The Apostle's Creed

A statement was created sometime between the 1st and 5th centuries which summarized the beliefs of the Christian faith. It was the Apostle's Creed. The Apostle's Creed states what every Christian whether Protestant, Catholic, or Eastern Orthodox essentially believes. It was possibly copied from the Nicene Creed which was a statement of faith created to combat the heresy of Gnosticism. Legend also has it that the apostles wrote the creed 10 days after Jesus ascended back into heaven.

In the creed you will notice the term 'Catholic.' Catholic here does not refer specifically to the Roman Catholic church. Catholic here means 'universal' or the entire church as a body of believers. The word's Latin origin is 'catholicus' which means 'general.' The Greek is 'katholikós' which means 'the whole.'

I think it would be very useful if every Christian learned the creed by heart. It is an excellent statement of the explanation of the what and why of the Christian religion.

The Apostle's Creed:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord; Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell; the third day He arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.

My Christian Journey

I used to think of people who called themselves "born again Christians" as being pretentious impostors. Being a Christian in my opinion was only being moral and believing in God. I did not understand that a person could actually have a life changing relationship with God even though he seemed to be so invisible and faraway until I actually was born again in January 2001.

For almost an entire decade I had suffered from varying degrees of depression. I was first misdiagnosed as have schizoaffective disorder a mild form of schizophrenia. Unlike some schizophrenics I was very high functioning, never heard any voices or hallucinated. I was very much aware of reality. I knew my doctor had to be wrong. Later I was diagnosed as being bipolar. To me, that seemed more like my dilemma I experienced emotional highs and lows frequently. But still I did not have the knowledge to realize that most of what I was having were spiritual problems. I had tried to fight life's battles on my own.

My parents, especially my dad, raised me in a sheltered way. He himself could not deal very well or logically with life's conflicts. He grew up in a highly dysfunctional family. Dad never really accepted his mother's death until he was well into his 50s. She died when he was 18 in 1961. He could not comprehend his mother and father in-law who lived and not just talked the Christian life. His parents had been very different from this. My maternal grandparents were not rich people by any means, but they were always opening up their home to others less fortunate. Some children who had neglectful parents would have gone hungry if not for my grandparent's generosity. People knew that if they came by their house they would automatically experience my grandparent's hospitality. My dad was influenced by psychology and human thought. He believed a person, if he or she were good, should just sail through life. Everything should be easy, not confrontation or conflict. If a bad incident happened to him, he would either flew into a rage or become depressed, often trying to heal himself through overeating. I witnessed my father's behavior and my grandparent's. I was influenced by both for good and ill.

By 2000 I knew I must find a solution to my life. I had not worked in years because the doctors told me I would never be able to stand the stress of a job. However, I was an ambitious person with a masters degree. From a little girl I had had big dreams. To just sit and let my life atrophy was an intolerable thought to me. I felt I was nothing without work. Off and on for years I had experienced thoughts of suicide. In the nick of time, I learned about a small store front church from one of the pastors at my aunt's church, I went there and found my answer. One evening not long after I started visiting this church, I was asked by the pastor had I been born again. I asked her what was that. I had heard the term, but what it entailed was never clear to me. She told me the meaning, and that night, I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior. If I had not, I would probably not be here typing this.

From that evening forward, my battle with depression lessen. I went back to work taking jobs both here in the US and in Turkey. In April of this year I was evaluated so a decision could be made as to whether I was eligible to continue to receive Worker's Compensation. The doctor who did the evalution told me that I was cured and that he saw no reason why I should not able to rebuild my life and my career. The years of medication and counseling had not done it. The only thing that had cured me was my acceptance of Jesus Christ as my saviour.

Read this article: The Born Again Experience and it will explain more of what being born again means.

