My journey to Christianity, Theology

My Journey to Christianity, Theology

Why did I choose Christianity out of all the world religions? The answer is very complex. Some key points include worshipping a God we cannot fully explain or comprehend as well as believing Jesus is the Messiah for the Jews, those same people who reject Him as their Messiah. To start, there is the obvious fact that Christianity is the most popular religion in the world, particularly in the United States. It was natural to first look into the most popular religion that surrounded me.

What does it mean to be a Christian?

The term “Christian” means “anointed,” a word derived from Christ Himself, the Anointed One, whom “God anointed with the Holy Spirit” (CCC 1289). When a neophyte (new Christian) is first baptized, they are then anointed again by the bishop through confirmation or chrismation through anointing with the sacred chrism oil on the forehead, signifying the participation of the newly baptized in the “prophetic, priestly, and kingly offices of Christ” (CCC 1291).

We are also brought into the Mystical body of Christ with Christ as the head (CCC 792).

“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit (1 Cor 12:12-13).”

Upon entering the Church through the Sacraments, one will become a member of the Mystical Body of Christ. This brings diversity among His members as well as unity between us all. By becoming a member of His Body, we are given the opportunity to share in His mission, joy, and sufferings just as all the Saints and Apostles have in the past (CCC 787).

In short, a Christian believes Jesus is God’s anointed and follows His teachings passed down through the Apostles, including that He is the Son of God, the second Person of the Holy Trinity. When a person becomes a Christian, they become a member of the Mystical Body of Christ (the members of the Church) to continue Christ’s mission on the path planned by God for each individual.

If Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, then Who is the God of Christianity?

In Christianity, the Holy Trinity is God, three Persons, one God, consisting of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. “We do not confess three Gods, but instead He is one God In three persons, the ‘consubstantial Trinity.’ The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but each of them is God whole and entire: ‘The Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, the Father and Son that which the Holy Spirit is, i.e. by nature one God.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 253). Additionally, the divine persons are really distinct from one another. “‘God is one but not solitary.’ ‘Father,’ ‘Son,’ ‘Holy Spirit’ are not simply names designating modalities of the divine being, for they are really distinct from one another: ‘He is not the Father who is the Son, nor is the Son he who is the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit he who is the Father or the Son.’” (CCC 254). The mystery of the Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them.” (CCC 234). God is truly incomprehensible. God is Three Persons Who are all distinct from One Another but are not the same as each other despite sharing the fullness of the same essence The mystery of the Trinity has been the source of many historic heresies.

How did I go from atheism to believing God exists in the first place?

I had a health issue for 10 years prior to my conversion, a seemingly small issue that doctors didn’t care to help with. This lasted until October of 2021 when I was setup with a new doctor. She advised I switch to organic food just to try it out before blood test results came back. Within 6 weeks, the issue was resolved and my life was forever changed. I had a realization: there is an order to the world.

I ate the same foods, but switched to organic. I worked hard to eliminate the chemically treated food plaguing our grocery stores and diets. That is all it took to overcome a significant health issue that was pushing my kidneys beyond their limit. I concluded, if we eat food working with the earth rather than fighting the earth for the food, we just may actually be healthier and avoid major health issues, thus, there is an order to the world that we have disrupted. Combining this firsthand experience with everything I learned about the beautiful process a woman and child go through during pregnancy and birth, I realized this order is too perfect to be created by probability. Someone had to have created this order. That someone is God.

Some things just don’t add up

I ask you to continue with me as we consider why one would consider entering a religion whose God cannot be comprehended or explained as well as why a person would follow Jesus who was rejected by many of His own people, the Jews, at the time, as well as most all Jews since then.

Starting with the incomprehensible God of Three Distinct Persons sharing the same essence, I will bring up the fact that many people outside Christianity, or any religion, believe that God is incomprehensible. I agree with them; they are absolutely correct. By entering a religion that holds God is incomprehensible is quite a sensible thing. God is the Creator of heaven and earth, a Being beyond time and space, Who is omniscient and omnipotent, of course He is beyond our understanding as mere creatures, creations, of His.

Moving onto the fact that Christianity is a religion centered around accepting Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, Whom the Jews rejected, we will read a quote from Jesus when His hometown of Nazareth rejected Him: “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his own country” (Luke 4:24). The Jews historically killed or rejected their own prophets, those same prophets having composed the writings they now use in their own Scriptures.

