Christianity is a 2000-year-old story.
It holds so many layers, so many interpretations, so much theology, philosophy, history, language and spiritual depth, that you could spend two lifetimes trying to understand it - and still stand there as a beginner.
This is not something you take lightly. It is not something you become an expert in over a few weeks by reading a book, listening to a podcast, or scrolling through some YouTube videos. Even the “experts” are not really experts - whether you are new or old in the faith.
The complexity and depth of understanding has no finish line. You can be baptized as an infant, raised in the church, have read the Bible front to back for 50 years - and still discover new layers, new connections, new dimensions you never saw before. You can be new in the faith, freshly converted, and suddenly receive a revelation that strikes deeper than what a professor of theology has spent his entire life trying to formulate.
Because this is not a ladder you climb to reach the top. It is an ocean. The further you swim out, the deeper it gets. The more you understand, the more you realize how little you understand.
The greatest saints, mystics and theologians in history have all said the same thing: “I know nothing.” Not as false humility - but as honest recognition that God is infinite, and man is finite.
No one graduates from Christianity. There is no title, no exam, no black belt. There is only the walk - and the one who has walked the longest knows best how little he has seen of the landscape.
That is also why it is dangerous when someone - new or old - speaks about the faith as if they have it in their pocket. As if they have understood it all. As if they can judge other people’s faith from some elevated position. That is the first sign they have not understood very much.
The true walkers are marked by the opposite: reverence, humility, openness - and a quiet knowing that they are still students.
The greatest thinkers of 2000 years - Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Kierkegaard - have spent their entire lives on one corner of it and died with questions they never reached answers to.
Because Christianity is not a subject. It is not a syllabus. It is not an ideology you can read your way through and then check off.
It is a living relationship with a living God - and a relationship is not something you “become an expert” in. You can only go deeper into it.
It is written in languages most people do not speak. Hebrew. Aramaic. Greek. Every word has layers that translations cannot capture. It was shaped in cultures that no longer exist. It has been interpreted through two millennia by people who each saw a glimpse - and misunderstood the rest.
And yet it is so simple that a child can grasp the core: God became man. He died for you. He rose again. He lives. He is calling you.
That is the paradox. It is the most complex structure of text and thought humanity has ever produced - and at the same time the most personal, intimate journey you will ever embark on.
It demands your intellect and your humility at once. It demands that you read - and that you kneel. That you think - and that you fall silent.
So if you think you can take Christianity down from the shelf, evaluate it over a weekend, and put it back with an opinion - then you have not understood what you are standing in front of.
You are standing in front of something greater than you. Greater than your time. Greater than your generation.
It is the most complex - but also the deepest - personal journey you will ever embark on. And it never ends.
In Jesus name - Amen!✝️❤️🔥🪽