I grew up in a "Christian bubble" (attending church 2-3 days a week, mom sang for the choir, youth group retreats, etc.) and dropped my religion when i was about 20 – long story short, "enlightening info" like the documentary "Zeitgeist" made certain claims about Yeshua's story to discredit the authenticity as a copy of other cultural tales (virgin birth and son of god attributed to Egyptian Mythology, etc.) and I believed it...seemed credible enough. That documentary, along with hours of similar content convinced me that Yeshua's story was a mixture of several tales. So for a decade I've always said Yeshua was just a man who "figured it out", like many prophets before him, and then I got super dedicated into the Law of Attraction culture...until 2021 (officially declared myself Christian again on September 9th, 2021, I'll never forget that moment).
Because of the plandemic, it forced me to get more vigilant with theological truth and doing my own deep dive research (666, the occult/satanism, the early 1st-4th century christian schisms, etc.) – i devoured hours on hours of info from scholars of all POV's (ie. the agnostic Bart Ehrman, or the Christian Dan Wallace, etc.) and read the actual documents from those early centuries like the Four Discourses Against the Arians, Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia, Rowan Williams’ Arius: Heresy and Tradition (Revised Edition), Athanasius Orationes contra Arianos, etc. (archive.org is a great source for docs like this) ––– and from my earnest due diligence, especially reading Isaiah 53, Proverbs 8, Psalms 22 and Romans 8:29 – I've concluded that Yeshua is indeed THE TRUTH!!! I am now a Postmill-Arian-Christian. So much to say to defend Christianity, but I don't want this to get too long so let me wrap this up...bare with me lol
Some quick info that I found helpful:
Every scholar from all theological POV's agree unanimously that Yeshua was a real man in history who shook up society in ways the world has never seen before (Bart Ehrman is a great source for this, since even he defends this fact while being an agnostic so he has nothing to gain)
Why is it that a large majority of the elites of the world, the "Deep State", etc. happen to be satanists or occultists? and they squirm at the name Jesus and try to remove God's law and moral value from pop culture...but yet, they're always cool with Buddha, Muhammad, Vishnu, etc. but when it comes to the name of Yeshua/Jesus and his true message that he is our creator and king of all creation? They vehemently hate anything alluding to Yeshua's title and his true teachings! Huge red flag! (Yeshua's title as Son of God is real)
Bart Ehrman says: Christianity is the first religion that emphasized BELIEF, rather than WORKS. Pagans and Monotheist cultures (Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam etc) all focused on your works for your blessings or "enlightenment", Christianity was revolutionary for focusing on FAITH! So considering what Bart said, in my view, the original Law of Attraction wisdom was from Christianity!!! ––– ie. Whatever you desire, believe you've received it, and it will be yours [Mark 11:24] ––– and now today we see the pop culture using Law of Attraction to confuse people with truth while repackaging the original sin with the "I am God" lie, which is wrong. Yes, yeshua said we're gods (lowercase 'g'), but not how LOA culture teaches it (they imply the uppercase 'G').
Isaiah 53, Psalms 22 and Proverbs 8 helped me realize Yeshua truly was destined.
But i kept wrestling with verses regarding the trinity like Mark 10:18 (“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.") – keywords: God ALONE. Not three, ONE. Among many many many other verses that prove Yeshua admits to being subordinate to the Father...UNTIL, i learned the TRUTH about a man named "Arius" and what he believed and fought for at the Nicene Creed of 325 AD. His opponents called him a heretic, twisted his words and burned all his books, right? Well here's some food for thought, we wouldn't have Christianity the way it is today without Martin Luther who exposed the corruption of Catholics in the 1500's – that's only 500 years ago...and til this day, Catholics still consider him a "heretic" – so the heretic label is often misleading!
Arianism (plus Postmillennialism) was the missing exegetical POV that renewed my faith with an exciting passion.
*Note: if you google Arianism you'll see a lot of misleading info implying that it's insisting "Jesus was not divine since he was not eternal" which is not what Arius taught; and often compares it to Mormanism or Jehova's Witness which is fundamentally wrong. You have to dive deep and read the actual letters/docs from the church elders of those centuries to read the truth.
If you're interested, see my Arian blog post to read more info on the history of Arianism along with some Apologetic points to support Arius' views here: http://arius.yeshuan.org
Hope my testimony helps...much love!
