20 Facts I Wish I Knew As a New Christian

Today's video is just more ways to make you the most interesting person at your next dinner party or church event. Take your pick. Now, for those of you who have been a Christian for a while and you know your Bible pretty well and your theology is pretty good, then just a heads up, this video isn't really aimed at you.

But who knows? I never know. I'm still learning, too.

There might be something that you didn't know before. But after having a recent conversation with a fairly new Christian, I realized that sometimes we forget that there's quite a few Christians or people out there in general that may or may not know these things. That we take this for granted and we forget at one point there was a time that we didn't know these things either.

So just consider this your fun Christian version of Snapple facts here on the tubes of you. You're welcome. Number one, the Gospels.

I remember being a brand new Christian trying to read through the Gospels and I was so confused because I didn't understand why they all sounded the same. Like they're not word for word to be sure. But didn't I just read this story?

I'm pretty sure that this was just in the previous story I just read, right? Nobody really explained to me that they were four different eyewitness accounts of the same event. I'm so happy there's a dog barking right now while I'm filming.

four different eyewitness accounts of the same event, Jesus's life and resurrection. Also, a little random fun snapple fact for you. The differences in the Gospels, I learned, are not a bad thing at all, but proof that they didn't get together and conspire to come up with the same exact story.

So, people that are wondering, "Wow, why are these different if they're the same accounts? " I submit to you that that is a good thing, not a bad thing. Because I don't know about you, but I worked with kids for quite a few years.

And when little Junior did something and Junior's five other friends had the same exact story, I was a little sus. Number two, the Bible is not written in chronological order. The books of the Bible are categorized by their subject matter, not in a timeline.

So in the Old Testament, the order is the books of the law, then history, then poetry, then prophets. At least I'm pretty sure that's the order it follows. So, for example, if you're reading one of the prophets in the Old Testament, you could be reading something that happened when you read back in First Kings.

Number three, the Bible has about 40 different authors. It's a compiled history book as well as a spiritual book. So, when people think that one or two people got together and just wrote the Bible, that in no way, shape, or form is how it got written.

For me, this is a fingerprint from God. to further confirm this book as his special revelation to mankind. That and the fact that God became his creation and rose again from the dead.

Number four, the book of revelation is pronounced revelation, not revelations. What a revelation, huh? That was so corny.

It was one revelation written by John given from Jesus. And fun fact for you, more fun facts, he was also the only disciple that wasn't martyed, though he was tortured and exiled to the island of Patmos where he wrote the book of Revelation. Number five, there are no verses or chapters in the Bible.

The writers of the Bible didn't add those. We did to help the text be more organized and easier to navigate. And also, I didn't realize at the time that the original language of the Bible is Hebrew and Greek and a little bit of Aramaic.

The Old Testament is written mostly in Hebrew and the New Testament is written in Greek. What's really interesting is Aramaic was the language of the Babylonian Empire and when the Jews were exiled to Babylon, many of them started to use that language. So some portions of the book of Daniel and Ezra for example are written in Aramaic.

Number six, New Testament letters. When the letters of Paul and the Gospels were written, these were really well circulated in the first century. I remember thinking that a group got together and just wrote the letters of the New Testament and then just put them in the Bible at the Council of Nika.

I made a whole video with my friend Wesley Huff about the Council of Nika and what happened there. But for people to think that people just got together and put the the books of the Bible, the New Testament together is not only historically inaccurate, but it was really it was very hard to do that. So let's just say for example that Paul wrote a letter.

All right. And he wanted it to be dispersed to the different churches. There were different churches in different cities.

And many copies were made to accommodate for all the churches and groups who wanted to read his letter. This has a lot to do with why we have the specific books we have in our Bibles right now and how we could tell the difference between if a disciple or Paul wrote it or if it was a fraud. Number seven, the authors of the New Testament assumed that their audience, the reader, knew the Old Testament.

You can still read the New Testament and get a lot out of it, but it was written to a first century Jewish audience, not a 21st century American audience. This means that a lot of things might sound very foreign to our ears, such as Jesus's parables, for example. In my experience, this is why a lot of new age and spiritual teachers can and will make a metaphysical, mystical, contextual mess out of Jesus's words.

