First Steps In The Faith
Understanding the core essentials of the Christian Faith.
Author: Randy Pritts
First Steps - The baby steps
We've all had to start walking the Christian Faith somewhere and some point. My consideration today is, having walked this faith for over forty years/having stumbled and fallen back sorry to say as many times as I have, where best for a new or younger Christian to exert their effort? Many would say "read and read and read your Bible". I would agree, start with the milk but desire the meat of God's holy word.
We are told of a generation that is "ever learning" but never coming to the knowledge of God. Let's promise each other not to become the fulfillment of that!
Reading the Word can be very difficult in the beginning however, and many people's well intentioned effort can get bogged down in the weight and heaviness of the language and historical distance of the full text. I caution you on that. Reading the Bible is not like reading a book, it is more like reading 66 books and several difficult and foriegn literary styles without knowing at first how to tie the teachings and story line all together. Therefore, I would suggest beginning by limiting the reading to just the four gospels Matthew Mark Luke and John. Perhaps then branching out into the Acts and Letters of John just to get one's feet wet.
I also suggest an early and frequent supplemental exercise into the historic Creeds, Catechisms, and Confessions. It's not that these articles of the Faith are on the same level as the infallible Word, it is that they are launching point from which to sail into the scriptures, especially the better ones that are annotated with scriptural references and links. Visit and explore those articles, ponder and consider, check them up against the scriptures that they claim to represent. This is a very healthy exercise even from day one. Surely you have questions and personal interests that you would rather get right to and not have to wait until reading through the entire bible just to address. Keep on the reading the Bible bandwagon alongside of this and I think that your learning to walk with Christ will be that much more accelerated.
I would keep from printed commentaries though, at least for the first year. It is tempting to read through a commentary when encountering a difficult passage, have someone longer at it to explain it to you. It also can be very confusing, for you will find a thousand learned commenters telling you a hundred different things depending on their personal biases. I would also stay away from published Christian fiction and non-fiction for that reason as well.
The next toddler steps:
Once one is comfortable with the teachings of Jesus and those that followed Him, I believe it is time to spread your Bible reading wings a little bit further. It is time to start trying to live it out in one's personal life. This is largely trial and error, reproof and correction, seeking and asking and praying and perhaps most importantly peeking in on the paternal fathers of the Old Testament. This would be Abraham, Isaac, Jacob etc... most of them found in the mid to late Book of Genesis. Moses and David are two other really good examples of men attempting best they could to walk the Faith just as you are, and all the mistakes and corrections they had to make along the way before their steps became sure and productive. There is no way around this, if you want to walk the Faith you have to be willing to make these mistakes and recover, this is just the way it has always been.
Maybe then the first five books (called The Torah by the Hebrews) would be digestible. There too you will see that man and the works of man are not the answer, we do not earn our salvation by works, not even religious works. So often we fail as did Israel at these works. Salvation is by Grace and Mercy and Judicial Substitution which ultimately is found only in Christ Jesus, else we would not be eligible partakers of it.
From there we'd move out into the Judges and the Kings and the Chronicles, explore further the inabilities of man and the long-suffering patience of God. Remember that throughout all this reading we are putting the practical matters of these teaching into daily living. Book knowledge alone is not the same as knowledge in its' better sense. There are plenty of do nothing Bible brainiacs already, we don't need to fill the pews with any more.
Eventually, you'll begin to see this collection of books as one unified story. Eternal God from everlasting past to everlasting future reaching down into the here and now to quicken the deadened spirits of fallen man by the injection of HIS only-begotten Son, through whom and for whom everything was created including man who is preordained to become conformed to the image of this Son. You'll begin to see the fulfillment of an unconditional promise in Genesis 3 play out generation, exposing man, confronting man, covering man with the imputation of His good nature, stomping the head of the serpent. What was at first a hodgepodge collection of odd archiac books will turn suddenly into the most profound message ever sent, a unified message - unified to the miraculous nth degree. There is no other book such as this Bible and there is no other such a living and Spirit led Faith.
The biggest step is the first.
I was much too young then to still remember my first step. It was probably from the sofa cushion to the coffee table head first (maybe that is why I don't remember it). That first step however, painful as it must have been, must have given me the confidence that I could succeed and that I wanted that no matter how much more painful the journey forward would cost. I am trusting that you will gain the same confidence in your spiritual walk as well.
The first step essentially is to let go of your safe place past, do something completely illogical to the mindset you've held up to now. In Christian terms that means to repent, which is to to turn around about face. Yes, that was the direction you were going up till now, now this is the direction you'll be led towards to get to your final destination. Doesn't have to be much harder than that, that was south, this is north, that was twisted and circular, this is strait, that is where I didn't want to end up, this is where I would much rather. In Christ now we are pointed towards our ultimate destination, no looking back.
EDIT: CONTINUE TO REVAMP
Jesus Christ - The Core Essential.
Far too many people think of Christianity as one of the world's major religions. It is not a religion first and foremost, it is about a person, who that person claims to be, what that person has accomplished on our behalf, and our relationship to that. You see, world religions depend too much on what we are able to do for ourselves and what we are able to do for God. Christianity in it's truest sense is not any of this. Perhaps the following statement puts it best:
What man was unable to do for himself in that he was unwilling and spiritually incapable, God did for man through the spiritual accomplishments of HIS only begotten Son.
There are plenty of scriptural proofs for this.
EDIT: SCRIPTURAL PROOFS
Our estimation of ourselves greatly influences our estimation of Jesus.
We live in a generation that thinks quite highly of itself, our individual beliefs are a product of that. What shall we say is the justification for such high mindedness? What are our evidences? Such a belief surely involves a good deal of generational snobbery (my generation is better than the previous just cause I say it is) and latent progressivism (every step we take progresses us forward not set us back). Therefore, this generation has very little use for a Christ the size of Jesus. We just need an itty-bitty little Jesus as wing man guarding our back.
Not only is this generation snobbish towards the past, more and more we are also becoming very relative minded. It really doesn't matter what one believes, or why they believe it, it is their belief no matter. All beliefs in this world view are essentially the same, one of those whatever "floats your boat" "if it feels good" "atleast he believes in something" crutches. Here again the emphasis is on self, what serves self's needs best, respecting other's self, not about the only begotten Jesus.
Perhaps the reason why there was such explosive growth in the Christian Church those first initial centuries was because so many people saw through this generational self deceit, too many of the previous generations on this merry-go-round world view had failed them, they had come to see things not as "us" (what I or we can do or keep doing), but in terms of Christ Jesus (sent by God as a full and satisfactory soul quickening answer). Perhaps the following statement can expresses this essential best:
Man is not who he thinks himself to be, neither is the high minded man's Christ.
EDIT: SCRIPTURAL PROOFS
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