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Q from Mitee and my reply on his excellent blog concerning the Bible. Quoting miteehigh3: So Gavin, tell me, are you saying that you don't follow any of the various and sundry accounts of the same events found in the Bible as the basis for your religious beliefs? Without the biblical record as "truth" how could there be christianity? No Mitee. What I'm saying is that many of those accounts are questionable, and more importantly, most of them won't matter when one stands in judgement before the Lord. Christ didn't come with a primary mission to end crime, greed, sickness, poverty, hate, lust, etc. Nor did He anticipate that His followers would suddenly become perfectly moral and good. (They don't become sinless. But they sin LESS.) Christ's essential mission was the salvation of the souls of mankind, for the next life. He was bringing mankind a way to be forgiven, and thus to someday enter Heaven. Those passages in the Bible which are vitally essential and necessary, are the ones explaining the good news about Jesus Christ as the of God, and mankind's only chance at salvation, which is through faith in Him, and letting Him into one's life to guide them, and live through them. Put another way, those passages about Christ being the of God, who was given in blood sacrifice as atonement for the sins of mankind, then rose again later to defeat death, and that for those who believe in Him and accept His gift, allowing Him to enter their hearts and live through them. --These will give the believer a new and eternal life at the end of their time here in their current existance. (Theologists refer to such things as Soterology. --Requirements for salvation. I.e: Life after death.) I'm sure you're aware that the passage most widely recognized from the Bible as defining the essence of Christianity is John 3:16. On this passage I have absolutely no doubt: "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten , that whomsoever believes in Him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life" There it is. Christianity in a nutshell. This verse says it all. But many people fail to notice what it doesn't say. For instance, it does NOT say: "Whomsoever believes in the perfection and totality of the Bible, shall not perish..." or, "Whomsoever believes in the Genesis account shall not perish..." or, "Whomsoever believes in Moses, Noah, Jonah, the Apostles, Peter, Paul, Mary Magdalene, etc, shall not perish..." or, "Whomsoever attends church regularly shall not perish..." or, "Whomsoever commits no sin shall not perish..." or, "Whomsoever persecutes gays, murderers, perverts, etc, shall not perish..." or, "Whomsoever condemns and/or punishes bad people shall not perish..." The fact is, nowhere in the Bible or in the history of Christianity has God personally directed that a written record even be made of Christ and those times. It was early in the Protestant Reformation that the doctrine of "Sola Scriptura" (Bible as sole authority) came about, and it is still rejected among Roman Catholicism today. (One might find it interesting to compare and contrast the Protestant Fundamentalist view of Biblical Innerrancy with the Roman Catholic view of Biblical Infallibility.) When a Christian stands in judgement before God, trust me on this, the Father is NOT going to look down from His throne and say: "Well, you had faith in, and accepted My , but you rejected some parts of the Bible that had nothing to do with partaking in His gift, so I'm just not gonna forgive you and let you into Heaven....Next! Hope that clarifies what I'm trying to say in response to your first sentence. As to the second sentence, I can only say that truth exists whether there's a record of it or not. It was infinitely probable that mankind would put down a written record of these things, but whether they ever did or not, truth would still be truth even if it were handed down orally, and even if nobody ever learned about it or passed it on at all. In that light, I think Christians were wise to gather the sacred texts, and we'd be foolish to reject them now even if they are found to be imperfect in many ways. But let me go a step further. If Christianity couldn't exist without the Biblical record we have, couldn't God have made other arrangements? Further still, if you view the Bible as essential to the existance of Christianity, isn't that very close to saying that Christ, or in fact God the Father could not exist if there wasn't a Bible making them possible? I love and revere the Bible, but I don't worship it. The Bible never hung on a cross for me. My faith is in Jesus Christ first, and the Bible second. I'll end here by saying this is MY views of the Bible, Christianity, and my faith. I won't force my views on anyone. But I like to share them for others to consider. Thanks for providing the opportunity. GBU, Gavin |
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Gavin I have decided to reply to both your response to my blog and your blog as stated here (both are one and the same...perhaps you believe in the need for redundancy...so be it) My responses are stated here because of your apparent need for redundancy and are as follows: Gavin, Thank you for stating your opinion of the Bible and christianity. I wonder how you fit into main stream christianity...specifically the more fundamentalists within that genre. I gather from what you have stated that you are choosing what parts of the Bible have relevance and what parts do not have relevance. This is not particularly unique or earth shattering in my experience having grown up in a christian religion and studied the scriptures. I have observed this on an ongoing basis in a lot of christians that I encounter today. Most would commonly term this practice as "cherry picking" the bible. Please explain to me where I am wrong in my assessment. Forgive me for not answering your questions about the existence of God and the existence of religion. Your hypothesis is perhaps not well thought through or specious. In either case I think that you and anyone would be hard put to claim that christianity would have survived without the biblical scriptures as its supposed foundation. I won't go so far as you attempted to do by guessing what God may or may not have done. Perhaps you have a 'special" orientation that I lack. My "need for redundancy" is a response to you people who post a dozen blogs a day and drive everyone else's off the front page every few minutes. It should be obvious (had you actually read my comments without looking for something to attack) that all the questions you pose here were previously answered. So I'm going to take BigBlocks advice. GBU, Gavin
