I think the simplest terms that I have come to to understand the way things work is this:
Jesus means Savior, Christ means chosen One. Essentially evil controls the world that God made for humans. People have to die to enter the next dimension. Evil thrives on the blood of humans and death. It is also the currency of the spirit realm (I haven't quite figured this out yet) blood shed can activate power from the spirit world. i.e. OT animal sacrifice to cover our inadequate deeds compared to God's perfection. (again we are enslaved by evil and only death frees us) God cannot coexist with evil and since people are enslaved by the evil empire of the world we are separated from God.
_
Jesus is the human representation of God and that idea that God Himself became human so he could, in a massive troll to the evil empire, die (blood shed) to pay the spirit world demand for blood from a human. Since He was God he was not subject to death the same way we are. He broke the evil system that was trying to prevent us from being with God.
I would love to participate in a Bible study group where we can ask questions openly and honestly because anyone who truly studies the Bible has got to have questions.
I also want to say that the current Bible with 66 books is only a small part of the original material and so I'm guessing there are answers in other books of the Bible. I am very interested in the book of Enoch as I've been told there is lots of interesting stuff in it.
I have a naturally distrusting personality which has always made religion hard for me, because when I have a serious question but get shut down for even asking in the first place, then it just ends up making me distrust the whole thing.
I do make a huge effort to understand who Jesus is, but ultimately this is the biggest speedbump in my journey, because I have so many questions that seem to make believers uncomfortable. As well as the bible itself, which we are told is the word of God and is perfect, but it was written by man, and man makes mistakes. Man also deceives. And since it was written over a vast span of time, and translated over a vast span of time, this seems to leave a lot of room (in my opinion) for mistakes or deceit. Every time I ask a believer about this, the answer I always get is "God would not allow that to happen." Maybe so, but that sounds exactly like something a human would say when their spiritual worldview is questioned. So how am I, a person who questions everything, supposed to get to a place where I'm comfortable that the bible is perfect?
I very much believe in God and in Jesus, but I don't feel like I "know" them because of all my questions. I also don't believe a human can answer my questions, so I just ask them strait to God. I'm still waiting for many of those answers, but I will tell you, some of my early questions, when I first came back to the bible, were answered for me instantly, and it shook me a bit, enough to scare me into being a believer. All though the way I was told to seek out those answers also makes some other believers uncomfortable, but it was a way of using the bible that a Chirstian woman taught me 30 years ago.
"I also don't believe a human can answer my questions, so I just ask them strait to God."
This is obviously true for most people including me. This is why I long ago sought to find the truth myself. To keep this short, I was struck by Thomas Aquinas writings and his observances of man's relationship to Nature. He contextualized man's law as it relates to the manifestations of God's creation. Aquinas spoke of the Laws of Nature and Eternal Law, but no where did I find in his writings or any writings whatsoever what those Laws actually were. So, I was led on a quest to find out for myself. After more than 20 years of research, I have not only found the answer, but have constantly expanded the scientific proofs of it. And it fits perfectly into biblical understanding and reveals the understanding of the [holy] Spirit. From this reference the bible is understood.
Too many christians worship the Bible as their god. I have the same reservations as you. I also have a hard time with the idea that literary ability is path to God. I suffer with reading dyslexia and I have a hard time comprehending when I read due to the way I see words and the distraction that it causes. To make reading comprehension the gateway to God doesn't make sense to me.
Christianity can definitely stand up to questioning. I highly recommend you check out Stand To Reason and Cross Examined, two sites that do an excellent job discussing a wide range of questions about the validity/hisotricity of the Bible, of Jesus, all of that.
All the questions you have are exactly the questions my spouse and I have. Matter of fact the first commandment in the Old Testament says have no other gods before me, yet Christianity tells you that you can't get to God unless you believe in jesus. Well that right there is heresy in my opinion because I only believe in God. And I can talk to God anytime and I don't have to go through anybody to talk to God. We were in a Bible study and anytime we brought up questions such as this, they got very defensive. So we finally just quit the Bible study altogether. This coming from a couple who got totally burned by their church, but continued in the faith.
Christ is the fullness of deity in Human Flesh, according to scripture. He is as much God as is God the Father and the Holy Spirit. One God expressing Himself as 3 persons.
