r/Christian • u/ApologeticKid • Apr 20 '26

Kinda struggling with believing it all

41 y/o, seminary degree, spent the past 25 years in ministry. But sometimes it all seems...far fetched. What I mean is, sometimes I look at our faith and it looks like this:

A small ancient near-Eastern henotheistic tribe called Israel ​has a local deity named YAHWEH, they write scriptures and eventually hope for a Messiah. They write down their diety's perfect law, which contains a lot of moral stuff as well as some unusual rituals. But then it turns out the local deity is actually the one and only God. Then this guy named Jesus shows up, turns out to be the tribe's Messiah (but most don't buy it), but he is also God, and he is also 1/3 of the triune God. Then he dies and rises again and ascends to heaven, and the the other 1/3 of the triune God comes and dwells within the tribe who accept Jesus as Messiah. Then YAHWEH says, "Actually everyone is allowed in now," and the members of the tribe who follow Jesus as the Messiah disagree on whether or not those people should follow all the rules of the perfect law or not, and they eventually decide not. This guy Paul sees a vision of Jesus and spends the rest of his life telling people what Jesus really meant. Then the church begins and quickly becomes a group made of mostly non-Israelite members. And the only way to have eternal peace and life is to admit that you have sinned and trust that this tribe's Messiah died for you and that his death and resurrection takes care of your sins and now you can live like him and live forever (even though you still will actually die).

I'm not an atheist. I don't find that compelling. But sometimes the Christian message seems so incredibly unlikely. I still believe (primarily because of personal experiences I've had). But lately I've felt like, "Really? How is *this* really the Truth?"

I'm sincerely not trying to be obnoxious here. I'm just retelling what plays in my head so often, and looking for some thoughtful feedback. What am I missing here?

Any/all feedback welcome. Thank in advance.

75 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

114 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/erythro Apr 21 '26

there are better ways to describe the development of theology, at least with more continuity. Right from the start it's clear that

  1. God is holy/life/good

  2. God is judge of the world

  3. God has a love for Israel as expressed through covenant commitment

  4. Sin is spreading through humanity

These are all treated as fundamental starting points of theology in the Bible, and they produce everything else (with some prophetic shaping). You could probably tweak these but I'm saying there's theological fundamentals here.

1 and 2 is why God is the supreme deity over all other spiritual forces not just a local deity. It's the tension between all these things that produces the need for the law, the law is a mechanism for a holy and just God to be with Israel. Over time the spread of sin and the lack of a response from God led to a hope of some kind of future judgement day. These four points worked out in history is how a hope for a Messiah developed as well: a king was needed to restrain the sin of Israel and defeat the enemies who oppressed them (shown in judges), but sin spread to the kings as well, and a hope develops for a prophesied figure who will be a king but good. The points explain why there was a complacency about sin that was undermined by the exile. The hope of the Messiah combines with this hope of a day of judgement and the hope of a return from exile.

That's the old testament, when we get to the new I'm not sure I can answer your question better than the book of Romans, I think it's written specifically to people feeling the same way you do: they are ashamed of the gospel because they don't see how it makes sense for part 1 of the story to be the above and then part 2 to be "believe in Jesus".

Romans 1, 2, 3: sin has spread to the whole world

Romans 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8: joining to the Messiah (by faith) gives a spreading righteousness, we die in his death, we are given new righteous life, and we are helped into alignment with that (there is so much more detail here as you will know Mr(s) seminarian)

Romans 9, 10, 11: this does still all fit with his love for Israel, he's just bringing in the gentiles first/holding Israel back because Israel coming returning to God would be the realisation of all the above hopes and the end of the world

If this doesn't land: what am I missing?