Reader Poll - Bible Reading - BEFORE or AFTER you became a Christian?

[St. SteVen]

Did you read the Bible BEFORE you became a Christian, or AFTER?

I have heard testimonies of people reading the Bible before becoming Christians.
I assumed it was a rare occurrence. Someone seeking God. rather than God seeking them.

Discussion.

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[Wrangler]

I have heard testimonies of people reading the Bible before becoming Christians.
I assumed it was a rare occurrence. Someone seeking God.

I reject the premise of your statement. I think unbelievers read God’s words to discredit it. In fact, there is a movie about that. In the process, he converted. Praise God!

 

[St. SteVen]

I reject the premise of your statement. I think unbelievers read God’s words to discredit it. In fact, there is a movie about that. In the process, he converted. Praise God!

Did you read the Bible before you became a Christian?

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[Runningman]

Did you read the Bible BEFORE you became a Christian, or AFTER?

I have heard testimonies of people reading the Bible before becoming Christians.
I assumed it was a rare occurrence. Someone seeking God. rather than God seeking them.

Discussion.

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Before I was a Christian, I did read the Bible on my own a bit here and there. I think Chick-fil-A used to stamp John 3:16 on their bags and cups back in the day, so I at least knew that verse. It wasn't until after I became a Christian that I actually began taking a serious look at the Bible. What I really learned was that what people say Christians believe doesn't seem to be the same as what people actually believed in the Bible.

 

[St. SteVen]

New topic:

The Best Revenge?

A situation at work gave me an idea for a topic. One of our supervisors doesn't like me due to a bad experience when I was working in her department. I don't work with her anymore, but she has obviously held a grudge. Which is obvious from some of her snarky comments when I do encounter her...

www.christianityboard.com

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[mailmandan]

Now I do remember trying to read the Bible before I became a Christian (but I did not consistently read it) and a lot of what I read just seemed to go right over my head. It really amazed me how after I became a Christian it's like a light came on and all of the sudden, I was understanding many things I read in the Bible, especially as it pertained to salvation (1 Corinthians 2:11-14 comes to mind). I was so hungry for God's word that I read the Old Testament twice and the New Testament eight times within one year after becoming a Christian.

 

[Ronald Nolette]

Did you read the Bible BEFORE you became a Christian, or AFTER?

I have heard testimonies of people reading the Bible before becoming Christians.
I assumed it was a rare occurrence. Someone seeking God. rather than God seeking them.

Discussion.

[

I read after but was shared lots of Scripture which God used to lead me to Himself.

 

[Debp]

I started reading the Bible after I came to know the Lord in 1972.

As a child I did learn a few Bible verses in Sunday school. But mainly they were verses like "Love your neighbor as yourself", and of course, John 3:16. One of the verses that stuck with me through life was "a soft answer turns away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger."

 

[Skovand]

I read the bulk of the entire Bible before becoming a Christian. I read all of the New Testament and about 70% of the told. I still read it in depth. About 50% of all nonfiction books I read are commentaries. I now select a different translation of the Bible every year and read through it. I’ve read the Torah about 50 times. I’ve read the tanakh about 10-11 times. I’ve read the gospels probably 50 times and the entire NT around 5 times. Last year I read about 50% of the Bible and listened to the rest of it as an audiobook. Then listened to the NT a second time under the First People’s Translation.

 

[St. SteVen]

New topic:

Of what value is the fulfillment of OT prophecy? - since the prophecies were acquired rather than intended

This is a follow-up to the previous topic: Were messianic prophecies acquired, rather than intended? (in the original texts) https://www.christianityboard.com/threads/were-messianic-prophecies-acquired-rather-than-intended-in-the-original-texts.67180/ In the previous topic it was somewhat...

www.christianityboard.com

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[Skovand]

New topic:

Of what value is the fulfillment of OT prophecy? - since the prophecies were acquired rather than intended

This is a follow-up to the previous topic: Were messianic prophecies acquired, rather than intended? (in the original texts) https://www.christianityboard.com/threads/were-messianic-prophecies-acquired-rather-than-intended-in-the-original-texts.67180/ In the previous topic it was somewhat...

www.christianityboard.com

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Prophecies Aren’t Predictions of the Future (You Can Look It Up)

We tend to think of prophets like divine meteorologists providing a long-term forecast. Predictions of doom and gloom or images of abundant blessing are taken to be statements about what the future will be like. Only that's not what the Old Testament tells us at all.

thebiblefornormalpeople.com

 

[Simonides]

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[St. SteVen]

I read the bible quite a bit before regeneration.
And understood very little of it.

After regeneration, I never went anywhere without my bible close at hand.
And I understood

Yup. Regeneration makes all the difference.

How did you come to own a Bible before regeneration?

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[Simonides]

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[Wick Stick]

Did you read the Bible BEFORE you became a Christian, or AFTER?

I have heard testimonies of people reading the Bible before becoming Christians.
I assumed it was a rare occurrence. Someone seeking God. rather than God seeking them.

Discussion.

[

I chose OTHER...

As someone who grew up in a Christian home, I find it hard to nail down the timing of when-did-I-become-a-Christian. I grew up in an environment where of-course-we-followed Christian rules and morality... that was simply part of the identity of my family.

Do you count 4-year-old me asking Jesus into my heart? It was sincere, but there wasn't much understanding behind it.

I first tried to read the Bible at 7. Started at Genesis and made it to about 1Kings. Dad was annoyed when I refused porkchops for dinner and wanted to start following the dietary restrictions in the Law. Still, there was an intent there to obey God... is that what makes a Christian?

Do all the Bible classes and verses memorized in a Christian school matter? Probably not. Junk-degree in church management from an unaccredited college... definitely not. Ordination as a pastor in my early 20's? I think no.

What about all the weekends spent serving the homeless? Do those "good deeds" qualify me? In retrospect, the service was somewhere between ineffective and enabling. But it did make us feel virtuous...

I think if I had to put a date on it, it might have been on a random Sunday night in my 30s, when I went to not-my-normal-church. The pastor did something I have never seen before or since. About 3 sentences into his sermon, he stopped, and said that God was telling him not to preach, and rather to have anyone who needed prayer come down to the altar to be prayed for instead of having a sermon.

God told me to go down to the altar. I resisted at first... I didn't need an altar call... honestly nobody who's attending church on Sunday night does... but God was persistent. I stepped forward, and I was filled with the Holy Ghost... along with just about everyone who went. The service was a mess. There were people falling, and speaking in tongues, and holy laughter. I wasn't even sure I believed in those things.

So anyway, yeah I guess I read the Bible first, and had a whole Christian education, and an ordination to preach too.

Not sure how this got so long... thanks for coming to my TED talk.

 

[Deborah_]

Before the day I became a Christian I had only opened a Bible two or three times (other than in school RE lessons)
When I was quite young I started reading the KJV from the beginning but got stuck in chapter 6 of Genesis because Noah was spelt "Noe". That confused me terribly, and there was nobody I could ask (my parents weren't believers).

Years later I acquired a Good News New Testament. It sat on my bookshelf for about 5 years. Then one day, when I was 17, I started reading it because I had nothing else to do. I was in the middle of Matthew chapter 24 (between verses 44 and 45) when God suddenly burst into my consciousness without any warning and I was totally overwhelmed by the sheer volume of His love.

After that... well, it was 50 years ago, and I've never been able to stop reading the Bible since.