And even some pastors do this, too. And they can get away with it because a lot of people don't know the context in which it's given. The general audience doesn't know any better.

Number seven, gentile means non-Jewish. Jesus was Jewish and followed the laws of Moses and he lived in a first century Jewish Middle Eastern culture. Now, I'm going to be really careful with how I say this because race has become a seriously messy topic lately and it can make people pretty irrational, but what I will say is that Jesus was a Jewish Middle Easter.

And when he walked the earth, he probably looked like a first century Jewish Middle Easterner. Number eight, Paul and Saul. Now, a lot of people think, and I've heard this many times before, that Saul's name was actually changed to Paul after his conversion to demonstrate a changed man.

But this isn't true, though. It never changed. Scripture never says that.

I have heard some pastors suggest that this is what happened. And most of the time when I hear the example of Saul's name changing to Paul, they're using it in an encouraging way, saying that God can change your name, too. And that's just not right.

The misconception comes in after the road to Damascus experience. People think that God changed his name to Paul after that, but that's never in scripture. What the Bible does say is that Saul was also called Paul.

He had a dual name. It was because he was a Roman citizen, but he was still Jewish. So Paul was his Roman name and Saul was his Jewish name.

He chose to go by his Roman name because he was preaching to the Gentiles, which is pretty appropriate to do. Number nine, Mary Magdalene. If I could rip my hair out, I would.

Did you know that there's nowhere in scripture that calls Mary Magdalene a prostitute? There's a Mary called a woman of the city who was a great sinner. And people associate this Mary with Mary Magdalene.

But if you read all four gospels, this Mary is most likely identified as Martha's sister, not Mary Magdalene. On top of that, let's just pretend for a second. Let's just pretend that it was Mary Magdalene.

She still is never called a prostitute. Some people associate her with a woman who's maybe caught in adultery, they say, but again, scripture itself never makes that connection. The identity of the woman caught in adultery is never revealed in scripture.

The thing is is that scripture is surprisingly quiet about Mary Magdalene. All it says is that she had seven demons cast out of her and she was among the women who followed Jesus and she was at the tomb. But that's it.

There's all kinds of stories about Mary Magdalene that go far beyond where scripture places her. What happens is when you get tradition and pop culture misconceptions like the Da Vinci Code cough cough and Dan Brown cough that trickle into your belief system all of a sudden you start believing it without checking the facts. Number 10.

What fruit did Adam and Eve eat in the Bible? Did you say apple? I know some of you didn't cuz you already know the answer to this question.

Just play play along. All right, just play along. For those of you who did answer apple, would you be surprised to know that the Bible nowhere says what the fruit was that Adam and Eve ate?

Again, we get this from art and tradition depicting Adam and Eve eating an apple. What the Bible does say is that whatever this fruit was, it was extremely appealing. And I personally tend to believe that it was probably a fruit that we're probably not very familiar with.

Number 11. This one threw me for a loop as a new believer. I want you to picture Jesus and the Last Supper.

Are you picturing it? Jesus sitting at the table in a chair upright like we do, folding his hands, elbows on the table, which my grandma would say is bad manners. And he's sharing bread with his disciples sitting right next to him.

Right? Wrong. All those traditional paintings of Jesus sitting upright at a table above his lap are historically and biblically incorrect.

They would be typically lying on the ground reclining at a table that was only a few inches off the ground. This is why people would have to wash their feet before they ate because someone's dirty feet would be pretty close to your face. And let me just make it more gross for you for a second.

People back then would pretty much throw their waste on the ground. So, you were walking around in some pretty filthy streets. Interestingly, I would say this is actually a pretty beautiful thing because it kind of puts a different light on Jesus being the servant washing the disciples filthy feet before the last supper.

It's a great analogy for our sin as being filthy. And especially when Jesus says that unless he washes you, if he doesn't wash you, he can't have anything to do with you. Number 12.

Okay, this next one is kind of tricky because of tradition as well. But how many wise men visited Jesus? I bet you at least a few of you said three.

I bet you guys are already on to me and know what I'm getting at because guess what? Scripture never actually tells us how many there were. We know that there's more than two, but the Bible never actually says there were specifically three.

