Tag: Bible

Philosophy & Religion1 Comment

In The Beginning…. And Then…

RJ Walters

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…

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Evolving Faith…

RJ Walters

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…

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How Well Do You Know Religion?

RJ Walters

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?

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The History Of Christianity???

RJ Walters

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???

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How Did The Bible Get So Filled….

RJ Walters

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….

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I Read The Bible And Everything Became….

RJ Walters

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….

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The Thing Is…..

RJ Walters

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…..

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The Decrees of Constantine…

RJ Walters

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…

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Christians Denying Christ!!!

RJ Walters

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!!!

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Tolstoy & Christianity…

RJ Walters

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…

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Mislabeling the Word of God – Red Letter Christians

RJ Walters

“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

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Humble Emergents vs. Absolutists….

RJ Walters

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….

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Jefferson And The Gospels….

RJ Walters

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….

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Institutional Purity…..

RJ Walters

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…..

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Taking Back the Bible….

RJ Walters

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….