The Reasons For This Blog

This is my third blog. The previous two were deleted a couple of weeks ago when my emotions were really running high. I deleted them both at the spur of the moment and also after some pondering over some feelings of slight dissatisfaction with them. I was basically writing what most people blog about, their personal feelings, experiences, and commentary on current events. For sometime I have had recurring thoughts of starting a blog oriented towards Christian subjects and a Christian perspective about current events. Therefore, after I deleted my secular blogs, I started making plans for here. Presenting my new blog: The Ichthys.

If you live in America, you may occasionally see an Ichthys on automobiles. It is the silver fish decal seen on the tail end of some cars. The standard ichthys placed on a vehicle is a symbol that the owner is a Christian. Previous to the use of the cross as the symbol for Christianity, the early Christian church used the ichthys or fish as their secret symbol so members would know where to congregate for meetings and services. The early years of the church, particularly the first three centuries of its' existence, were racked by persecution from the Roman Empire. Therefore, the church was in some areas basically mobile moving from one secret site to another. Ichthys is actually a Greek acronym which if translated into English is roughly "Jesus Christ God's Son is Saviour."

The ichthys or fish as the symbol for primative Christians perhaps was adopted because references to fish are often made in the New Testament, the second half of the Bible. Four of Jesus' 12 disciples or followers were fishermen. Fish was one of the main food staples of Biblical times. Jesus himself personally on at least one occasion as told in the Bible cooked a meal of fish for his disciples. He also increased a small amount of fish on two occasions to feed a few thousand listeners and followers who came out to hear one of His sermons. Jesus also told his followers to become "fishers of men" meaning that He expected His followers, who were later to be called Christians, to spread His message of salvation (saving) from the darkness of evil and sin, along with hope, peace, and love for God. His followers were to fish for humanity the way a fishermen throw out their nets. The net is Christ's message. This net is a benevolent net, however. It brings one in from the darkness and hopelessness of sin. The net or message affects the heart and mind of the listener who wants a change for the better in his or her existence.

You might if you happen to come across this blog think, "uh oh, not another bigoted Christian fundamentalist, evangelical sitting on a holier than thou mountain waiting to condemn everyone to eternal hellfire, mixing politics with the spiritual to get brownie points with a certain sector of the society." Or you might think, "Uh oh, not another slick prosperity advocate teaching that God is a genie whom a person only has to say a few magic words to and all kinds of nice blessings will come raining down." No, I am neither one of these. I think of myself as a "primative" Christian. By primative here I do not mean the usual dictionary definition of someone or something that is crude or undeveloped, I mean that I am "primative" because I believe that the church must go back to its' roots, the way it was in its' first 300 years before corruption set in and before the church became so riddled by a type of spiritual gangene that it was no different from any other political/secular institution.

Today in America, church is big business. Here we seem to have with the big and megachurches something very similar to what Martin Luther fought against in the Roman Catholic Church back in the 1500s leading to what was the Reformation and the beginning of the Protestant Church. Reformation comes from the root "reform." What the church in America needs is reform. Since there is no really strong persecution of the church here since America is considered a Christian country, people have become soft in their following of Christ's teachings. We Christians have become anemic spiritually as a group, not very different from people who are agnostic or atheistic. We are Biblical illiterate and listen more to what our favorite preacher has to say without examining what the Bible says about the purpose of life and living. We arrogantly feel deep down inside that we don't need God or His spiritual guidance. We can go it alone. We want God on our terms, not His.

Religion is a controversial topic nowadays. Too many people hold extreme but unbalanced views of the relevancy of faith and God in this era. I decided to start this blog because I wanted to explain the Christian faith from a Biblical prospective. I wanted to show that the message of the Bible and Jesus Christ is timeless and that by reading or hearing it it can inspire hope to person who decides to believe it. It want to show from my own experience who Christianity can change lives for the better if it is practiced sincerely. With this blog I want to apply a Biblical perspective to some current events. I plan to present here a picture of the early church and its' history. I will be presenting advise from a Biblical viewpoint and also creating online prayers for nations and various groups in distress. In other words, the concern here will be Christianity in varying forms and in its' original state. I very much welcome comments, suggestions, and questions.

Peace Be With You...