A question/guidance for Christians please

[whatcanidotobelieve]

I think that really want to believe. I want to have faith. I want it so badly but I struggle to really accept the bible and its teachings. I have grown up in a religious country and a somewhat religious family, but as a scientist and seeing the hypocrisy of many christians from my hometown (in N Ireland), I struggle with the whole God/Jesus/Bible concept.

I'm not sure what I'm asking...I just wanted to see if anyone could help me?

Of course until at least the 2 century CE they were just Jews who (largely) believed Jesus was the son of God (although this wasn’t universal).

if you read Galatian’s 2 11-19 it’s clear Peter and Paul had very different ideas about whether the Jesus sect should be for Jews only rather than also for Gentiles.

OP following a religion, or trying to gain inspiration from it, is a way of life.
it's a question of what you deem most important.
remember that for the vast majority of people their religious faith and practice is not an intellectual pursuit.
that is why most people do not change religions; they don't look around and analyse and compare, like car insurance.
they participate, or not, in a shared way of life, a community.
so why don't you just try going along to some services or activities at a few mainstream churches near you.
not wacky off the wall ones. eg try RC, Methodist, Anglican.

I agree alex. When we were first married, we 'shopped around' various churches local to us. But we never settled, because we never felt that they quite fitted.
Now we have settled in a church. It's not always a perfect fit, but we've come to realise that that isn't the point. The point is that we accept that we can't have everything our own way, but we move within that framework. Sorry, clumsily put.
I find it very useful when, at the start of Communion, we say out loud that we are all one body, because we share in the body of Christ. So that's some people in the congregation that I don't like very much. But I have to set aside those feelings.

Thank you to everyone who has replied to this thread...I have found your responses helpful, educated and encouraging.

I have now researched a church I might like to try...it is interdenominational, which is what I want after growing up in N Ireland.

I'm wondering about going there with my young children this Sunday to try...I feel quite self conscious about this, and nervous about going...I'm not sure why..

Good luck, you’re bound to feel nervous doing something for the first time, hopefully everyone will make you feel welcome, I’m sure they will esp as you will have your kids with you. If you still don’t feel comfortable after you’ve been try somewhere else.

Don’t be nervous, OP! Go a few times to give them a fair trial, and tell them you feel a bit anxious, being new - give them the opportunity to reassure you. Many churches have an elder on meet and greet duty at the door (all our Church of Scotland ones do, there’s a rota), who will get you a hymn book and see you into a pew, make a few introductions for you, etc.
There’s usually tea and bikkies after the service too - a good time to chat to your new fellow worshippers.
Remember that it’s Jesus who is hosting you in His Father’s house, and He welcomes you unreservedly, however well or badly His followers model his welcome.
God bless you, and may this be the start of a long and happy journey of faith for you.

@whatcanidotobelieve
Don't be nervous op, best of luck with finding your new spiritual home x

@OMG12
- you seem to be drawing a link between the two. I asked you to explain why.

Didn't watch the vid - evidence towards the gospel of Thomas being false is enough for me. If I remember correctly, the DaVinci Code is based around the mad idea that Jesus married and had children with Mary Magdalene. This stemmed from another gnostic gospel (Philip) which is incomplete and mentions Jesus kissing Mary.

I don’t understand why you want to believe in something that is not true.

2 Peter 3:14-16
Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. 15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

They might have had a difference of opinion initially but Peter had great respect for Paul's teaching and they were martyred at the same time.

Paul also had a vision where he was told to eat unclean meat. He describes in Acts 11 how it later led him to the conclusion that “To the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

Try visiting an evangelist church

That should say Peter had a vision, not Paul.

What makes you so sure it isn't?

@Babdoc Today I really needed reminding of God's unconditional love, welcoming arms and his never ending grace, and stumbling upon this thread led me to you. Thank you and bless you.

OP I think by the fact you've posted this God is calling on you, his child - pray alone, where ever you are, doesn't have to be out loud! Build a relationship by talking to him randomly throughout the day. See what happens. Easy as that x

PhyllisVance23, thank you for your kind words of appreciation. It sounds like today may have been a difficult time for you, so I will pop you into my prayers tonight, and hope that tomorrow is a better day.

There’s a great bit of research by a highly respected scholar Dr Justin Sledge which indicates the very strong likelihood Paul was a Jewish Mystic and initiated into a Jewish mystery school. If so, it would seem he broke his oaths. Maybe Peter joined the Jewish mystery school hence his vision and change of opinion of Paul.

Taking this to its logical conclusion it would appear Christianity started as Jewish Mysticism (this would tie into the Gospels very well and probably necessitates revisiting much of the symbolism in the NT as well as Christian practice, esp since the Reformation.

Quite exciting where that would lead.

Re the Gospel of Thomas, you really should read it, I’m disappointed you didn’t watch the video as it gives a much more balanced view than the one you presented. Why would Jesus not have kissed a woman? Why is the idea “mad”, in fact it’s probably stranger to think he didn’t, esp when taken symbolically (and even more do in the light of a Jewish mysticism link)

This is probably one of the key points shown in a much earlier study

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/harvard-theological-review/article/abs/paradise-revisited-2-cor-12112-the-jewish-mystical-background-of-pauls-apostolate-part-1-the-jewish-sources/5C32143E66F8EFC01410BEE920A7B0DB

Hi OP. Just seen this thread. How did it go, if you went to the church?

