The Bible is a human product: it tells us how our religious ancestors saw things, not how God sees them Marcus J. Borg I’m pretty sure there are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of different versions of the Bible today. So, … Continue reading Quotes – A Human Product…
Here’s what I’ve learned since then. The people who scan the heavens and pore over the Bible looking for the return of Jesus aren’t any more faithful, any more Christian, any more privy to the will of God, than the rest of us. Continue reading A Miraculous Intervention…
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by this Doomdayer with his stern look amongst all those smiling and laughing people that Saturday night in Times Square. I think he is the first one I have even seen in person. Continue reading Mosaic of Life #134 – Those Poor Doomsayers…
I can remember, as a young boy, reading a story about George Washington chopping down a cherry tree. It was a noble story about how he took the blame for the missing tree. The trouble was, that I found out … Continue reading One Publisher’s Version Of The Story
One of the things I have probably struggled with the most is the difference between the Old Testament God and the God as described by Jesus. It just seems to me that The OT God is pretty much an egotist, … Continue reading Doing God’s Will
Given what I post here the title above probably sounds like sacrilege to you. But in many ways being an Evangelical was just easier than taking my spiritual life seriously. I was an Evangelical for twenty-five years so there had … Continue reading I Kinda Miss Being An Evangelical
I was fascinated by this modern interpretation of the 10 Commandment when I came across them recently. I must admit that I didn’t really feel that the Old English version found in most Bibles applied to me. It’s kind of … Continue reading The 21st Century Interpretation of the 10 Commandments.
I’m going to do a philosophical post of my own making for today. I will get back to studying others next week. With this post, I am certainly exercising the creative side. I will try to analyze the mind of … Continue reading Miracles And The First Century Mind….
While waiting for my car to be serviced recently I browsed a Barnes & Noble store. I don’t do that often anymore as most of my purchases are now e-books. When I came upon the Bible section it suddenly caught my attention as to the number of books by people who propose to “tell” me about what the Bible says. For those who are unfamiliar with my history in this area, I spent several years diligently reading the Bible from cover to cover desperately trying to glean everything I could from it. Of course, before I even started that task I … Continue reading (WS) I’ll Tell You What the Bible Says…
I think I have let it be known that I view the Bible as a history book of the early period of Christianity. As such maybe it needs to be updated from time to time? New chapters need to be written and old ones modified to more accurately reflect information found. The Bible was put together about 400 years after the death of Jesus. It was primarily assembled under the oversight of a Roman Emperor who intended to use it as a guide for his kingdom. It contained several of the ancient documents found at the time but by no … Continue reading The Bible As A History Book..
This six part Sunday series was about looking at the Bible as a human document. That is, it was written and assembled by humans with different life experiences, viewpoints, and passions. Much of their thoughts and words were believed to come from divine inspiration. Many believed they were writing what God wanted them to write. When I study the Bible I try to understand the reasons why some of the writers might have penned what they did. Of course, I am also a human who has my own life experiences and passions, part of which surely shaped by what I have previously studied. What … Continue reading My View Of The Bible – Part 6 Closing Thoughts…
This is the fifth post on this series about the Bible. If it is not obvious by now I want you to understand that I put my Christianity on Jesus Christ not on a book about him. I will try to keep this brief as it is really a wrap-up of the past posts. About the Literalists: Panic – In some cases I see almost total panic in people when I say not all the words in the bible are literally true. This belief is so ingrained in the foundations of their faith they cannot imagine it could not be true. Irrational – Some say if … Continue reading My View Of The Bible — Part 5 Summing It Up..
