Have you ever felt like something was missing or broken in your relationship with God, but been unsure of what you could do about it?

I know that I have, and this website is the result of trying to recover from the missing and broken parts of my relationship with God. My name is Sam and I want to be your guide on finding the missing or broken aspects of your relationship with God.

That is what this entire website is designed for and I am personally glad you came here today, so welcome to Exploring Christianity Online! The goal of this website is to help you have faith.

The reason we want to help you have faith is because in Hebrews 11:6 (ESV), the Bible talks about faith and says “without which it is impossible to please him.” The “him” being spoken of here in this quote from the Bible is God.

I realize that faith has become a “bad” word in a large part of the English speaking world, so let me explain what I mean by faith. I want to take a moment to define the term for you. When i talk about faith at any point in the lessons on this website, I am talking about trust.

I want to help you learn how to trust God, because if you are unwilling or unable to do that then “it is impossible to please him.” I really do not want you to experience the consequences of what happens when God is not pleased.

In order to do that, there are some topics we need to deal with. There are seven basic topics that will be available on this website. Here is a list of them for you with a summary of each area’s content.

____________________

Part 1: The Message of Christianity

The Message of Christianity is a four part summary of the entire Bible’s message.

The first part is a summary of the Old Testament writings. The second part is a summary of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The third part and fourth part are summaries that cover what the rest of the New Testament has to say about discipleship in a local Church.

Part 2: Basic Christian Beliefs

The Basic Christian Beliefs part of this website is going to deal with doctrine. This part of the website deals with the warning the Bible gives in Romans 16:17 and 2 Peter 2:1-3.

In Romans 16:17 (ESV) the Bible says “I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.”

Then in 2 Peter 2:1-3 we are warned about the “false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

And many will follow their sensuality and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle; and their destruction is not asleep.”

In order to help deal with the issues contained in this warning, I am going to set aside a part of this website to deal with doctrines that Wayne Grudem has written about in his theology books.

In one of his theology books, he wrote that “a doctrine will be understood in the following way: A doctrine is what the whole Bible teaches us today about some particular topic.”

My main reason for using Wayne Grudem’s books is because he gives references to the doctrinal writings of ministers who were a part of the Anglican, Baptist, Dispensational, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Methodist, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Reformed, Roman Catholic and Wesleyan Churches scattered across the English speaking world.

Wayne Grudem gives us a chance to see what ministers who lived in the past from each of these different groups were able to hear what God had to say on the doctrinal topics we are going to examine. At times, I will also include the teaching of the Orthodox Churches as well.

Part 3: The Old Testament Writings


The Old Testament writings portion of this website will help you explore the 39 books of the Bible that were written before Jesus Christ was born. In this part of the website we are going to help you explore the original language and culture of the ancient world.

Often times when we try to read through the Old Testament we read it as a book with no background, and that causes a lot of misunderstandings. The simple reality is that the authors of the Old Testament did not look at the world the same way that we do.

The differences between their culture and ours creates misunderstandings in the message(s) they wanted to share with us. We cannot assume that the priorities we have in our Modern Day world are the same ones that people in the ancient world had.

The hopes and dreams that the past generations of mankind had in mind when they wrote the Old Testament books in Hebrew were different than the hopes and dreams of the people reading what they had to day in the modern day English speaking world.

When those differences go unrecognized by our modern audiences, we can and will misunderstand the truth they record for us to learn from. So in the Old Testament part of this website, I want to help people who are not familiar with the differences avoid the misunderstandings we can have.

In order to have the faith or trust we need to please God, we need to understand the ancient world presented to us in the parts of the Bible written before Jesus Christ was born. At some point in your life, God will invite you on a journey like this and we want to help you along the way.

Part 4: The New Testament Writings

In the New Testament writings we will face the same basic challenge I mentioned earlier in how we read and study the Old Testament, but there is an important difference this time. In the Old Testament we had to deal with Hebrew culture in the ancient world, but in the New Testament we are faced with Greek culture, Roman culture and wisdom based culture as well.

So I am going to begin sharing notes on the New Testament that reflect on the Hebrew, Greek Roman or Wisdom audience the author had in mind when he was writing for a first century audience.

Part 5: Church History

The Church History part of this website is designed to help introduce you to the people and problems that Church leaders had to deal with in the past. The very first Church was born in the city of Jerusalem two thousand years ago in a Jewish context.

Today we have churches scattered all over the world that look and function outside of that original Jewish context and I want to help you understand why those differences exist. That is going to be the goal for the Church History page(s).

In case you are wondering about where I will get the information for the Church History section, I want to let you know I will be using “The Story of Christianity” by Justo L. Gonzalez as a guide.

Part 6: The Original Bible Languages

Since the original copies of the Bible were not written in English, it seemed wise to include some explanations of the vocabulary and grammar rules used in the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek languages of the original authors.

Part 7: Apologetics and World Religions

I also want to help you understand how to “make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15 ESV). The Apologetics and World Religions part of this website will help you do that.

Conclusion

So in conclusion, I will be working to write and gather resources online that can help you learn more about God in each one of these seven areas on a regular basis but I can’t guarantee additions will be made on a regular schedule, so make sure you stop by the main page from time to time to see what is new.

I will be making videos when I can to go along with the transcripts containing the “scripts” I used for each video in case you want to share this faith building content with others in your area because without faith it is impossible to please God.

____________________

If you want to return to the Table of Contents/Main Menu options on our home page, you can click here on the red letters and it will take you back to our homepage. If you want to watch a video and or read a transcript of our first lesson on the Old Testament writings, you can find both by clicking here.