Many Religions, One Truth

Lately I have been studying and reading about the history of the ancient world. In particular, ancient Mesopotamia which was the birthplace of civilization. Abraham was among its earliest settlers and the history of the Bible plays out during this time. It’s always awesome to be able to connect the events in the Bible with the ancient world as a whole.

The most interesting component of the world during the time of the Bible was religion. Every nation, tongue, and tribe had a religion that determined every aspect of their lives. To them, religion meant citizenship. For a Jewish person it meant what food they could or could not eat. For a Hindu, it determined your social status. Assyria and Babylon adopted polytheism from the Sumerian culture that came before them in the river valley. Egypt had their own polytheistic religion where the Pharaoh acted as the religious and political leader. In the Northern kingdom of Israel false idols were worshiped in the form of golden calf’s and the Canaanite deity Baal. Those false idols began to creep into the Southern kingdom of Judah. The people of Judah began to sink further into the practices of Baal until the Babylonians came and took over. Even after seeing the Northern kingdom destroyed by the Assyrians, the Southern kingdom continued to adopt the worship of false idols despite the many warnings they were given. As a result, the people of Judah were exiled to Babylon under the rule of King Nebuchadnezzar. After the Persians conquered Babylon, they immediately sent the Jewish people back to Jerusalem with money to build their temple. The Persian Empire was definitely my favorite ancient culture to study because of their multi-culturalism. With the temple rebuilt in Jerusalem, the Old Testament plays out and the birth of Jesus brings us the New Testament. By this time, the Persians were conquered by the Greeks, and the Greeks were overcome by the Roman Empire who controlled almost all of Mesopotamia. I read through Acts recently and a couple things stood out to me while reading. The first thing that made me think was how difficult it must have been to bring new ideas about religion to people who were born, raised, and lived their everyday lives in their own religion. The disciples were mostly surrounded by Jews who kept strict law and tradition. As we know, the Jewish leaders were not too fond of the idea of Jesus being the Messiah, but that did not stop Peter, Paul, or the other apostles from proclaiming the truth. The second thing that I wanted to bring up was the ministry to the Gentiles. Paul was a Jewish Roman citizen who spread the word of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, or non-Jews. Some Jews despised Paul for letting “unclean” Gentiles worship God. Those Jews planned to kill him but the Romans protected him and sent him to Rome where he continued to preach. (Acts 21-26) Simon Peter primarily preached to the Jewish people, but the Holy Spirit brought a vision to him: “He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.” “Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.” The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” ‭‭(Acts‬ ‭10:11-15‬ ‭NIV‬‬) After the vision, Peter addresses the Jewish people to explain to them that no man should be called impure or unclean. The preaching of the word should not be limited to any one group of people. Christians should not look at Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, or any other religion as “impure”. Rather we should share with them the truth that we know. Nine times out of ten it will be rejected, but what person of a religion wouldn’t reject something that goes against their beliefs? As we saw in the journeys of Paul, it takes tremendous faith to preach to Gentiles, or in our case, non-Christians. The United States today is extremely secular. Religion does not have the influential power that it had in ancient times. More and more people identify as non-religious in the U.S. everyday, but at the same time the diversity of our nation has brought almost every worldly religion to our doorstep. I see no better opportunity to spread the word inside our own Nation than today. I encourage you all to make friends with that non-religious coworker, the Muslim or Buddhist that lives down the street, or with that person that rejects any existence of God. Just a friendship is all that is needed, don’t try to force Christianity on them. A loving, friendly relationship is enough to plant a seed that may one day sprout into salvation.