Now that I have told you what I believe about the Bible I will go over a short list of things that are somewhat widely accepted by some twenty-first century Christian denominations but of which I basically disagree. Most of these topic titles are from texts of discussions I have had with Christians. I put them in a special category here because they were so deeply felt by others. All the words in the Bible are the words of Jesus (ie. every word and punctuation mark comes from God). This title came from a person fairly high in the LCMS Lutheran organization. He … Continue reading My View Of The Bible –Part 3.. Other Views
This post continues with my fundamental beliefs about the Bible. I have not come to these beliefs on a whim. They are the result of many years of thoughtful prayer and study. I am also not trying to prove anyone wrong. Everyone should come to God in their own way. So let’s get on with the final four areas of my view on the Bible. Some words of the Bible have infinitely more significance to our lives than others— The words through Jesus’ lips are the most important. Every other word is secondary at best. This is a major sticking point for some. … Continue reading My View Of The Bible— Part 2 .. What I believe (con’t)
For the next three Sundays I want to bring over some slightly edited posts of things I discovered about the Bible while blogging at RedLetterLiving.net. These posts were from early 2014 but my feelings about the topic really haven’t changed all that much. I have been spending quite a bit of time lately thinking about the Bible and my experiences with it over the last decade or so. Around 2003 I decided to take up a serious study of theology and in particularly those around the words of Jesus. I naively thought I could get some clear directions for my … Continue reading My View Of The Bible ..
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. He created the birds of the air and the fish of the sea and the beasts of the land. And then he created man, and it was down hill from there on out…. Forgive me that this is not an exact quote from any bible but for the purpose of this post you get the idea where I am going. The very first family that God made ended up with a murderer. One brother killing another. That wasn’t a very good start to humanity. It seems that the seven deadly … Continue reading In The Beginning…. And Then…
I think for too long we’ve made Jesus just one character or episode in the Bible. If we want to see God, we look to Jesus. In Hebrews 1:3, the writer says that Jesus is the exact representation of the Father. So I think that if we could recapture that centrality of Christ in our churches through our teaching, our worship, our way of life, well then, what would change? … We aren’t bringing Jesus into our lives: he’s welcoming us into his life. Years later, I still feel like the only place that makes sense is in his presence, … Continue reading Evolving Faith…
In fact, religion is invariably a tangle of contradictory teachings — in the Bible, the difference between the harshness of Deuteronomy and the warmth of Isaiah or Luke is striking — and it’s always easy to perceive something threatening in another tradition. Yet analysts who have tallied the number of violent or cruel passages in the Quran and the Bible count more than twice as many in the Bible. There’s a profound human tendency, rooted in evolutionary biology, to “otherize” people who don’t belong to our race, our ethnic group, our religion. That’s particularly true when we’re scared. It’s difficult … Continue reading How Well Do You Know Religion?
I am bringing over a series of posts for my Sunday entries from my now inactive blog over at RedLetterLiving. This is the last of a six-part series from about a year ago about the importance of the Bible in my spiritual life. After a ten-year study I finally understand what millions of other have discovered before me…. It’s about Jesus, not the Bible… What About The Bible… ? (Chapter 6) This is the final post on my series about the Bible. It has been an enlightening time for me. This final post is about the history of Christianity and how it … Continue reading The History Of Christianity???
I am bringing over a series of posts for my Sunday entries from my now inactive blog over at RedLetterLiving. This is the third of a six-part series from about a year ago about the importance of the Bible in my spiritual life. After a ten-year study I finally understand what millions of other have discovered before me…. It’s about Jesus, not the Bible… How Did The Bible Get So Filled… How did the Bible get so filled with things that have nothing to do with the messages of Jesus? That is one of many questions I have pondered over the last decade. … Continue reading How Did The Bible Get So Filled….
Originally posted on RedLetterLiving:
What About The Bible… ? (Chapter 2) I know that from all the rhetoric about this topic you are expecting the next word in the title to be “Clear” but actually for me it is “Fuzzy”. I don’t know how many times in my life I have heard the phrase “just study the bible for the answer to your problems. When a child dies from a fall in the bathtub the Christian answer to our total devastation is to “read the Bible”. It is as if we can just randomly open a page and then the… Continue reading I Read The Bible And Everything Became….
RJ's Corner - Having My Say 