how to become a Christian

[on_fire]

how did the first Christians become a Christian.please use any teachings of the early church,the bible or Church fathers.my son who is non Catholic is always pointing out people he says are christians. I want to explain to him that most people I know are Christians …

 

[angelic06]

Somewhere in the Bible (I don’t know what passage it is), St. Peter (?) says:

“Believe in the Lord Jesus and be baptized, and you will receive the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and your children.”

And at the end of the Gospel according to Matthew (?), Jesus says,

“Go…baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them ***all ***that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

 

[Claire_from_DE]

how did the first Christians become a Christian.please use any teachings of the early church,the bible or Church fathers.my son who is non Catholic is always pointing out people he says are christians. I want to explain to him that most people I know are Christians …

At first this was in Jerusalem. They listened to the preaching of the apostles and believed what they taught about Jesus. Then they were baptized. They went to the temple to hear the apostles teach and followed their teachings. And they ‘broke bread’ (celebrated the Eucharist) together in their homes. At the time they were baptized they received the Holy Spirit. Their was an instance mentioned where some people didn’t received the Holy Spirit and didn’t know about Him so the apostles taught them and called down the Spirit on them. They were expected to show love for each other and for their enemies.

The Acts of the Apostles tells about all this, as well as some of the epistles.

Your son is probably pointing out people who live out their Christian faith, who follow the teachings of Jesus, who trust God in their lives. You could ask him what he means when he says someone is a Christian. There’s a song “They’ll know we are Christians by our love…”

There are people who believe in God, who are baptized and go to church, but who haven’t yet made an adult commitment to follow Jesus. Perhaps your son is implying that these people aren’t ‘real’ Christians. You could have an interesting discussion with him about what it means to really follow Jesus.

 

[jmcrae]

Every baptized person is a Christian - either a good one, or a bad one.

There are also lots of kind, polite people who are not Christians, or not good Christians - you can be a bad Christian, while remaining a polite, kind person - one can be kind to others and polite most of the time, while skipping Mass and disobeying the laws of the Church in many ways.

One does not become “a Christian” by being polite and kind, but at the same time, all Christians are called also to be polite and kind.

Faust imagined that the Devil is very kind and polite, in order to entice people to believe his lies - after all, who would follow the common stereotype of a strange red-skinned monster that breathes fire? Perhaps the Devil is a very kind, polite, well-dressed being, who makes sin seem perfectly reasonable, and makes virtue seem - well - cowardly, or judgmental.