I am just pondering... I have questions like how did people get to Heaven before Jesus came along? If we are ALL God's children, why must we go through Jesus only to get to God? How are we not certain that Jesus is not meant to be a deception (all depictions of him make him look beautiful, as though he himself was an angel... was he a fallen one?) Why is it to be said that if you die but are brought back to life, many who CLAIM to have seen Jesus were told that He would not show them his face and that if they did see His face, they would not be saved/brought back to life (such as on ER table or something)
Just more and more I try to get closer to God, to my faith, the more that things are not sitting right with me, the more I am questioning things that I thought I believed.
Can't one believe in God without not being so sure that everything we THINK we know and have been told about Jesus is correct?
Jesus being God who came in human form to live the life we can never achieve, sinless. Then he willingly went to the cross as our sacrificial lamb which had to be perfect. If you want I would be glad to help you with your questions.
This is one of my biggest questions as well. Everytime I ask others about this they just tell me that Jesus is God. But to be honest, the whole trinity thing is very difficult for me to understand. I've gone out of my way to read and study and learn as much as possible about it, but I have a very hard time with this.
Yes, we are children of God, and yes, he lives in believers (John 14:21).
Jesus is unique. In John 3:16 the Greek behind “one and only son” literally means unique or one of a kind. In John 1:1-2 Jesus is described as the word who was in the beginning with God. In John 8:58, Jesus’a “I am” statement is claiming to preexist Abraham, and the statement is linked to God’s name as revealed to Moses in Exodus 3:14. The audience who heard him say this realized he was claiming divinity and picked up stones to kill him on the spot.
You should ask questions, ask all the questions you have. If your bible study group can’t answer them that doesn’t mean the answers don’t exist. For God says if you seek me with your whole heart you will find me.
Anyway... who were Mary and Joseph PRIOR to becoming the earth born parents of Jesus?
The information that we have doesn’t speak much to that. Joseph was a carpenter.
What happened to Joseph later in the story as he is not mentioned much, especially being at Jesus's crucifixion?
There isn’t any intimation. Most of the gospel content is about Jesus’s ministry that started when he was 30 years old so it is possible (speculation) that Joseph was no longer alive at that point.
If God knows and LOVES us before we were born, why is it that one must go through Jesus in order to get to Heaven?
Jesus’s words in John 3:16-21 are a good place to start. It makes more sense to read this whole paragraph than just the famous 3:16 verse. People’s works are evil, and they will be condemned unless they believe in Jesus. Yes, God loves us. The situation is that God has given us the freedom to decide how we want to live. We can believe he exists and f that Jesus is the son of God, or we can reject him.
Why is Jesus tied to so many symbolism that the cabal/Illuminati/evil elites/whatever you want to call them also tied to?
I’m not certain that I understand the question but will try. 1 John is a short book in the New Testament that would be a good read, particularly chapter 4. There are deceivers inside the church and outside. Wearing a cross shaped necklace doesn’t guarantee someone’s behavior. I’d also point to Ephesians 6:12- that in this world we are watching a spiritual battle of good versus evil.
I encourage you to check out c/christianty and post this over there if u feel led. Feel free to reach out privately if u ever need prayer or a fren. Keep seeking fren.
Also we have created a network called prayer Garden. We currently have a discord server where these type of discussion are common. Let me know if u feel led to join and I can send u the link. No pressure either way
Also, on my search for "Who really is Jesus", I came across a story about Jesus as told by believers in India. They believe he existed, and that he had very powerful abilities, and they say he didn't die during the crucifixion, that when he was taken down from the cross he was still alive, and was snuck out of town, and went to India with Mary and lived out his life to a very old age there, continuing his teachings there, so there is a group of people in India who believe in Jesus and have a shrine for him and one for Mary. They also claim that Jesus spent many years there before his adult appearance in the bible, then returned to his homeland to teach the wisdom he learned in India, and that this could explain the similarities in Buddhism and some of Jesus' teachings.
I'm not saying any of this is true, I'm just saying this story exists and people there believe this.
It's also interesting to see what Muslims believe about Jesus, they consider him a prophet, and very much believe in him, but they also believe he didn't die that day, and that he is not God.
I'm not sharing this to say Christianity is wrong, I'm just sharing it because I like to know all sides of a story and find this fascinating. So when I started trying to better understand Jesus, I looked everywhere, both in and out of the Christian faith.
