LOL well versed with John....Thank you! You need to expand your reading.
Again posts 293 and 298 and here ya go....
Most people do not enter biblical study with a concise method. They enter with preset and preconceived notions and beliefs. Where do they get them? It is not like everybody goes to church but we live in a Christian society….Christmas and holiday shows, Christmas and holiday stories and traditions, songs. Some grow up in Christian homes…Either way they come to the Bible with beliefs and it is almost human nature to be “on the lookout” for scriptures that support their preset beliefs, even if those scriptures are not in line with the theme or storyline of Bible as a whole. Some people have adopted religious beliefs from someone that knocked on their door or they happened to walk into the closest church to their home.
Then there is a preset expectation and definition of holy or righteousness that people impose on the Bible. And some beliefs impose just the opposite, a belief that people are filthy dirty rags, especially those that come from cult like beliefs. There is the cult lingo they use to demean people and prey on their concerns of salvation. Degradation of the individual is a theme in cults and a guarantee of salvation if they believe what they believe. People just like guarantees…
Biblical study is not about finding your beliefs in the scriptures. It is not about getting a set of rose colored glasses to see only holy or sweet the scriptures are. Particularly when you are studying the Old Testament. The Old Testament is set in a period that is harsh and cruel and violent….and the biblical characters and the Mosaic Laws are going to reflect some of that. You cannot judge what Yahweh did or the Mosaic Laws by Christian standards, because you end up either judging God or trying to explain away the truth or denying the cruelty. The Old Testament and Judaism is not Christianity. The Old Testament is what it is…that is it.
When you study the New Testament you have to establish the theme, storyline, and spirit of the whole New Testament and scriptures are seen in that light. Christology, understanding what He did, why he did it, and what was His goals and His Spirit. Christ set the example for the application of Christianity in our lives….Be good and do good.
But then again we are not gods and we are not Christ. Eventually the earlier church took things to extreme in this area…Christ suffered so they believed Christians were expected to suffer. The believed Christ wanted us to suffer and suffering was a way of showing gratitude for what Christ did for us. Christ was single so women, sex and nudity were seen as demonic. It eventually turns into a religious cultural insanity. A love / hate relationship of necessity that drives the notion that we are all dirty, filthy, rags, because we desire sex and reproduce. There was a time that even the most famous early church leaders considered sex in a marriage to be sinful. Even today there are preachers that preach that or they see the normal sequence of attraction and desire and marriage, as being sinful. We are born in sin, our marriages are born in sin, and our children are born in sin. LOL Oh my gosh! That is not theme of any part of the Bible…Old or New Testament. Some of the early church leaders felt so strongly about this that they separated themselves living in graveyards, out in the deserts, in caves, trees, towers….Doing God’s work from a tree? LOL
As far as Christ and Holy Spirit being in the Old Testament it is just not true. I can wish it was true. I think it would have made things much better. If it were true, it would have changed the Old Testament nearly completely. If Christ and the Holy Spirit were in the Old Testament it would have filled the pages! What would have been more important to talk about? If the Old Testament taught that the Messiah would be the Son of God, a full-fledged God, it would have made Christ's ministry much easier and would have save most of the Jews.
So the bottom line is that biblical study should be done to learn the truths from the Bible, not find what you like, ignore the rest and weave your own beliefs.
