Introduction, Religious Questions

Noam111g said:

Hello, I'm Noam, 28, from Israel, working as a computer technician, also working at a hotel. In the near future I have plans to move to the US, probably Washington DC. I joined to discuss all types of subjects related to Christianity / Protestantism, but I have a few important questions to ask first. Some of them are just general questions about the religion and types of religion, but others are also related to my move from Judaism / messianic judaism to a form of Protestantism(which I plan to complete after moving to Washington DC as planned). I hope you can please answer all my questions? Thanks again.

1. Well basically, I was hoping if you can please explain what are the main differences between the 2 main types of Christianity, Catholic and Protestantism? And why is the Pope a bad figure in protestantism?

2. As far as I have seen / read about it, nowhere in the new testament it clearly states Jesus is the messiah. If so, how do we know for sure he really is the messiah?

3. If Jesus was jewish, how come Christians arent considered a type of jews? Did jesus really mean we create a new religion, or its something made up after he died?

4. Is there a clear path to Heaven, or its just generally doing good things in your life, and helping others, and being nice to other people, without a clear path or instructions?

5. Does Cross pendant / necklace / ring / earrings mean anything, or has significance to wear it, or its just jewelry/decorations which mean/do nothing religiously?

6. Since Jews dont accept Jesus as a messiah, does that mean jews wont get to heaven, wont be saved by god, and so on? Or not necessarily.

7. Do I have to go to the Church everyday, or how often is recommended?

8. How much time do you stay in a church usually?

9. What else does people do inside a church other than praying, what other activities?

10. Does Coronavirus come from anger of God, he created this virus intentionally because he's angry about our sins? Or it has nothing to do with that, and is just a coincidence of Bats infection in China.

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Wow some interesting questions, I will try to provide some answers for you each answer is related to the question number.
1. this is perhaps the most difficult question because there are many differences some very small some very important I am going to have to generalize since there is no perfect answer to this question. Basically the Catholic religion is sacrament based with the belief that the sacraments provide grace, they believe in 7 sacraments, their church is very structured and has a pope in charge, they also believe that in addition to faith, works are required for salvation and they believe in basing their structure on both the bible and on church tradition. This is a very general summary and there are many other differences. OK not Protestants have many differences between denominations but for the most part they believe that salvation is based on faith and not works, grace is a gift of God through the Holy Spirit and Scripture alone is the basis for their structure and beliefs. This is a totally inadequate contrast of the two but it would require volumes to explain all the differences in various Christian religions.
2. Clearly Jesus is the fulfillment of the O.T. expectations regarding the messiah. What Are the Prophecies about Jesus?
3. It could be argued that Christians are Jews in that we are brothers of Jesus. I believe that Jesus was asking for the Jews to evolve their religion and incorporate His teachings but as the early church developed and the Jews rejected Jesus Christianity became a separate religion.
4. we can not do enough good deeds to deserve salvation, it is a gift from God and not something that we earn, we get to heaven by accepting Jesus as our savior. this is clear in the Gospels.
5. It means whatever the person who has it on believes that it means. some see it as nothing more than a good luck charm others are totally dedicated to Jesus.
6. God made promises to the Jews and He intends to save all those who accept Jesus.
7. Catholics have requirements on church attendance, protestants typically do not.
8. Most services run about an hour but again this is different with different denominations some spends hours and hours in church on Sunday or other Holy days.
9. Praise and worship, singing, reading scripture, praying for people, these are typical activities.
10 God is love, we live in a fallen world full of dangers this is a result of our sinful nature not God's anger.
Hope this helps to get you started.

Welcome to CF!

You have a long list of excellent questions, which would take some time to answer in depth. I'll start with a short answer to the first two, and I may come back and address the others later.

1. There are three main branches of Christianity: Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant. Orthodox Christianity dates back to the earliest centuries of the church, so I don't want to leave them out! The Orthodox and Catholic branches of Christianity split in AD 1054. A collection of issues were involved; one important issue was the exact authority of the bishop of Rome in the church. The Wikipedia page on the Great Schism summarizes the disagreements: East–West Schism - Wikipedia

Catholic and Protestant Christianity split during the Reformation, which happened in stages during the 1500s. The authority of the bishop of Rome was again part of the debate; a number of other issues were also involved, plus it was all tangled up in the politics of the European governments. In modern times, differences between Catholics and Protestants are hard to categorize, because Protestants are so diverse. Catholic Christians place a high value on the authority of the bishop of Rome and the church's teaching office, and their worship is liturgical and sacramental. Protestant Christians may (or may not) respect the bishop of Rome as a learned pastor, but generally do not see him as strongly authoritative. Protestant Christians worship in a wide variety of ways: the Reformed tradition values teaching and study, the Friends value silence, the Lutherans and Anglicans value liturgy and sacraments, and so on. The exact role of good works in salvation was historically one of the points of dispute, but I'm not convinced we're really as different as our arguments make it seem; both Catholics and Protestants will tell you that salvation is through the work of Christ, and that a Christian who doing a proper job of following Jesus will work day by day to love God and to love their neighbors.

2. The Greek Χριστός (often rendered in English as "Christ") means "Messiah". When the New Testament writers refer to Jesus as Χριστός, they are identifying him as the Messiah. Whether Jesus is indeed the Messiah is something Jews and Christians have disagreed about for a long time.

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Welcome! I'm not in America, I'm in Australia, but I will try to answer and hope that is helpful.

Noam111g said:

1. Well basically, I was hoping if you can please explain what are the main differences between the 2 main types of Christianity, Catholic and Protestantism? And why is the Pope a bad figure in protestantism?