I hold a Bible study weekly and one of my rules is that we will openly discuss what we study without being critical of what members say or ask. I believe the main essential is Jesus is God, he created us, he died for our sins, he was buried and resurrected 3 days later, he ascended to take up his Heavenly throne, and he comi g back to judge the nations. I am open to answering any questions and if I do not have the answer we will study the word together to find one.
Firstly, the Bible we have today is very different from the Bible we had 100 years ago, even though the source material hasn't changed. Then compound the fact that the Bible we have today was translated from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English. Some things are bound to get lost in that game of telephone. God gave his word to the Jews and so it is important to grasp the language and culture. For instance, Jesus' in the Hebrew is Yashua which literally means salvation. I don't know about anyone else, but i had never seen or heard that name before i started to expand my study on my own. When you study the Bible with a concordance a lot of things change. For instance, the word for firmament, raqiya (raw-kee-ah) is more accurately translated to expanse. FEs use this word to "support" their theory because they think of the word as a meaning a barrier. The word "servant" inthe new testament is doulos (doo'-los) which means slave. This is changed in today's versions to be less offensive. "Biblical scholars" justify the change saying paul used the word in the Hebrew meaning. But why would Paul identifying as a Greek writing to the Greeks in Greek use a Hebrew meaning for one word? There are many more examples but all of these examples are intended to express the necessity of studying the word. However, these "inconsistencies" do not detract from the harmony of the Bible and in fact when you study with even a little understanding of jewish culture it enhance the awe when you begin to learn about God's law and prophecies and Jesus's fulfillment of them.
Secondly, God told us how to get to him. Think of it like giving direction to your house. If someone doesn't follow the directions you give them they don't get to your house. If you tell them to go left at 9th street and they go right, they don't get there. The perfect God of the universe gave use a way to be with him.
Thirdly, symbolism is twisted by Satan. Think of how the rainbow 🌈, God's covenant seal to never again flood the earth with water has been coopted and corrupted by the LGBT crowd. The symbolism you see in media is a corruption of what God uses it for.
I hope this helps. I pray you allow God to guided your journey in discovering better who he is.
I think the simplest terms that I have come to to understand the way things work is this:
Jesus means Savior, Christ means chosen One. Essentially evil controls the world that God made for humans. People have to die to enter the next dimension. Evil thrives on the blood of humans and death. It is also the currency of the spirit realm (I haven't quite figured this out yet) blood shed can activate power from the spirit world. i.e. OT animal sacrifice to cover our inadequate deeds compared to God's perfection. (again we are enslaved by evil and only death frees us) God cannot coexist with evil and since people are enslaved by the evil empire of the world we are separated from God. _ Jesus is the human representation of God and that idea that God Himself became human so he could, in a massive troll to the evil empire, die (blood shed) to pay the spirit world demand for blood from a human. Since He was God he was not subject to death the same way we are. He broke the evil system that was trying to prevent us from being with God.
I would love to participate in a Bible study group where we can ask questions openly and honestly because anyone who truly studies the Bible has got to have questions.
I also want to say that the current Bible with 66 books is only a small part of the original material and so I'm guessing there are answers in other books of the Bible. I am very interested in the book of Enoch as I've been told there is lots of interesting stuff in it.
Please feel free to contact me for doing an online study.
I have a naturally distrusting personality which has always made religion hard for me, because when I have a serious question but get shut down for even asking in the first place, then it just ends up making me distrust the whole thing.
I do make a huge effort to understand who Jesus is, but ultimately this is the biggest speedbump in my journey, because I have so many questions that seem to make believers uncomfortable. As well as the bible itself, which we are told is the word of God and is perfect, but it was written by man, and man makes mistakes. Man also deceives. And since it was written over a vast span of time, and translated over a vast span of time, this seems to leave a lot of room (in my opinion) for mistakes or deceit. Every time I ask a believer about this, the answer I always get is "God would not allow that to happen." Maybe so, but that sounds exactly like something a human would say when their spiritual worldview is questioned. So how am I, a person who questions everything, supposed to get to a place where I'm comfortable that the bible is perfect?
I very much believe in God and in Jesus, but I don't feel like I "know" them because of all my questions. I also don't believe a human can answer my questions, so I just ask them strait to God. I'm still waiting for many of those answers, but I will tell you, some of my early questions, when I first came back to the bible, were answered for me instantly, and it shook me a bit, enough to scare me into being a believer. All though the way I was told to seek out those answers also makes some other believers uncomfortable, but it was a way of using the bible that a Chirstian woman taught me 30 years ago.