The Jews rejected Jesus as the Messiah because He did not meet their expectations. While under occupation of yet another country, the Jews combed through their Scriptures finding numerous prophecies indicating a Messiah being sent by God. However, they expected a militant revolutionary of a messiah to save them from Roman rule and to forever prevent them from being ruled by another country, while also bringing peace to the world. When Jesus Christ came to the world, He freed everyone from the rule of others by offering, through His teachings, a way to be free of the slavery of sin by being a loyal follower of God, the Trinity, with an additional result being a personal freedom from the power of rulers. While one would not become a person who is free from jurisdiction of others, they became free in the sense that such jurisdiction had no personal power over them, allowing them to be spiritually unaffected by others.  

Additionally, the first Christians were in fact, Jewish. The original twelve Apostles were Jewish and they spread the Christian Faith to their own communities. The early Church was in the Jewish community and slowly began spreading to the gentiles (non-Jews), which accelerated after Paul became an apostle. As shown in the book of Acts of the Apostles, even some of the Pharisees, a group of the priestly Jewish class who rejected Jesus during His ministry, converted into the Faith accepting Jesus as the Messiah they had been waiting for.

From my own experience with my wife’s step-family who is Jewish, the modern Jews are not fully educated in their Scriptures to the point that it is uncommon, even untraditional, to keep the Jewish Scriptures in their own home to read, meaning, they don’t uncover the prophetic messages themselves unless a Rabbi shows them. Therefore, unless they take it upon themselves to learn about Jesus, they don’t, and instead simply do not accept Him as the Messiah because “they are Jewish”.

How does one know the God of Israel, of whom Jesus is the Son, is the One True God?

For me, it was through reading the Scriptures which hold God’s Revelation of Himself to humanity. One of the major things I noticed is how much God loves us, whereas other religions have very little if any love between their gods and themselves, instead having a servile relationship while trying to pull the gods down to their levels for their own personal use. God showed His love for humanity throughout the Old Testament, something people outside of Christianity do not see. This is because the Old is fulfilled in the New, and the New is found in the Old. Without having the Old and the New testaments together, one cannot see the full Revelation of God.

God’s love for humanity is found early on when He created Adam and Eve. After creating Adam, God said “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18) and decided to create Eve so that Adam would experience the good of not being alone. After the Fall, the first sin, God showed His love for humanity when He banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. God said “‘… lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever’— therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.” (Genesis 3:22).

This may seem contrary as an act of love, but when one considers the full of Revelation of Faith by looking at Jesus’ redeeming act to give us eternal life in God’s grace, we can see the love of God. God banished Adam and Eve from the garden because they were no longer in the state of holiness He had created them in. Instead, Adam and Eve had broken their nature by falling from a state of holiness into a state of sin, a state they were not yet redeemed out of. Thus, God banished them so they would not “take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever” in that broken state. God wanted them to live forever in a redeemed state, a state they would experience after Jesus’ salvific work.

We can also see God’s love in how He wanted to save us through the work of Jesus. Had He not loved us, God would not have coordinated our redemption. This love of us is manifested throughout the Old Testament, especially when God was watching humanity and found Abram. God revealed Himself to Abram and said “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves.” (Genesis 12:1-3). Abram showed his trust in God by doing just that, and was later renamed Abraham by God before being blessed with his son Isaac.

Throughout the history of the Jews, they went through a cycle of becoming followers of God due to His signs and wonders, and then falling from this state of grace, usually into slavery, then to have God lovingly call them to return to Him so He could raise them back up out of their slavery and back into a great nation. This is the same story of us all and the love God continues to show us. I was an atheist, but God was waiting for me to turn to Him to raise me up into the follower I am today.

The False gods

Aside from God’s love differentiating Him from the gods of other religions, I saw how the false gods fit into the God of Israel, and that those gods are still present and active. I was made to understand the term “false gods” does not mean they don’t exist, but that they were entities, deities, who revealed themselves to people while falsely claiming to be gods. They are mentioned in scripture, such as Moloch.

“And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord.” (Leviticus 18:21).

God was warning the Israelites not to sacrifice children to Moloch, something happening today in abortion clinics. During the time of this part of the narrative, idolaters would sacrifice their children to Moloch by means of a brass idol of him. The statue had two hands cupped together where they would place the child, only after the statue had been heated up to lethal temperatures by a fire underneath the hands, so as to burn the child to death. God was profaned by this in regards to the Israelites leaving Him to worship Moloch or other false gods.

