John Piwinski
Bremerton, Washington
My Quest For Truth Has Ended With The Iglesia Ni Cristo
“IF CHRIST IS GOD on earth, who was Christ praying to? Was he praying to Himself? When Christ died on the cross, was it God who was dead for three days? Who raised Him then from the grave if He were already dead?”
MY NAME IS John Piwinski. I am 36 years old and I currently live in Bremerton, Washington.
My mother raised me as a Protestant until I was ten years old. She brought me, my older sister, and my younger brother to a non-denominational Protestant Church. When was five, my mother and father got divorced. Five years later, my mother remarried. She chose a very nice man to be Our stepfather. Being Catholic, he wanted all of us to be brought up into the Roman Catholic Church. Soon, we were attending Catholic doctrinal lesson and at the age of twelve, I was baptized into the Catholic faith.
It was a very confusing time for me, just when I was beginning to understand that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Catholic Church was telling me that Christ is God. As a young lad, I wondered how that could be. I raised this question during my doctrinal lessons but never got any satisfactory answer. Failing to produce any convincing explanation, the priest would simply say, “You must have faith and believe, my son.” Not wanting to embarrass my family by being labeled a “non-believer,” I went on with the lessons, and with my life. But this question continued to haunt me for years to come.
As I got older, more questions regarding this false doctrine surfaced. If Christ is God on earth, who was Christ praying to? Was he praying to Himself? When Christ died on the cross, was it God who was dead for three days? Who raised Him then from the grave if He were already dead? The Bible states that Christ sits at the right hand of the Father. If Christ is God, does Christ then sit next to himself? The priests were still unable to provide me with a biblical basis for their doctrine. Instead, they told me to have faith and believe in the “mystery of God.”
In July, 1985, I met my wife, Nancy, while I was stationed in the Philippines, serving in the United States navy. Although my wife was born in the Iglesia ni Cristo (Church of Christ), she had been away from it when she and I met. We fell in love and got married in a non-denominational church. We were blessed with three sons: Leonard, Benjamin, and Jason. Nancy and I agreed that it was time to start taking them to church to learn about God and Jesus Christ. The only question was which church? Although we often talked about it, we never really got motivated enough to decide to which church we should take them.
During the summer of 1992, while stationed on board a ship, I was deployed to the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean for six months. While deployed, I signed up for a college course in Humanities: Western Civilization, 1300 – 1815. During this course, we learned, in detail, about the reasons behind the Church Reformation, the Inquisition, and the corruption and death associated with the Roman Catholic Church. Having learned of its grim history, I related this to present-day events and scandals which continue to plague the Catholic Church: priests accused of child molestation and stealing money from the church, nuns getting pregnant, priests fathering children, etc. This became my turning point. I immediately wrote my wife and told her that I did not want to be a Catholic anymore. I did not need further proof that this church is not of God. When I returned to the United States, my sister-in-law, Sister Germelina Lahey, invited my wife and me to a Bible exposition of the Iglesia Ni Cristo in National City, California. That Bible exposition changed my life! The lesson, oddly enough, was about the Trinity. After waiting so long, my questions had finally been answered! And the answers came from the Bible, not from interpretations of a minister! I wanted to hear more so I started my indoctrination with Brother Arthur Agag, then the resident minister of National City. After finishing my Bible study sessions, I was finally baptized into the Church of Christ.
I am now a Deacon, Vice President of the Light of Salvation in the locale of Bremerton, Washington. God willing, I will be teaching in the Children’s Worship Service soon. My wife, Nancy is a Senior Choir member, while my oldest son, Leonard, is in the Children’s Choir.
I am very thankful to the Father in heaven for the blessings He has given me and my family. Most especially, I am so grateful that He led me in the right direction ― to the Iglesia Ni Cristo. I wish to share this important blessing with those who are still in the dark and searching for the truth. Join us and let’s all be a part of God’s family!
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