Radio: What New Believers Need to Know About Christianity

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. I'm excited to share a special episode with you today. I recently joined Rob Schilling, the host of The Schilling Show, to talk about my book, Start Strong: A New Believer's Guide to Christianity. Rob took a different approach than I was expecting. He skipped the usual why did you write this book kind of questions? And instead, we dove right into the theology, what new believers need to understand, why it matters, and how Start Strong lays that foundation. Whether you're new to the faith or helping someone who is, I think you'll find this conversation both deep and practical. Here's a clip from the show, and I hope it encourages you or someone you know. You can find the stilling show weekdays from noon to two on WINA Radio or anytime at schillingshow.com. Thanks for listening today. Rob Schilling: All right, the Schilling show continues on this Turbo Tuesday. Krisan Marotta, host of Wednesday in the Word podcast and author of a really fantastic new book, Start Strong, A New Believer's Guide to Christianity. Krisan Marotta, welcome to the Chilling Show and thank you for joining us today. Krisan Marotta: Thank you so much for having me. Rob Schilling: Congratulations on the new book. You've done a terrific job in laying out what it means to be a new Christian and so many considerations, which we'll get into. And I did promise the listening audience, since you had shared a copy of your book, that we're going to give a copy of the book away right now to caller number three at 977 1070 as Marshall stands by. And we'll tell you where you can get the book because it's a wonderful find. Tell us a little bit about your podcast before we jump into the book, because you've been doing this a good long time. Krisan Marotta: I have. I started podcasting back in 2011. There were 300 podcasts in the world at the time. So it's been a while. And I put out a Bible study basically every week, and I now the podcast has grown so that I reach like 50,000 listeners a year in over 150 countries. Rob Schilling: That's absolutely remarkable. And this is such a good reason to be talking to people. There are so many questions that people have when they're familiarizing themselves with Christianity, and you've addressed a good number of these in the book. Tell us who your target audience was in this book. Did you have somebody in mind? I know it's a new believer, but sometimes people are just not open to someone else telling them, or they just want to kind of find out on their own. So who was the target for this book? Krisan Marotta: Over the years, as I've taught Bible studies, I've noticed that there's been there's a growing illiteracy. People just don't know anything about the Bible anymore. And the questions people were asking were more and more basic and more and more like, who was Paul and who was Noah? And I realized there's just a real need for explaining what the Bible is all about because we don't get taught it at all in our culture anymore. Rob Schilling: It's absolutely the case. Repentance, the first step. This is a tough one for people to repent and admit that they were wrong. And it it's a very overt process. Tell us about it. Krisan Marotta: Well, a lot of people think repentance is just saying you're sorry and apologizing and moving on. But repentance is really a change of direction. It's saying, I was wrong and I want to change and do something completely different. And it is the first step of saving faith. Rob Schilling: That is a tough first step. When you work with women or have talked to women before, how do you get them past the initial, you know, the I I don't know if you want to use the word pride or or maybe it's embarrassment to look at your life, a self-evaluate a self-evaluation of your life and to put the stuff on the table because it could be, in a way, embarrassing even to the person who has that experience in their life. So how do you encourage that? Krisan Marotta: I think you have to understand the problem before you can understand the solution. So all of us at some point come face to face with our sin in one way or another. We either hurt someone when we didn't intend to, or say something we wish we hadn't, or something we run into it. And at that point you reach out with grace that yes, we are all like that. We all do things we shouldn't and say things we shouldn't and are thoughtless and neglect people. But there's an answer. And the answer isn't try harder. The answer is there is a rescue, there's a savior. Rob Schilling: Something that you touch on in the book, and you mentioned the word sin, and we don't hear that very much in the popular vernacular. It used to be a lot more common, but there are consequences of sin, even if you're not quote unquote found out or exposed for whatever sins you're dealing with on a personal basis. Tell us about the importance of consequences of sin. Krisan Marotta: Well, there's short-term consequences, and there's a really big long-term consequence. The short-term consequence is when we sin, we experience all kinds of death in the form of bitterness, frustration, anger, tragedy, all the negative things that ruin this life. But the bigger consequences is one day