"I also don't believe a human can answer my questions, so I just ask them strait to God."
This is obviously true for most people including me. This is why I long ago sought to find the truth myself. To keep this short, I was struck by Thomas Aquinas writings and his observances of man's relationship to Nature. He contextualized man's law as it relates to the manifestations of God's creation. Aquinas spoke of the Laws of Nature and Eternal Law, but no where did I find in his writings or any writings whatsoever what those Laws actually were. So, I was led on a quest to find out for myself. After more than 20 years of research, I have not only found the answer, but have constantly expanded the scientific proofs of it. And it fits perfectly into biblical understanding and reveals the understanding of the [holy] Spirit. From this reference the bible is understood.
Too many christians worship the Bible as their god. I have the same reservations as you. I also have a hard time with the idea that literary ability is path to God. I suffer with reading dyslexia and I have a hard time comprehending when I read due to the way I see words and the distraction that it causes. To make reading comprehension the gateway to God doesn't make sense to me.
You can contact me with any question and I will not shut you down. I believe our creator wants us to ask hard questions.
All of God’s children will be saved.
Christianity can definitely stand up to questioning. I highly recommend you check out Stand To Reason and Cross Examined, two sites that do an excellent job discussing a wide range of questions about the validity/hisotricity of the Bible, of Jesus, all of that.
Good luck!
All the questions you have are exactly the questions my spouse and I have. Matter of fact the first commandment in the Old Testament says have no other gods before me, yet Christianity tells you that you can't get to God unless you believe in jesus. Well that right there is heresy in my opinion because I only believe in God. And I can talk to God anytime and I don't have to go through anybody to talk to God. We were in a Bible study and anytime we brought up questions such as this, they got very defensive. So we finally just quit the Bible study altogether. This coming from a couple who got totally burned by their church, but continued in the faith.
Christ is the fullness of deity in Human Flesh, according to scripture. He is as much God as is God the Father and the Holy Spirit. One God expressing Himself as 3 persons.
When you look at Jesus you are looking at God fren.
According to his word, when I look at another person I'm looking at Him.
Yes, the last and best of God's revelation.
Let's chat. I do not have all of the answers. God is not offended by question. Just look at all of the questions King David had.
He told us in His Word to seek him with all our heart and you will find Him.
I am just pondering... I have questions like how did people get to Heaven before Jesus came along? If we are ALL God's children, why must we go through Jesus only to get to God? How are we not certain that Jesus is not meant to be a deception (all depictions of him make him look beautiful, as though he himself was an angel... was he a fallen one?) Why is it to be said that if you die but are brought back to life, many who CLAIM to have seen Jesus were told that He would not show them his face and that if they did see His face, they would not be saved/brought back to life (such as on ER table or something)
Just more and more I try to get closer to God, to my faith, the more that things are not sitting right with me, the more I am questioning things that I thought I believed.
Can't one believe in God without not being so sure that everything we THINK we know and have been told about Jesus is correct?
Jesus being God who came in human form to live the life we can never achieve, sinless. Then he willingly went to the cross as our sacrificial lamb which had to be perfect. If you want I would be glad to help you with your questions.
This is one of my biggest questions as well. Everytime I ask others about this they just tell me that Jesus is God. But to be honest, the whole trinity thing is very difficult for me to understand. I've gone out of my way to read and study and learn as much as possible about it, but I have a very hard time with this.
Ditto
Let us chat.
I am not certain that Jesus is God, that they are one in the same myself
In John 10:30, Jesus says “I and the Father are one.”
But aren't we all children of god? And doesn't he reside in all of us?
Yes, we are children of God, and yes, he lives in believers (John 14:21).
Jesus is unique. In John 3:16 the Greek behind “one and only son” literally means unique or one of a kind. In John 1:1-2 Jesus is described as the word who was in the beginning with God. In John 8:58, Jesus’a “I am” statement is claiming to preexist Abraham, and the statement is linked to God’s name as revealed to Moses in Exodus 3:14. The audience who heard him say this realized he was claiming divinity and picked up stones to kill him on the spot.
You should ask questions, ask all the questions you have. If your bible study group can’t answer them that doesn’t mean the answers don’t exist. For God says if you seek me with your whole heart you will find me.
Thank you for that :D
The information that we have doesn’t speak much to that. Joseph was a carpenter.