This reality hit me with the understanding that this worship has continued many thousands of years later as people pursue earthly riches. The vast majority of abortion stories are people sacrificing their children for financial gain. They may not have used that specific wording, but the point cannot be truly argued. Moloch and others have continued to deceive people to pull them from God, something I fell prey to, even if a lesser degree.

This also developed my understanding the Christianity doesn’t believe all other religions are wrong in the sense that there is no truth within them. Instead, Christianity recognizes a level of truth in other religions but understands the distorted nature within those religions due to their foundations being in the false gods. In short, there is a connection between all the world religions when viewed through Christianity, something other religions fail to do in my experience.

The more things change, the more they stay the same

During my reading of the Bible, I stumbled into the book of Leviticus, Chapter 26: a blessing to those who follow God and the curse on those who turn from Him. In summary, the blessing from God goes, “If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall last to the time of vintage, and the vintage shall last to the time for sowing; and you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land securely……I am the Lord your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves; and I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.” (Leviticus 26:3-5, 13).

In summary, the curse reads: “But if you will not hearken to me, and will not do all these commandments, if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, I will do this to you: I will appoint over you sudden terror, consumption and fever that waste the eyes and cause life to pine away…and your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit…Then if you walk contrary to me, and will not hearken to me, I will bring more plagues upon you, sevenfold as many as your sins” (Leviticus 26:14-16, 20, 23).

This chapter resonated with me because, it described everything that is happening in the world right now, a world full of people who have turned from God. Those who practice fornication in this hypersexualized world suffer from the plagues God promises. The people who engage in excessive consumption of food and goods suffer from the feeling of terror of their own world collapsing. This was a significant moment in my conversion. I realized we need to follow God to receive His blessing rather than turn away to feel the curse of not having Him in our lives.

At this point I accepted God the Father but was unsure about Jesus Christ. I continued reading through the book of Judges and found the constant cycle of the Jews leaving God, God raising a judge (one who would save His people) and then the Jews would repeat the cycle over and over again. Again, this goes back to God’s love for His people by mercifully bringing them back to Him despite them losing their way.

Continuing my reading of the Bible

I then read through the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings. The people of Israel cried out for a king to be like other nations. Samuel was the prophet at the time and thus, the people went to him. After Samuel conferred with God, he told the people that God did not want to give them a king since He is their King. They decried and continued to ask for a king. God warned them:

 “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.” (1 Samuel 8:11-18)

The people refused to obey and continued to ask for a king. God granted their request; Saul was the first King who was anointed by Samuel.

With the time, David was anointed as the next king. David was “a man after [God’s] own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14). After the battle of David and Goliath (see 1 Samuel 17), the people of Israel loved David. King Saul grew jealous and even tried to kill David. David continued being very successful in battles for Israel and Saul’s jealousy grew. The people of Israel showed their love for David, something Saul could not handle. David had multiple opportunities to kill Saul, but he refused, deferring to God’s will for Saul to be king and noted that he himself would become king, trusting in God’s plan for him.

With time, Saul died in battle and David took the throne. He lead a very holy kingship and the people of Israel loved him. Everything changed when “late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking upon the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, ‘is not this Bathshe′ba, the daughter of Eli′am, the wife of Uri′ah the Hittite?’ So David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her… Then she returned to her house. And the woman conceived; and she sent and told David, ‘I am with child.’” (2 Samuel 11:2-5). Due to the conception of a child, David knew this would not remain a secret from Uriah, one of his greatest military commanders. David had him killed to prevent the adultery becoming known and then married Bathsheba. “But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.” (2 Samuel 11:27)

David fell from grace and his kingdom fell apart. One of his own sons rebelled against him and he fled. Ultimately, he begged God for mercy for his transgressions, a pardon God granted. David was able to retake this throne, but the damage was done. After he died, his son Solomon, who was a child of David and Bathsheba, took the throne. He was granted wisdom from God (see 1 Kings 3:1-15) and with time, fell from grace himself. Solomon had seven hundred wives and concubines, many of which were not from Israel. Many of Solomon’s wives worshipped pagan gods, who with time he also worshipped. Thus, the cycle of Israel continues as they fall from God, and God places them physically where they are spiritually, then to have a king recognize the error of their ways and return to God, and the kingdom He blessed them with.