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Gavin since I am blocked from reading Mitte's blogs, I can not comment accurately. But after reading his response to your response and your blog, i leave you but one piece of advice. George Carlin wrote it "Never argue with a fool, They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience!" GBU, Gavin
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BTW, should Mitee or anyone else still wonder, the answer is YES, I DO feel free to pick and choose from the Bible. Those who claim this is not to be done have no evidence aside from personal bias with which to back up their view on the matter. GBU all, Gavin
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TY Grace, Traveler, and Leaf. GBU, Gavin
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Hi Rich! Thanks for your citations! As to the first, thanks for your support and I agree with it, but I hope you agree that there's no need for us to go into it further. And the second one I'm very familiar with! It's the most often cited verse to contend with my viewpoint that one is free to pick and choose from the Bible. I too viewed this verse as definitive and final, until I started studying some of the ancient texts, and considered the time frame in which Paul was writing a letter of advice to his young disciple and friend Timothy. (Also bear in mind that in other writings of Paul, he admitted that even he himself did not possess perfect and total understanding. I.e.: 1 Cor 13:12, where Paul admits that his understanding is akin to peering "through a glass darkly.") Before I start, PLEASE remember that I'm only sharing MY views, and I will never criticize anyone who doesn't see things the way I do! I' ve been asked if my faith fits well with most mainstream Christianity, and I have to assert a resounding NO! I'm in such a minority on this topic, that I'd be an arrogant fool to insist everyone agree with me! (LOL! I may re-post this one into a new blog entry too!) Know that Paul was writing this several decades after Christ. At that time, there was no Bible, There was only the Torah, (Old Testament) and with the possible exception of the Gospel of Mark, little had been written down regarding the life and times of Jesus, and what had been written was not universally accepted. That leaves open the question of just what Paul meant when he used the term "scripture". If one assumes that the term refers only to those writings accepted by the Church as canon, then Paul was referring only to the Old Testament, because as it was all they had. But note that the first word in the sentence is "ALL", rather than "some". So if Paul was using the term loosely (as one may argue because neither the original Koine Greek, nor the later translations identified that word in the sentence as a proper noun,) then one may interpret Paul to consider as many ancient peoples did, the ability to make permanent and convey a message to a later audience as somewhat mystical and thus metaphorically the "breath of God". -In which case then any writing, even a shopping list for example might qualify as "scripture". Again alternatively, he may have intended it to mean any writings of a Judeo-Christian religious nature, whether canonized or not. And the term "all" is further confounding because in addition to Paul's group "Orthodoxy" there were different writings from several other active sects of followers of Jesus Christ. Some stood in sharp opposition to Orthodox views. -Most notably the "Gnostics". They too had some writings which they based their interpretation and faith in Christ upon. Was Paul including these writings too? So, we can't be certain just what Paul meant by the term "scripture". Finally, note that Paul does NOT say "All scripture is perfect and correct". He may have acknowledged them as a gift from God, but some of them may have been writings to demonstrate common errors and pitfalls. That would still apply to writings that were "profitable for teaching, reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness". And remembering Paul's admission that he saw "through a glass darkly", then perhaps it's possible that he merely over-generalized the term "scripture" to call it "God breathed" as opposed to "God inspired" or some other metaphor. Now, I realize all this taken together appears that I am grasping at straws to back up my view. But we need to back up in the same letter, of Paul's to comments he made prior to verse 3:16. In chapter 2, verse 15 Paul writes: "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." (KJV) If (no matter how likely or unlikely) Paul was claiming that the Bible (or scripture) was perfect, just what does one "divide" out of the "word of truth?" I'm disinclined to assume here that Paul meant truth is relative, so if there is only one truth, what should young Timothy divide it from? "Truth from other truth" is a possibility in order to clarify things for total and accurate grasps of concepts, but still that implies that it's entirely possible to read passages and derive "untruth" from them. To me, that doesn't speak affirmatively about a "perfect" scripture. So, after all that, I still have to admit that my view is a subjective one, and therefore I would never criticize anyone who politely disagrees with me! But thanks for creating another opportunity for me to share my views! GBU, Gavin
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