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 View 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….
Originally posted on RedLetterLiving:
What About The Bible… ? (Chapter 1) 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 spiritual life if I just understood why the Bible seems to mean so many different things to so many people. What I have discovered over this period of time awakened me. I… Continue reading The Thing Is…..
I am pulling up another past post form Red Letter Living that I wrote almost three years ago. At that time in my spiritual journey I was trying to decide where church doctrine and its creeds belonged in my faith. Needless to say this book by Harvey Cox did a lot to show me a different path on this topic and many others. When I came to realize just how much man had a hand in formalizing current Christian doctrine it convinced me that Christianity is an ever evolving process and is not to be paralyzed by some of the now outdated … Continue reading The Decrees of Constantine…
How have we gotten the message of Jesus so damned wrong? One way I believe we might’ve taken a wrong turn or two in following the Way of Jesus is by not heeding his own teachings and example. In the article, Mohler quotes passages from the Hebrew Scriptures (Genesis 9) and even dabbles a bit into the writings of Paul (Romans 13). But he curiously ignores the red letters of the gospels which could shed a little light on what a Christian (i.e., a follower of Jesus Christ) should or should not support. SOURCE: Missing the Point: Al Mohler & … Continue reading Christians Denying Christ!!!
It is terrible to think what the churches do to men. But if one imagines oneself in the position of the men who constitute the Church, we see they could not act differently. The churches are placed in a dilemma: the Sermon on the Mount or the Nicene Creed–the one excludes the other. If a man sincerely believes in the Sermon on the Mount, the Nicene Creed must inevitably lose all meaning and significance for him, and the Church and its representatives together with it. If a man believes in the Nicene Creed, that is, in the Church, that is, … Continue reading Tolstoy & Christianity…
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” – John 1:1, ESV The Bible is not the “Word of God.” It is inspired by the Holy Spirit. It contains words of God. It even talks about the Word of God… but it is still not THE Word of God. The Word of God is actually Jesus Christ. Not the words of Jesus, but Christ himself. This little misunderstanding has created a whole heap of confusion about the point Christianity and how we are to use Scripture in our lives. While I … Continue reading Mislabeling the Word of God – Red Letter Christians
Lets continue on with some more quotes from the book by Tony Jones entitled The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier “I’m humble,” an emergent might tell you, “because I don’t know what I’m wrong about today. I’ll speak with confidence, and I’ll speak with passion, but I won’t speak with certainty.” Being humble/uncertain in any area of theology is very intimidating to some within the church. They say we must believe everything in the Bible comes from God. They say we will invariably go down the “slippery slope” if we question anything in that document. They say if we … Continue reading Humble Emergents vs. Absolutists….
This is a continuation of our study of Thomas Jefferson to discount the belief that he intended the United States to be a Christian nation. He started out and spent much of his life as a deist. That is he believed in the presence of God in the world but did not proclaim it as a Christian presence. Later in life after he was president he undertook a serious study of the Christian Bible and other religious documents. He took this study to the point of making his own version of the New Testament. Many are confused by the Jefferson … Continue reading Jefferson And The Gospels….
The primary reason there are 39,000+ Christian denominations is that each are trying to maintain “purity” of beliefs. Here is how that logic usually plays out: ” If we allow differences of opinions among us then we will soon reach a slippery slope where we will slide into heresy. For that reason we must be on the constant watch to exclude anyone among us who asks the ‘wrong’ questions or dares to disagree any of our creeds or beliefs.” I have personally felt the stink of one of these churches. But what these church authorities espousing this view overlook is … Continue reading Institutional Purity…..
I read the Bible on a regular basis. The words of Jesus, which to me is what the Bible is really all about, inspire me to love my fellow-man and to love my God. Many stories in the Bible even though they might just be stories, parables, or even myths are inspiring in the lessons they teach. I delight in the sheer narrative power they provide. I am very disheartened by the fact that some Christians today try to demand that the Bible was dropped down from heaven by God and not truly written my men who lived in the … Continue reading Taking Back the Bible….
As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world — that is the myth of the atomic age — as in being able to remake ourselves. — Gandhi
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. — 1 Corinthians 13
Looking back on my life Gandhi’s quote above inspires me with its wisdom and the second quote from the Bible mirrors the same message. Being able to see the circumstances and the facts and then making changes is where the greatness lies.
This seems to be a very tough message in today’s world where gridlock and stubborn instance of being right is the norm. There are just too many in the world who are consumed by their current worldviews and are totally unwilling to even consider that they just might not have all the answers. Continue reading “Remaking Ourselves….”
I started out my Spiritual journey as a Catholic because that is what my parents were. I came to find out that they were only tepid Catholic as they really didn’t go to church themselves very often but more often just dropped us off and then went home. Upon entering high school I went about twenty years moving between an inactive Christian and an agnostic verging on atheist. Then as a result of getting married I joined a Protestant congregation. When I was going to a Catholic grade school I remember hearing a lot of things about Jesus and not … Continue reading Shouldn’t you read Paul in light of Jesus, instead of reading Jesus in light of Paul?”
