My faith is tested enough just by going to bible study twice a week. I am no stranger to early crises of faith. I read on it, I study, I read various viewpoints, and I pray--a lot. I trust in Jesus and the Holy Ghost to guide me to wisdom. A faith untested is a weak faith; I praise God every time my faith is tested, because it is only made that much stronger. His tests are an act of love. I spent 30 years of my life figuratively (and literally) spitting on the bible. I grew up with "bible bullies" and I myself was a militant anti-theist my whole life. I know both sides of the coin. I appreciate the warnings, but choose to ignore such cynicism. FYI, as a "welcome" thread, the whole "get out while you can," attitude isn't the best look. Just saying.
you have a good basis, but I would avoid theology sections of the forum. Just stay in the uplifting sections. People tend to flock to contradiction and controversy. Negative news always sells more news paper than positive uplifting news so people tend to migrate toward theological error and problems. In order to try and solve it all. I can understand the temptation. But reading the word of God with a question mark in your head is limiting your spiritual growth. Only when you read it out of living and powerful faith, trusting God alone that every word is true, will you believe it. and if you don't believe it, when you read it. It is not performing the work it was meant to perform. Simply reading the Bible but not applying it is useless. Theology threads are typically created to answer a question. They are fatally tied to controversy, and not tied to faith in God that what He created and gave to us supernaturally is true. That is why I mention to simply read the Bible daily, read through all of it, old testament and new testament. On your own. I hold to the fifteen verse rule of hermeneutics. Simply read fifteen verses before and after any verse that someone quotes online to prove a point. To see for yourself if the context dictates that what is true is true. Every school in the world teaches reading comprehension, so if we simply read the Bible, no commentaries, not manuals, no handbooks. And just read through it, the actual scripture will cause life in our soul. But to be honest, more people leave the faith than stay in the faith here on this forum. It has flaws according to what I mention above. If you want to stay in the faith, you need to trust God alone. His word alone (sola scriptura). Don't trust man, any of them. They are beings of flesh, who manipulate for profit, even if they don't see it in themselves that they are monetizing the faith for gain. Churches are good, because they are surrounded around community not controversy. That is why I recommend twitter over this place. I go here to witness. But I only post one or two posts a day. The majority of my free time is in prayer, reading the Bible, or on twitter reading testimonies. I know that there is a part of each of us that want to figure everything out, before we dive in. But do you understand all the in's and outs of 24volt DC circuitry, micro processors, science of combustion small engines, transmission systems etc, before driving a car? Do you know the details of ethernet/IP, how signals travel in WIFI, or 5G or 4G, before using a computer or phone? No, we have faith that they work because countless lives have been changed by these devices. Well countless more lives through the centuries have been Changed by Christ. We don't have to figure everything out, we just have to start living for Him. When we make a bad decision, learn from it, repent of it, seek the Lord to gain victory over it. And repeat. Living in Holiness if far more important to God than sacrifice, than earning a seminary degree, or knowing everything about doctrine. I have been taught be they best schools, seminaries, and churches in the world by far. And I can tell you first hand that majority of theological topics posted here, make many assumptions not in the Bible. One we be better to just steer clear and read the Bible cover to cover. I use blue letter bible, for commentaries, and greek tools, as well as audio sermons on the Bible. But other than that, my thousands of dollars in scholarly software, lies dormant on my computer. over 10,000 books on christianity bought and read. But what I get more than anything else, is simply reading the Bible. God wrote the best book. The Bible is the best selling book by 30 to 1 over number two best selling book every year. There is a reason for that. Don't get caught up here, meet me over at twitter, follow some of the people I do, start finding your own inspirational christians. On twitter they don't get caught up in rapture debate, or are the gifts for today, controversy. They simply talk about how Jesus is stretching them and growing them to overcome personal limits they have on a daily basis. Overcomming life long addictive sins, and seeing the transforming aspect of Christ's power. Seeing that on a daily basis either reading in from the Bible, or seeing it in testimony form from other christians on twitter, is what you need. Where can you find that here? I try starting threads, they just die out, or a skeptic comes in and ruins the thread. On twitter it allows you to follow people other followers follow. So it keeps your feeds pure from outside skepticism. If you see something you don't like, you just block it. But if you blocked everything that was bad here, you would be doing more blocking than posting. Maybe in ten years after you have had some time under your belt, and have learned evangelism, and discipleship and what christianity is meant to accomplish, you can come back here as an advisor to those questioning the faith. But most likely you won't want to come back here. When you experience the living water for yourself, and realize the power of Christs love over sin, you will want to take even more steps of holiness in your life, consuming all things Christ. You won't honestly have time for reaching down and lifting people up. For ten years I evangelized and taught evangelism, and I wanted just one person to come to church with me. Then this last year as I rededicated my life to teh LOrd in all ways, I had two guys go to church with me from work. One guy brought his entire family, in laws and children. That never happens to me. I just wanted to share that there is more to christianity than what is seen in these forums. Just take a minute and read through the tweets of some of the people I follow, or just read some of the retweets I post. All of it is positive, no controversy, faith lifting, spirit supporting, fire catching, all of it.
check out some of them:
godsquadgeek follows these people
