Peace and grace to you in our Lord Jesus Christ. I have a question concerning witnessing to pagan followers. I have been talking with a few that point out that all religions, including Christianity, are actually a derivative of some former pagan belief. They point out that paganism has been around much longer then Christianity or Judaism for that matter. So, in their mind, it seems logical that when they hear a story or teaching in Christianity that is like one of their own from paganism, that it must have come from paganism.
What helps can I find that will give me a sufficient answer for why it appears that Christians borrow it’s teachings from pagan myths? I understand that Nimrod and the city of Babel is the birthplace of all paganism, but what can I show my pagan friends as evidence that this is true?
First of all, understand that to gain acceptance all lies have to have their foundation in a truth that is widely believed. By starting with the truth and bending it a little bit you can get people to buy in. Most cults, for example begin with scripture and then by bending it around they catch the uninformed and reel them in little by little. A one degree error repeated 180 times can have a person going in the opposite direction.
So we have to discover which is the truth, Judeo-Christian beliefs or pagan beliefs? As you stated post flood paganism originated with Nimrod and his wife Semeramis in ancient Bablyon. But they show up in the Bible in Genesis 10-11, whereas God told His story in Genesis 1. So the pagans have it backwards. And it could only be that way. The pagan view would have had had no foundation in popular belief had it not been derived from something people already believed. God’s truth, on the other hand had been around since the very first man. Paganism arose from man’s rebellious nature, not wanting to be accountable to someone greater than himself. The best way to avoid that is to deny the existence of the Greater One by creating an alternate story. It’s been that way from the beginning and continues today.
Because we don’t know enough about our Bible we can be fooled into thinking that Christianity and even Judaism are relatively young religions. But Judaism wasn’t born with Moses or even Abraham. It began in the Garden and was the one world religion until man rebelled. How did Cain and Abel know which offerings were acceptable and which were not unless God had told them to sacrifice a lamb for their sins? How did Noah know which animals were clean and which were not when God told him to bring seven clean and only two of the others? And the first prophecy of a Redeemer born of a virgin is in Genesis 3:15. The phrase “seed of the woman” is biologically impossible. Man produces the seed, the woman’s contribution is the egg. The mother-child cult begun by Semeramis and Tammuz and carried into every mythology in history was a corruption of the virgin and her Redeemer Son that God promised at the dawn of human history.
The devil is a deceiver and plays on our ignorance. And his most successful strategy is to twist God’s word around until darkness becomes light and evil becomes good. You probably won’t win this argument with the pagans, because to do so you’ll have to make them admit that they believe a lie. But you can know the truth and defend it. And you can pray that the Lord will open their hearts to Him.