I was wondering if you had seen Tim Keller’s very helpful books Making Sense of God and The Reason for God. They were born out of many conversations he had with sceptical New Yorkers (he led a church there) and they answer quite a few questions.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Making-Sense-God-Invitation-Sceptical-ebook/dp/B01ARXVWBK/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=3LN1AMGMJCDYO&keywords=making+sense+of+god&qid=1685211294&sprefix=makinh+sense+%2Caps%2C95&sr=8-1
Currently £2.99.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reason-God-Belief-age-scepticism-ebook/dp/B00319M6TK/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=AYUNTRMJJ17P&keywords=the+reason+for+god+tim+keller&qid=1685211347&sprefix=the+reason+fir+god%2Caps%2C76&sr=8-1

Also, have you considered an Alpha course?

All the best with your search. I did a similar one years ago.

Hi OP. I have just seen this thread so hope I am not too late. This is just my view, and others may not agree, but I find that the emphasis on the bible is really distracting and unnecessary, particularly as there is so much disagreement about it and it is inconsistent and contradictory in places. I grew up not so much with the bible as knowing about Jesus, and was taught the gospels, particularly Matthew in school.

My point now is that all that really matters is Jesus, and his teaching and example. The Old Testatement bible has the 10 commandments, and other proscriptions about behaviour, but Jesus himself said that all the commandments were subsumed in his new commandments - to love God with all ones heart and mind, and to love ones neighbour as ourselves.
St.Paul in the New Testament also generates controversy about what he said, and although he is a great spiritual teacher it is unclear what he meant in places and even if he wrote some of his epistles.

If you keep to Jesus and what he taught us, you cannot go wrong. All the rest is extra information as far as I can understand it. After all, we are called Christians because we believe in Christ. All the rest is secondary, I believe.

Also, about the post just before mine from Skye99, I should like to point out that Tim Keller among other things, believed that wives should submit to their husbands, and his wife did so to him. This is part of "complementarian" belief, based on a few isolated and highly selecltive texts from the bible, particularly St. Paul in the New Testament. Complementarians say they believe women are equal to men, but in fact everything about their beliefs is that women are subordinate, in church and the home, and even for some of them, in the world in general.
I thought I would just point this out as evangelical beliefs such as the Alpha Course are quite pushy, and in my view at least have little to do with Jesus. Jesus never said anything about male/female relationships.

Years ago, in my first marriage, when my late husband was being very difficult, I passed a 'wayside pulpit' asking: What would Jesus have done? The answer came to me in a split second, far faster than I could think: He didn't get married! I laughed all the way home.

I'm very much enjoying this thread. For a member of a dwindling elderly rural congregation, it is lovely to discover and hear the voices of people of faith discussing such important matters. Thank you all.

Lovely to see you join this thread. I’m interested to know if you don’t think there should be such emphasis on the bible, where do you get to know the teachings of Jesus.

What an interesting question, @OMG12. I think the concept of 'reading the Bible' is complicated. Which translation? How do we deal with discrepancies in narratives? The view of God in the Old Testament is far from that of a loving father... I think I treat it as a glimpse into times long gone, and the gospels as showing Jesus' life demonstrating possibilities of strength and kindness and self-knowlege that I can only aspire to.

Hope things are going well OP.
Don't forget to read the Gospels to start with.

i guess this is what I’m getting at how would you know Jesus if not through reading the Bible (I have my own take on that - but im
an occultist so might not fit in with the regular Christian view)

If you want to know Jesus, I think you do need to know the Gospels. I have a version of them in the language of the Authorized Version that brings the 4 gospels together, and so you can get to understand his life from conception to resurrection. It may still be available. (I'm too tired to go and look for it; it is American, and prepared by S. Baird Whitlock.)

Last night I fell asleep listening to Agatha Christie onYouTube, and woke in the night to someone (David Suchet?) reading one of the Gospels, telling how Jesus sent out disciples two by two. Really well read! So there's an idea: listen to the Gospel stories.

I had the car radio on this morning: novelist Kate Mosse, on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, and she talked about TS Eliot s 'The Waste Land' as poem of faith, not religion. If you've never read it, it's worth seeing if it speaks to you. There are some very good audio recordings that make it more accessible.

Finally, you have to be open to hearing and listening to God when you are spoke to. If you are 'artistic' in any way, you could try 'The Artist's Way' by Julia Cameron. Doing her 'morning pages' and the other exercises in the book has made me aware of God in odd ways and places.

If I recall @whatcanidotobelieve 's original post correctly, s/he wanted to explore Christian experiences different from those of childhood. @OMG12 I don't know your history, or what you mean by 'occultism', and I'm unsure of the details of what I believe. But 'Knock, and the door will open. Seek, and you will find.'

God bless you..