Messianic Prophecies

After getting through Kings, I started reading the Psalms. While reading through the Psalms, 22 stood out as clearly about Christ. It begins “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” the same words Jesus spoke on the Cross (Matthew 27:46). Some believe the Gospels were often written in short hand to fit on scrolls and that when Jesus’ words were recorded, it was an allusion to Jesus reciting the entirety of Psalm 22 for all to hear of the fulfillment of the Scriptures as “a company of evildoers encircle me; they have pierced my hands and feet” (Psalm 22:16).

I eventually read through to the prophets. The Book of Isaiah is filled with Messianic prophecies, many of which made no sense to me when I first read. Though, there were some startling clear ones. “the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”) (Isaiah 7:14). Oh, what a sign God would give through the Virginal birth of Christ, a prophecy the Jews did not know was fulfilled until the gospels were written. There is also Isaiah 53, a beautiful chapter referring to the suffering Servant, which prophesied the suffering Christ would go through. Before I learned of the other Messianic prophecies and despite not knowing much of what I was reading, somehow, I knew in my heart that the Book of Isaiah was important, something I attribute to the Holy Spirit.

As I worked through the prophets, I read the Book of Daniel. I was amazed because, in my humble opinion, Daniel saw Jesus. “When I, Daniel, had seen the vision, I sought to understand it; and behold, there stood before me one having the appearance of a man. And I heard a man’s voice between the banks of the U′lai, and it called, ‘Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.’” (Daniel 8:15-16). The significance of this is Daniel saw “one having the appearance of a man” who commanded the Archangel Gabriel to help Daniel understand the vision. There is only one Person who looks like a human and has the authority to command Archangel Gabriel, and that is Jesus Himself.

As I concluded the Old Testament, I read through the minor prophets, most all of them had Messianic prophecies. It was one after another pointing to Jesus. I was beginning to truly see that Jesus was prophesied about throughout the Old Testament.

The Old is fulfilled in the New, and the New is found in the Old

I finally opened the New Testament and began with the Gospel According to Matthew. I was amazed because this sounded exactly the same as the Old Testament. I had always heard the claim that the Old Testament and New Testament sound like two different Gods, albeit those claims came from sources uneducated on Christian Scripture, but the two are startlingly similar. I later learned that Matthew wrote his gospel with the particular intention of appealing to the Jews. Regardless, the Old is fulfilled by the New and the New is found all in the Old.

Although I did not understand much of the Bible when I first read it, it was very important for the foundations of my faith. As I learned more about Christianity through the Catholic Church, I was able to see the connections due to my familiarity with the Scriptures. I was not able to quote and cite Scripture, but I was familiar enough to understand where the sources came from.

How did I conclude the God of Israel is the One True God?

I concluded the God of Israel is the One True God while reading the Scriptures. I reached this conclusion because there were warnings thousands of years ago that are important today as well as the activity of the false gods that was recorded, another problem that persists.

There is a Divinely inspired nature of the Scriptures. The prophecies of Jesus are all over the Old Testament, many of which were not uncovered until the Revelation from God was fulfilled with the New Testament. There are so many connections that no human could have planned it, only God Himself. Through the Scriptures, I found the truth about God in all Three Persons.

Whenever I learn about other religions, I am able to see their relationship to Christianity, which is usually rather dark. I have learned about Buddhism, modern Judaism, pagan religions, the Aztecs, and others. I am no scholar in these, but I have learned enough to see their interworking with Christ, much of which is a dark distortion of the truth in Jesus Christ. It may not be the friendliest statement to make, however the truth in it is difficult to argue when one begins to research the systems and history of religion. The theological evidence points to Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, and the Triune God as the one true God. God loves each and every one of us, deigning to us in our lowly human level, and raising us up in accordance with His will, that is, if we want to cooperate with Him.

The theology of the Catholic Church is logical. Once the basic foundations are laid, one can reason themselves through the continual developing into the deeper theology. There are no hoops to jump through or mental gymnastics. It just makes sense.

It is important to note one cannot utilize intellectual convictions to persuade themselves into the faith (Esolen 2024, 32, footnote). Faith is solely a free gift from God which can only be attained by a willful desire to seek and submit to God by recognizing Him as the One True God and accepting the fact one needs Him. Intellectual convictions help someone understand these truths to get to the point of trustful surrender, but these convictions are not the source of faith. You will need to trustfully and prayerfully surrender to God. 

References

1995. Catechism of the Catholic Church. Canada: Doubleday.

Esolen, Saint Augustine of Hippo/Translated by Anthony. 2024. Confessions. Gastonia, NC: TAN Books.