1 Timothy 2:11-12 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. I have always been troubled by these verses from Paul. I just don’t believe that God intended, especially for all eternity, that women to be quiet and not have any authority over men. Why would he deprive us of so much that women have to offer in almost every area?? Yes, I have heard that the majority of today’s theologians don’t believe that these words actually came from … Continue reading Women Be Quiet!!!
A man in the country does his own thinking, but you get him into town and he soon will be thinking second-handed. – May 1, 1926 Will Rogers Second hand thinking seems so prevalent today especially in our nation’s capital. Each political persuasion has their own set of key words that must be spoken during any discussion of their ideology. Most of these words come from their party leaders or other talking heads such as Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. They have honed their lists of words that cause the highest emotional response (especially fear) and they use those words as … Continue reading Second-Hand Thinking…..
It greatly saddens me to see the degree of religious malevolence in the world today. I am particularly saddened by the Christian variety; Jesus taught us otherwise. I need to go no further than my Facebook page to see a proliferation of it!. The Christian Bible, like most other religious documents teach us to love one another; to take care of each other. So to see those who call themselves Christians spouting off mean spirited and sometimes even hateful words at those who they disagree with either politically or philosophically is very painful for me. It is just as painful as seeing what Al … Continue reading Religious Malevolence…
According to most Biblical historians the Book of James is one of the earliest letters/epistles written. It is believed to have been written by the brother of Jesus in the year 45AD or so. James was one of several brothers of Christ, probably the oldest. At first he did not believe in Jesus and even challenged him and misunderstood his mission. Later he became very prominent in the church.I believe that this letter is probably one of the few that might have been untarnished by others. For that reason it holds a lot of prominence for me. It is also one of … Continue reading Book of James….
Why didn’t God write a book or maybe I should say scroll? Of course many of you Christians will mention the Bible. Many Muslims will point to the Koran. Many Jews will say the Koran. But I guess I have a different understanding of those documents. Yes, they have God’s fingerprints on them but they were not written by God himself. There is one religious establishment, Mormons, who claim their books was dropped from heaven but I have some very serious reservations about that claim. One possible answer why didn’t God write a book came from a Quaker friend. He … Continue reading Why Didn't God Write a Book?…..
In a previous post I asked the question “why didn’t God write a book?”. One possible answer to that question came from a Quaker friend. He said that if God had written a book then man would have a relationship with a book and not with God. God want us to come to him not to a book about him. But that did not end my questions in this area. I still wonder what if God were to write a book what would it look like? Here are some of my conclusions about that. Of course I am painfully aware … Continue reading If God Were To Write a Book….
Source: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/05/19/6677671-is-the-bible-full-of-forgeries Just a short note to refer you to the article above. It is about the Bible and how it was written. For those who think the Bible is 100% from God this article will probably be somewhat disturbing. The article reports that through the ages many believe that most of the books of the Bible were probably not actually written by those whose names are attached to them. By providing you with this source article it is not my intent to get into a theological debate about the subject. My purpose for mentioning this subject goes to the … Continue reading About the Bible
This is a continuation of the last post to finish up some of 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 ways. So let’s get on with the final four areas of my beliefs on the Bible. Some words of the Bible have much more significance to our lives than others— The words of God himself through Jesus’ lips are the most important. Every other … Continue reading About the Bible— Part 2 .. What I believe (con’t)
A fellow blogger who happens to be a Quaker asked an interesting question recently. It was “Why didn’t Jesus write a book while he was on earth and settle this thing once and for all?” I know Jesus, like most of the twelve apostles was probably illiterate but I’m sure he could have written a book if he thought it was important. Why didn’t he choose to do that? As my friend said a book directly from Jesus would, or at least should, have settled all the many many current day differences among us Christians. I have wondered about this … Continue reading Why Didn’t Jesus Write a Book??
Although I don’t focus very much on the Old Testament I have always been troubled about how it seems to condone slavery. There is an interesting article in USA Today about this topic. See it at In Civil War, the Bible became a weapon – USATODAY.com. Here is a little bit of it. God said so In the 1860s, Southern preachers defending slavery also took the Bible literally. They asked who could question the Word of God when it said, “slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling” (Ephesians 6:5), or “tell slaves to be submissive to their masters … Continue reading When the Bible becomes a weapon….
The concept of the Trinity was something that was invented many years after Christ’s ascension. It did not originate from Jesus but was invented more than one hundred years after is resurrection. It has, however, become a bedrock item in much of the Christian church. But it seems many church denominations have now replaced the Holy Spirit with the Bible. From my studies on this substitution seems to have significantly grown about 100 years ago but its actual inception was probably during the Protestant Reformation. During some recent discussion with a Christian clergy I was told that I should not put too much … Continue reading The Father, The Son, and the Holy Bible
RJ's Corner 