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Honestly, this question treats Protestantism as if the various Protestant churches are all the same, and that's probably not doing justice to them. From my point of view, as an Anglican, although I belong to a church born out of the Protestant reformation, my church is much closer to Catholicism than it is, to, say, a Baptist view.

That said, I'd say the main difference between my branch of Protestantism and Catholicism is one of church governance. How decisions are made, and who has the authority to make decisions, or participate in decision making.

As for the Pope, I wouldn't say he's a bad figure. I have deep respect for the current one, particularly. My church's argument would be that the office of the Pope has overreached healthy authority for the Bishop of Rome.

Noam111g said:

2. As far as I have seen / read about it, nowhere in the new testament it clearly states Jesus is the messiah. If so, how do we know for sure he really is the messiah?

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Because what he did, in inaugurating the eschatological reign of God on earth, is what the messiah is to do, basically.

Noam111g said:

3. If Jesus was jewish, how come Christians arent considered a type of jews? Did jesus really mean we create a new religion, or its something made up after he died?

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Jesus, as noted in my answer to the above question, inaugurated the reign of God; in which both Jews and non-Jews have a place. We don't need to convert to Judaism in order to participate in that reign of God.

Did Jesus mean to create a new religion? Probably not, in the sense that we mean religion today. But he ushered in a new reality, and calls all peoples to participate in it.

Noam111g said:

4. Is there a clear path to Heaven, or its just generally doing good things in your life, and helping others, and being nice to other people, without a clear path or instructions?

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The clear path is about relationship with God through Christ. That will probably express itself in good things and helping others and being nice, but those good works are not what gets you there.

Noam111g said:

5. Does Cross pendant / necklace / ring / earrings mean anything, or has significance to wear it, or its just jewelry/decorations which mean/do nothing religiously?

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That's a very personal thing. Some people wear these in a purely ornamental way, others wear particular things with very deep meaning and significance.

Noam111g said:

6. Since Jews dont accept Jesus as a messiah, does that mean jews wont get to heaven, wont be saved by god, and so on? Or not necessarily.

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I am very cautious about saying that God won't save this or that person. I have confidence in Christianity's way of relating to God; outside of that, I can only commend everyone to God's mercy.

Noam111g said:

7. Do I have to go to the Church everyday, or how often is recommended?

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It's not "have to." I'd turn that around and ask, how often is it helpful to you to go? How often is enough to help you learn, grow, serve as part of the community and build meaningful relationships? I mean, I'm a priest and even I take a day off a week (in theory)...

Noam111g said:

8. How much time do you stay in a church usually?

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This is going to vary a lot depending on local custom. Where I am, for services to go longer than an hour would be pushing people's tolerance.

Noam111g said:

9. What else does people do inside a church other than praying, what other activities?

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This is also going to vary a lot depending on your local community. My church runs a food bank, for example; it's also a meeting place for study groups, and in an attached hall we have a lot of community groups who meet and use it for all kinds of things (from karate to quilting to language classes).

Noam111g said:

10. Does Coronavirus come from anger of God, he created this virus intentionally because he's angry about our sins?

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I don't believe so.

Noam111g said:

3. If Jesus was jewish, how come Christians arent considered a type of jews? Did jesus really mean we create a new religion, or its something made up after he died?

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Jesus was also brown. But you don’t need to be brown to be a Christian.

To: OP/Noam111g
---
Welcome to CF.
---
It seems that some posts gave you good comments/answers..
- concerning your questions.
---
Informative book to read about Protestantism.
'Protestantism' (short introductions)
- Mark A. Noll
---
Kindle e book
- I assume that you can get it..where you are.
---
*Wikipedia has an article..'Protestantism'.
- It might be helpful to you.

2. As far as I have seen / read about it, nowhere in the new testament it clearly states Jesus is the messiah. If so, how do we know for sure he really is the messiah?

Acts 2:36 LEB
36. Therefore let all the house of Israel know beyond a doubt, that God has made him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified!"

Noam111g said:

Hello, I'm Noam, 28, from Israel, working as a computer technician, also working at a hotel. In the near future I have plans to move to the US, probably Washington DC. I joined to discuss all types of subjects related to Christianity / Protestantism, but I have a few important questions to ask first. Some of them are just general questions about the religion and types of religion, but others are also related to my move from Judaism / messianic judaism to a form of Protestantism(which I plan to complete after moving to Washington DC as planned). I hope you can please answer all my questions? Thanks again.

1. Well basically, I was hoping if you can please explain what are the main differences between the 2 main types of Christianity, Catholic and Protestantism? And why is the Pope a bad figure in protestantism?

2. As far as I have seen / read about it, nowhere in the new testament it clearly states Jesus is the messiah. If so, how do we know for sure he really is the messiah?

3. If Jesus was jewish, how come Christians arent considered a type of jews? Did jesus really mean we create a new religion, or its something made up after he died?

4. Is there a clear path to Heaven, or its just generally doing good things in your life, and helping others, and being nice to other people, without a clear path or instructions?

5. Does Cross pendant / necklace / ring / earrings mean anything, or has significance to wear it, or its just jewelry/decorations which mean/do nothing religiously?

6. Since Jews dont accept Jesus as a messiah, does that mean jews wont get to heaven, wont be saved by god, and so on? Or not necessarily.

7. Do I have to go to the Church everyday, or how often is recommended?

8. How much time do you stay in a church usually?

9. What else does people do inside a church other than praying, what other activities?

10. Does Coronavirus come from anger of God, he created this virus intentionally because he's angry about our sins? Or it has nothing to do with that, and is just a coincidence of Bats infection in China.

Click to expand...

Hi welcome! I see you profess to be a Christian. How would you answer your questions?

Welcome!

Welcome!