A reason perhaps that people believe this is that there were three gifts given to to Jesus. So, they associate the three gifts with the three wise men. Number 13, speaking of the wise men, you all know those nativity scenes at Christmas.

So serene, so beautiful. You have the wise men bowing down in the manger, staring down at the Lord, baby Jesus, that's just been born. Well, too bad.

It's completely imaginary. The wise men were never at the birth of Jesus. They had to travel from the far east to come see him, and it took a long time to get to him, which means they were far, far away when Jesus was actually born.

The Bible says that Mary and Joseph and Jesus moved into a house by the time the wise men actually reached them. So they came much later, most likely when Jesus was a toddler. Number 14.

Though Jesus and his disciples weren't technically homeless, especially how we consider homelessness today, Jesus and his disciples did stay in different homes during his ministry. They didn't stay in just one house and live together under one roof. They stayed, ate, and slept in other people's homes that would host them.

2,000 years ago, having a traveler in your home was not that abnormal. Today, it would be completely weird. Now, I don't seem like it, but I'm actually quite introverted.

I know it's a shock. I like my alone time. I like my space.

I thrive on it. So, if someone were to come knock on my door and be like, "Hey, Melissa, you don't know me, but I'm traveling. " And I was wondering, could I stay in your back room and pretty much eat whatever you got in your kitchen?

Uh-uh. You people with the gift of hospitality, you fascinate me. You're total angels.

Number 15. Speaking of angels, imagine an angel. Does it have fluffy feathery wings?

A halo perhaps? Now, I want you to take an imaginary black marker and put a big black X over it. Angels are not depicted like this at all in scripture.

Angels don't have wings. In fact, nowhere in scripture are angels that God sends to us anywhere near that depiction. The only record in scripture we have a spiritual being with wings are the beings in heaven, the cherubam and the seraraphim in heaven.

But those are not messenger angels. Those are angels that are in heaven and stay in heaven. And they definitely don't look like humans.

Number 16, the P in Psalms is silent. Number 17, think about praying. Picture what it looks like.

Maybe on their knees, head bowed, eyes closed with maybe their hands together in prayer. Believe it or not, there are some people that think that this is the only acceptable way to pray. That somehow God will hear you better and respect you more if you pray in this position.

Nowhere in the Bible does it say that there's one right or correct position to pray in. Scripture is very clear that we need to be in prayer constantly, but there's not a proper way to pray. In the book of Romans, it even says that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us when we're struggling to pray.

In scripture, the Israelites would pray with their faces looking up towards God and their arms outstretched to the sky, which ironically is actually the opposite to the traditional way that we've adopted today. Bottom line, it's a personal preference on how, when, and where we decide to pray. The Bible doesn't specify a certain time or place to pray, just that we need to constantly be in prayer.

Number 18. This next one is a little interesting and I might get some colorful feedback on it in the comment section. Always a fun time there.

But Satan's name is not actually Lucifer. Satan's name technically isn't even Satan. It's more of an identity than a name.

Satan or Satan means adversary or accuser. The reason why people think that Satan's name is Lucifer is because it mentions this name in the King James Bible. It was translated that way, but this isn't literally his name.

There's more to this than that, but the bottom line is that no one knows really what his name was. Number 19. This one's always a fun time, but Jesus's last name isn't Christ.

I am still shocked on how many people believe this. Christ means Messiah or the anointed one. So, when scripture refers to him as Jesus Christ, they are identifying his name with the long awaited Messiah, the anointed one.

This rolls over into number 20. Speaking of last names, today we have last names to know our identity, like where we live and who we are. But back then, kind of Lord of the Rings style, you were known for who you were the son of by that phrase.

So Jesus would be Jesus, the son of Joseph, the carpenter or Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus had two disciples named James. One of them was known as James, the son of Alphus.

This was also very useful since people shared common names. So, think of this as the ancient version of a last name because it carried your very identity. Also, it makes Jesus calling himself the son of God rather interesting.

Now, that's all I got for this list for now. Hopefully, you're 14% smarter now. Oh my, I'm in a good mood today.

I just Sorry, guys. Thank you guys so much for watching and I hope you enjoyed this. For more content, you can also follow me on Instagram.