving Christianity is what did them in. And here I always thought the western civilization was based on Greek Democracy.
What about Agnostics? are they among the faithful too? I hope so, since god rewards the faithful.
or maybe we cant just invent things we’d like to be true in order to keep up in an argument. It doesn’t have to be argumentative, my man. We could be discussing.
Proverbs 15:1 – give it a read.
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