Friday, May 4, 2012

Still more about the Bible

Not exactly Word Perfect


As already stated, The Roman Catholic Church does not accept that the Bible is the infallible word of God.  

Many Protestant churches believe that the Holy Spirit will guide any Christian to the truth if a Christian honestly seeks for the truth in the Bible. 

This is a great theory, but in practice, it does not work, for whenever a seeker finds a different truth than our teachers believe, of course, the teachers cannot allow that such a finding was the Holy Spirit's doing, for that would mean that the church had been wrong. 

We, Protestants, have been so conditioned to believe that everything in the Bible is true, exactly as we read it in the Bible, that if we do find something that does not agree with the same fact, somewhere else in the Bible, we are thrown into a tailspin.

Let us not insist that everything in the Bible must be taken as a literal fact.   A case in point would be the hyperboles that Christ used in His speeches. 

We also notice some very ambiguous teachings in the lessons taught by Christ. For example, If your right hand offends you, cut it off. If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you can move mountains into the sea. 
Jesus and His Times; the Readers Digest.

Why have we tried to make ourselves believe that Christ was speaking literally?  It is much more logical to believe that He was using hyperboles.  It is really the only way that His statements of this nature can make any sense.

What can we say about a camel passing through the eye of a needle?  Theologians have wrangled about how this could possibly happen.   They have twisted the meanings of Christ’s words, just so that those words, by Christ, can mean exactly what He said.  

Billy Graham said that by using chemicals, one could liquefy a camel’s body and so it could pass through the eye of a needle.  Could this possibly be what Christ meant?! 

Another theory advanced is that there is a gate in the wall of Jerusalem, named, the Needle’s Eye, and if a camel gets down on its knees, it can crawl through the Needles Eye. 

The problem with this idea is that, according to Christ, it would be possible for a person to gain salvation by trying very hard.  It would not be easy, but possible!  For theological reasons alone, it is simply impossible to accept the explanation of a camel on its knees. 

In the meantime, it is possible to imagine Christ somewhat amused, or perhaps, very upset at the theologians who engage in that kind of teaching.  If not amused or upset perhaps Christ is thinking; surely, they cannot have taken seriously those things that are so blatantly hyperboles.  

When once we set the Bible free from our tenacious grasp we will find that it all makes a lot more sense.


The Best of all Books


In the past, I have written that the Bible is not absolutely without error but that it is still a reputable book.  My beef is not with the Bible; what bothers me more than the fallibility of the Bible is what the preachers have told us we need to believe about it. 

I hold the Bible in high regard.  
  • I have read through the Bhagavad Gita of the Hindu religion, 
  • through the Koran of the Muslims, 
  • through the Book of Mormon
  • through the Egyptian book of the Dead, 
  • the Tibetan Book of the Dead and 
  • in many other religious texts, 
In my opinion, none of them can even hold a candle to the spiritual insight, guidance and moral teachings taught by the Christian Bible.

My basic stance is that if the Bible says it I will take it literally. Therefore, since the Bible says that Christ was born to a virgin, and since it nowhere denies that statement I believe it to be true. Likewise, the Bible says that Christ rose from the grave, and the Bible nowhere denies it, I believe it to be true. 

However, the Bible tells us that God is omnipresent (everywhere at the same time) but it also tells us that He is hampered by time and location; for argument's sake, I take the opposing view to what the church has taught us. 

Perhaps a different point of view will help us see the possibility that the church's theologians have been too narrow in their theology and too dogmatic in their opinions and so have kept us from seeing the whole truth.

In my next posts, I will address teachings such as 

  • the infinity of God, 
  • the Trinity, 
  • Satan, 
  • the return of Christ and 
  • other topics.

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