There isn’t any intimation. Most of the gospel content is about Jesus’s ministry that started when he was 30 years old so it is possible (speculation) that Joseph was no longer alive at that point.
Jesus’s words in John 3:16-21 are a good place to start. It makes more sense to read this whole paragraph than just the famous 3:16 verse. People’s works are evil, and they will be condemned unless they believe in Jesus. Yes, God loves us. The situation is that God has given us the freedom to decide how we want to live. We can believe he exists and f that Jesus is the son of God, or we can reject him.
I’m not certain that I understand the question but will try. 1 John is a short book in the New Testament that would be a good read, particularly chapter 4. There are deceivers inside the church and outside. Wearing a cross shaped necklace doesn’t guarantee someone’s behavior. I’d also point to Ephesians 6:12- that in this world we are watching a spiritual battle of good versus evil.
I encourage you to check out c/christianty and post this over there if u feel led. Feel free to reach out privately if u ever need prayer or a fren. Keep seeking fren.
Also we have created a network called prayer Garden. We currently have a discord server where these type of discussion are common. Let me know if u feel led to join and I can send u the link. No pressure either way
Also, on my search for "Who really is Jesus", I came across a story about Jesus as told by believers in India. They believe he existed, and that he had very powerful abilities, and they say he didn't die during the crucifixion, that when he was taken down from the cross he was still alive, and was snuck out of town, and went to India with Mary and lived out his life to a very old age there, continuing his teachings there, so there is a group of people in India who believe in Jesus and have a shrine for him and one for Mary. They also claim that Jesus spent many years there before his adult appearance in the bible, then returned to his homeland to teach the wisdom he learned in India, and that this could explain the similarities in Buddhism and some of Jesus' teachings.
I'm not saying any of this is true, I'm just saying this story exists and people there believe this.
It's also interesting to see what Muslims believe about Jesus, they consider him a prophet, and very much believe in him, but they also believe he didn't die that day, and that he is not God.
I'm not sharing this to say Christianity is wrong, I'm just sharing it because I like to know all sides of a story and find this fascinating. So when I started trying to better understand Jesus, I looked everywhere, both in and out of the Christian faith.
I hold a Bible study weekly and one of my rules is that we will openly discuss what we study without being critical of what members say or ask. I believe the main essential is Jesus is God, he created us, he died for our sins, he was buried and resurrected 3 days later, he ascended to take up his Heavenly throne, and he comi g back to judge the nations. I am open to answering any questions and if I do not have the answer we will study the word together to find one.
Firstly, the Bible we have today is very different from the Bible we had 100 years ago, even though the source material hasn't changed. Then compound the fact that the Bible we have today was translated from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English. Some things are bound to get lost in that game of telephone. God gave his word to the Jews and so it is important to grasp the language and culture. For instance, Jesus' in the Hebrew is Yashua which literally means salvation. I don't know about anyone else, but i had never seen or heard that name before i started to expand my study on my own. When you study the Bible with a concordance a lot of things change. For instance, the word for firmament, raqiya (raw-kee-ah) is more accurately translated to expanse. FEs use this word to "support" their theory because they think of the word as a meaning a barrier. The word "servant" inthe new testament is doulos (doo'-los) which means slave. This is changed in today's versions to be less offensive. "Biblical scholars" justify the change saying paul used the word in the Hebrew meaning. But why would Paul identifying as a Greek writing to the Greeks in Greek use a Hebrew meaning for one word? There are many more examples but all of these examples are intended to express the necessity of studying the word. However, these "inconsistencies" do not detract from the harmony of the Bible and in fact when you study with even a little understanding of jewish culture it enhance the awe when you begin to learn about God's law and prophecies and Jesus's fulfillment of them.
Secondly, God told us how to get to him. Think of it like giving direction to your house. If someone doesn't follow the directions you give them they don't get to your house. If you tell them to go left at 9th street and they go right, they don't get there. The perfect God of the universe gave use a way to be with him.
Thirdly, symbolism is twisted by Satan. Think of how the rainbow 🌈, God's covenant seal to never again flood the earth with water has been coopted and corrupted by the LGBT crowd. The symbolism you see in media is a corruption of what God uses it for.
I hope this helps. I pray you allow God to guided your journey in discovering better who he is.
Jesus was a Mushroom. More specifically an Amanita Muscaria.