we all we'll all face our Creator, and we need to be able to stand before him. And the Bible's pretty clear we're sinners, and when we stand before him, the answer is going to be you're guilty. But God is so loving and merciful, he created a way of escape. And that way of escape is open now. Rob Schilling: It's so important to really contemplate this, and and you've laid it out so well in the book in a step-by-step basis for stepping through these various challenges and things that you need to do. One of them that's super important, and I want to spend a little time on finding a church. Uh, there are a lot of confused, I'll put church in air quotes in Charlottesville who have all sorts of uh political agendas or things that are contrary to what the Bible says. So how does somebody go about finding the right church? Krisan Marotta: Oh, I agree. It's hard. And it's scary because you feel like, oh, I have to get my act together before I can walk in the door. And that's not true. You don't have to get your act together. Church is filled with other confused sinners just like you. Rob Schilling: Yeah. Krisan Marotta: But in our day and age, it's easier because before you walk in the doors, you can get on and read their websites and listen to a few sermons and see are is this church really teaching the Bible or not? And that's what you want to look for, a church that is going through the Bible in a very real way and teaching you to understand it. Rob Schilling: Another issue that comes up in the book that people maybe don't think about in advance, but this is really something important for people new to Christianity, is your world view. And it's it's hard to have a worldly worldview and be a Christian. I mean, there's so many things that change when your eyes are open to Christianity. Krisan Marotta: That's true. And we're taught right now that the the worldview is you have oppressors and then you have the oppressed. And that's not a biblical worldview. The worldview is there are those, we are all sinners, but some people have found forgiveness through Jesus Christ and some haven't. Rob Schilling: You mentioned also finding your people, and and fellowship is a huge component of Christianity. I mean, we have a lot of places that are doing Sunday services online, but that doesn't really put you into God's house. Tell us about fellowship and finding your people. Krisan Marotta: Well, I think it is in many ways, it's harder with everybody working from home and being on their phone so much, or even when you're out in public, you don't have those five second conversations with the grocery clerk because everybody's too busy looking at their phones. But I think it is important to find other people to encourage you along the way and that you can encourage. And God, it's very clear that part of the reason he calls us is not just to a relationship with him, but to a relationship with his people where we can serve each other and grow together and encourage each other. And someone's there when you fall down to give you a hand up. Rob Schilling: We've got about a minute left, Chris on to talk about the concept of fearing God, because you have a section of the book about that, and people generally don't understand or don't have a good understanding of what that means. Krisan Marotta: So right, I used to think fearing God may somehow you had to be afraid of him. Rob Schilling: Yes. Krisan Marotta: But basically the idea is just make what he thinks more important than anything else. Fear is something that motivates you. The thing you are most afraid of is what determines your choices. And we want, as Christians, for God to be the thing we most fear in the sense that what he says is the thing that's going to guide us and affect our choices. Rob Schilling: Krisan Marotta, if people, I'm going to ask you for two things. If people want to check out Wednesday in the Word Podcast, or if they'd like to get a copy of Start Strong, A New Believer's Guide to Christianity, tell us how we can do those things. Krisan Marotta: You can find the book wherever books are sold, or you can go to startstrongbook.org. And the Wednesday in the Word podcast is at wednesdayintheword.com. And wherever you listen to podcasts, you can find it. Rob Schilling: It's a wonderful, thoughtful book, Start Strong, A New Believer's Guide to Christianity. Krisan Marotta, thank you for joining us today on the Schilling Show. Krisan Marotta: Well, thank you so much for having me. Great questions. Rob Schilling: Well, a lot to think about in your book, and I hope people will take advantage of the opportunity. And congratulations to the winner of the book. Krisan Marotta: Thanks for listening to my conversation with Rob Schilling, host of The Schilling Show. You can find more of Rob's thoughtful interviews, news, and analysis on schillingshow.com. If you want to learn more about Start Strong, a New Believer's Guide to Christianity, or share it with someone who's just beginning their faith journey, you can find all the details at Startstrongbook.org. As usual, you can find all the episodes of Wednesday in the Word wherever you listen to your podcasts, or on my website, wednesdayintheword.com. Thanks so much for listening today, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.