Learning about Christianity

I think the best way is by reading the Bible, especially the New Testament.

 

Jordan B.Peterson is a professor who’s got a lot of lectures on Christianity, you should go on YouTube and see his series.

 

Read the New Testament, then read the Old Testament. Everything in the NT has been prefigured in the OT.

Next read the works of the Eearly Church Fathers. This is where you will find out what the early Christians believed. There are plenty of works that have been written by them such as The Didache.


“The Apostolic Fathers were Christian theologianswho lived in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, who are believed to have personally known some of the Twelve Apostles, or to have been significantly influenced by them.[5] Their writings, though popular in Early Christianity, were ultimately not included in the canon of the New Testament once it reached its final form. Many of the writings derive from the same time period and geographical location as other works of early Christian literature that did come to be part of the New Testament, and some of the writings found among the Apostolic Fathers' seem to have been just as highly regarded as some of the writings that became the New Testament.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Fathers

Here’s another site where you can find their writings for free: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/


It’s startling how many Christians don’t know about them.

 

Good luck with that. Christians themselves can't decide what Christianity is.

 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/youngf...s-asks-questions-jordan-peterson-cant-answer/

 

Dude, who hurt you? It seems like it's your mission these days to mock Christians every chance you get. Makes me a bit sad, because we used to have a lot of views in common in that department, but something changed. Hope you can work that out in a healthy way.

I would agree with the above advice to start with the New Testament. I've heard that John is a good book to start with. But I would also recommend that you get a Bible that has some explanations in it as well, and provides some context at the beginning of each book, because that's very important. A lot of things can be confusing and misleading if you dont understand the context.

I have this Bible, and it's super cheap and small and simple, but before each book it has a description of what is going on in the book, so you understand the context.

https://www.christianbook.com/niv-c...tSPd3Ai_xDUxV8Jy34m3g859ETot3fkRoCnR0QAvD_BwE

Other Bibles I'm sure have even more extra stuff to explain things as well, so maybe try to look for something that says "Study Bible."

Also, another really important and valuable thing to do is find a good church to get involved in. Or even "shop around" for churches at first until you find one you are comfortable at and then settle in and learn from the Pastors and the other members of the congregation there. Through that you will have opportunities to get involved in smaller group Bible studies and such as well, which would be really beneficial, not just to read the words yourself and rely on your own understanding, but to be able to ask the people around you for help and clarification, from people who have studied these things and probably know a lot more than you on the subject.

I really can't stress the church part enough. I know a lot of people dont feel comfortable with church, but I really dont think you can have the same kind of experience learning about God without having a church you are a part of. We are designed to need community, and it is so so beneficial in so many ways. As an introvert, I've tried to reject my need for community with other believers many times, and it's never been good for me. Every time I've stepped out in obedience and sought to learn with others and grow together it has been such an enriching experience. So I really hope you find a community and a church that can help you along your journey!

 

I’d recommend looking through the first parts of the catechism, as it explains the basics of Christian underderstanding, particularly Part I Section 1. http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM

It will also give good references to various bible passages so you can follow along. Just reading the bible cover to cover with no background can be daunting, especially if you are just looking into things initially.

Also, your local Church should be starting a class called RCIA, or the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults. Most have it on a weekly basis from about September until Easter. They’ll cover a lot of topics, and there is no obligation to join the Church. Consider it like auditing a class.

 

Oh, I’d recommend getting the bible app from bible.com. It has multiple versions of the bible available so that you can compare translations. It’s also free, including the translations.

Multiple translations are required because:

1) No translation of any document will be perfect. Translators are required to choose between literal translations, and dynamic equivalencies. For instance, In Arabic, the words for motorcycle are literally “fire bike.” In English, fire bike is not a synonym for motorcycle. Also, figures of speech are often different. Translators will choose different methods based on their goals, say readability vs accuracy.

2). Every translators has a built in bias, and this tends to become for evident in dynamic equivalence translations.

As a result, cross checking multiple translations help.

 

I'm a bit confused by what you've said here. In some areas, I agree with you and other areas I strongly disagree with you. I could understand you'd say this if you knew me 5 years ago because my beliefs have changed since then, but I've not changed in the last year. Maybe I haven't communicated well what I believe or you've misunderstood my beliefs.

I'm not trying to mock Christians, I'm just pointing different Christians have different ideas as to what it means to be Christians. In a Facebook group I'm in I ask what someone has to believe to be a Christian and I got about 6 different answers and then some of the Christians started arguing amongst themselves as to what it means to be a Christian. To be fair the argument was civil but they were still arguing. But I'm not surprised since I've been around Christians long enough to know that Christians have different ideas as to what a Christian should believe.

 

@Wave Surfer brings up a valid observation regarding Christianity in our present day, and that is that there is a division amongst them. However, if one is to trace back the history of Christendom we do find that it wasn’t always like this. Like Judaism there was an orthodoxy amongst Christians which provided a uniformity of belief, making Christianity a culture where the doctrines were universally held by all Christians regardless of where you were geographically.

The oldest rift started with the addition of the Filioque which caused a rift between the Eastern and Western Churches in 1000ad. This was known as the Great Schism. The next big and final rift that lead to heterodoxy and ultimately the entire dismantling of uniformity was the Protestant revolt in 1500 started by Martin Luther. Ever since then Christianity hasn’t been the same. Sadly Luther’s type of break has lead to the creation of so many different sub sects of Christian denominations that most Christians don’t know anything of their own history nor do they have uniformity of belief (orthodoxy) which made them a culture/nation of people.

 

If you prefer podcasts, Apologist Matt Fradd has started a podcast called Bible History. It’s working its way through the bible in about 7-10 minute episodes. Search for bible history matt fradd if you are interested in your favorite podcast app.