Mrs.Anteater
Just keep going....
The bible is a tool. Like a knife, you can use it to make a nice meal and invite friends, or you can cut someones throat.
Is The Bible Just A Book To You Or Is It More Than Just A Book To You ?
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BetteTheRed
Resident Heretic
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Ah, yes, and when all you have is a hammer, everything appears to be nails.
chansen
Had a point all along
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To expand that metaphor, it's not only the tool. It carries with it the instructions on when and how to make a nice meal, and when and how to cut someone's throat.
chansen
Had a point all along
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The answer to every perceived problem becomes Jesus to some, yes. We need Jesus in schools, in government, at the football game, and behind the wheel. People without Jesus would, in the minds of some, be so much better with Jesus. Jesus becomes a one-size-fits-all solution.
revjohn
Well-Known Member
unsafe said:
Quickest and easiest answer is, "The Bible is a collection of books which contain the words of God and represents a standard for the Christian faith."
More nuance is found in the various doctrinal statements that I agree with.
Basis of Union said:
and
Basis of Union said:
Beyond that, I share the sentiment expressed by Sydney Greidanus that scripture is something to which we are meant to listen to respectfully and not something we are to use for our own purposes.
unsafe said:
I am agreed with Mendalla. There is no such thing as "just a book" If books were nothing but mere words on pages then the minute we closed them up we would retain nothing of what they said or consider other solutions to the scenarios addressed.
Different people will place a different value on different books. Which is fair.
unsafe said:
The Bible does contain some history. The Bible also does contain some stories. Both are vehicles for redemptive words of God contained within the scriptures. Nothing wrong with either history or story. Unless they are misapplied. Any history is simply a perspective on past events. The truth of any story is not in the events recorded so much as it is the significance we give to those events. The truth of the Good Samaritan does not depend on the necessity of a man actually being waylaid by robbers and beaten.
unsafe said:
Inspire? To some degree. I think Edify is a better fit.
I actually don't think the strength or the power of the Bible is that it gives us basic instruction before leaving earth. I find the actual redemptive purpose of the scriptures to be basic instruction bringing life every day. It is not a book for tomorrow so much as it is a book for right here and right now.
Mrs.Anteater
Just keep going....
I can almost picture that as a commercial.
BetteTheRed
Resident Heretic
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And the problem is the instruction part, which is not clear at all. It so much depends on the lens you view it with. I like the lens of "love each other", with that 'other' ranging to all of Creation, and including a preferential narrative for those who are least on earth. But if your lens is "I wish not to spend eternal life in a fiery torture", then you'd be reading it differently.
unsafe
Well-Known Member
I don't understand why people have problems with the Bible containing God's instructions for living His way ------the only way to follow someone is to first know what we are to follow ------and then we have to follow the instructions to follow the right way to follow the one we are wanting to follow ---
For example -----Ephesians 4 is a perfect example of reading the instructions on how a True Christ-ian should be living and acting in this world ----
Ephesians 4:17-32 (NIV)
Instructions for Christian Living
unsafe says
How are you suppose to get answered Prayer from God if you don't read the scripture that instructs you how to get answered prayer ---- Do we think we can just pray for someone any old way we want to and have God at our beck and call to answer following our own way ----- there are instructions on how to get answered prayer contained in the Bible ---
I believe that by us not following God's word we are really limiting ourselves -----when we follow God's ways we are expanding ourselves beyond our human limitations ----
For example -----Ephesians 4 is a perfect example of reading the instructions on how a True Christ-ian should be living and acting in this world ----
Ephesians 4:17-32 (NIV)
Instructions for Christian Living
unsafe says
How are you suppose to get answered Prayer from God if you don't read the scripture that instructs you how to get answered prayer ---- Do we think we can just pray for someone any old way we want to and have God at our beck and call to answer following our own way ----- there are instructions on how to get answered prayer contained in the Bible ---
I believe that by us not following God's word we are really limiting ourselves -----when we follow God's ways we are expanding ourselves beyond our human limitations ----
Northwind
Stationary nomad.
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A. One needs to believe it is god's word rather than a collection of people's experiences of the holy.
