As children we learn the books of the Bible. We learn the judges, the kings and multitudes of other facts about religion. We have certain verses we go to in order that we might prove our religous beliefs. We go to God in prayer and know in our minds how we expect Him to react to our requests. If God’s response doesn’t fit into our beliefs of how we think He ought to respond does that make God wrong? Of course it doesn’t, God isn’t wrong. We are the ones who have misunderstood.
For much of my life my concept of God centered around what I knew and what I understood. If you understand the facts about God correctly and perfectly applied your understanding of those facts you would be saved, maybe. If you misunderstood God or misapplied that understanding you could not please God. Simple, straight forward, easy enough. Just one major problem, this places our salvation in intellectual ability rather than the cross of Christ.
Could it be that God is more concerned with molding our hearts rather than our intellectual abilities? Instead of putting your understanding of God into your intellectual box allow God to put you in His. The next time God answers your prayer in a way you don’t believe possible maybe we ought to ask, “Do I really Know God or I do just know about Him? God bless and keep preaching Jesus.
All scripture is useful….I believe that the pendelum has swung too much to the “feel good” side…IMHO… We need to spend more time in the word and learn about the examples that are written about and actually learn from them.
Comment by Price — April 20, 2011 @ 9:12 pm
Yes I agree so long as we understand that God doesn’t always fit the way we understand or perceive Him. Thanks for the comment
Comment by Dell Kimberly — April 20, 2011 @ 9:17 pm
My view of what is important regarding Bible knowledge and the way we interpret the scriptures is radically different from what it was in the past. I no longer look at the epistles as a giant code book from which we must extract the critical elements of “worship” services so that we can apply them correctly to be saved (and/or to condemn others). Instead, I see the scriptures, especially the epistles, as tweakers.
What I mean is this; When Jesus came, he brought the new covenant. It was radically different than the old law. And it centered around two things—loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself (and it had very little to do with “worship services.”) In multiple places throughout the New Testament we are told that “on these two commandments hang all the law and prophets,” or “these fulfill all the law and prophets.” The idea is that if we would but do these two things completely, God would be pleased with us.
This was such a radical shift when Jesus and his apostles began implementing it that it would have been impossible for the early church to completely understand it or follow it without missteps or misunderstandings. And, depending upon the maturity levels of the new Christians, they were likely to need incremental steps to get where Jesus wanted them to end up (The fact that it was okay to eat meat offered to idols was too big of a hurdle for many of them to overcome on an immediate basis and therefore was something that they would need to grow into over time.)
The epistles were responses (tweaks and clarifications) to the churches as they were trying to implement these new principles. As the churches matured, some of those tweaks were modified in the later epistles because the churches could better handle the tweaks because of their better grasp of what was the bigger picture.
In baseball terms, the early epistles dealt with throwing, catching, batting and positions on the field. It also includes rules like the one about not leaving the base (to steal another base) until the pitched ball crosses the plate. Later epistles progressively dealt with more involved concepts–infield fly rule, ground rule double, squeeze play, double steals, sacrifice bunting, situational positioning, as well as tweaking the base stealing rule so that the runner is allowed to lead off of the base before the ball has been pitched. It would have been total chaos to try to teach the latter concepts in the beginning. These had to be added as their grasp of the overall picture increased.
Today, if we try to extrapolate hard and fast rules based upon the early epistles we will be binding things that were not intended to be bound. We must keep in mind that the main thing remains the main thing—to Love God and to Love our Neighbor as ourselves. And we must use reason in applying the principles that were being taught. It is not about the rules. It is about the reason behind the rules and about shaping the heart to follow God.
God Bless, Dennis
Comment by Dennis — April 21, 2011 @ 6:09 am