B. What about people who believe the Quran, Sutras or Bedas are god's word?
unsafe
Well-Known Member
Then that is their belief -----they are free to believe as they wish -----Foe me there is One True God and that God is the God of Abraham --Isaac and Jacob ----and the Bible contains the truth of the God I believe in -----I speak for what I believe in -----We will all know the real truth when we die until then many believe in all kinds of different gods and religions that is their business not mine -----
BetteTheRed
Resident Heretic
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And the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob would be the Jewish God...and also the Muslim God. And again, which Bible? There are many.
GeoFee
I am who I am becoming...
Hi,
It is my spiritual being that is expanding. This as my material being experiences the decline of powers attending aging. Like the apostle, I am putting off the old person and putting on the new. This not in my own power or in my own name. Simply, in the power of the Holy Spirit and the name of God.
Those interested in pressing deeper into questions about the bible as a book may be interested in Northrop Frye's "The Great Code." A creative and disciplined examination of the role played by the Bible in the history of Western Civilization. Specifically the Bible as source to the great diversity of literary traditions of that civilization. Link To Frye on the Bible and English Literature
Many believe in Jesus. Few follow along the way of Jesus.
George
I have followed in the way of God since the age of thirty. I am now sixty-nine and approaching my fortieth year along that path. What you say has been proven true in my experience. I no longer remotely resemble who I was at the outset of the journey. From day to day, the experience of my life stripped away all that hindered revelation of God's light in my human being. What John Wesley named sanctification. Now I am approaching my maturity in the faith. My primary prayer is "Not my will but yours be done." The credit, of course, is due only to the one who created, redeemed and sustains me. The one whose name must not be pronounced.
It is my spiritual being that is expanding. This as my material being experiences the decline of powers attending aging. Like the apostle, I am putting off the old person and putting on the new. This not in my own power or in my own name. Simply, in the power of the Holy Spirit and the name of God.
Those interested in pressing deeper into questions about the bible as a book may be interested in Northrop Frye's "The Great Code." A creative and disciplined examination of the role played by the Bible in the history of Western Civilization. Specifically the Bible as source to the great diversity of literary traditions of that civilization. Link To Frye on the Bible and English Literature
Many believe in Jesus. Few follow along the way of Jesus.
George
GeoFee
I am who I am becoming...
I have been nourished and encouraged by the words of Martin Buber. His presentation of Hasidic Judaism has strengthened me as a person and nudged me to harmonize with other persons, forming an informal community of decision and difference. It is my conviction that Jesus makes available the heart of Judaism in a context where that heart has been obscured by ritual, tradition and bureaucracy. That heart being wholly open to the realization of human being as the image of God. Not any particular human being. That universal human being which is the heart of our appearing in this historical moment. A heart tragically divided by the knowledge of good and evil; where the accuser prevails through the fear of death.
The light is somewhat ultimate ... in other words at some distance from those worshiping the mystery proposed as opinionated and emotional as stand alone ... by God a discovered mystery ... or coming to know that we don;t know much! Thus the eternal pilgrimage ... given what was forgotten and lost in the turbulence of God's efforts ...
You're being to gentle when the force demands a split ... so the winner can impose on the sectors ... thus the command on cooperation and compassion to allow things to come together again ... thus definition of de void instants ...
Some people need fiery rules because they have no fire within to drive them to learn different than powerful rules made for the corruptions ... there needs to be an underlying side to the burn ... thus hidden scars of wisdom ... and ruah old dragons ... it is all in how it is said with a twist of the mouth ... sometimes a corrupt void!
Look into the eyes and see if there is anything there but a bouncing image of accrued myth ... the Great One! Homo Sapient?
Commonly dark and underlying the flaming stand-up ... wash box expressions!
One should collect themselves and all their experiences ... even if lost in the tell ... that's a pile of waste as some people look at word without understanding the flat out has depth ... or else it wouldn't float in your mind ...
Some pillars of past experience are placed there just for questioning the watchman ... reconsider the salty value of Lot's Shadow ... in the smoke following the poor demonized critter ... like a Fox with a pyre for the tell ... a waste for those not reading adept lyre ...
Downright mystical as Play Misty Again! Who was that DJ in the night ... turning report? A ripper ...