I sure do hope it works and he can’t be browbeaten or manuevered into judging unbelievers.
The Purpose of the Bible
- Thread starter Bob Estey
- Start date
-
Welcome to Christian Forums, a Christian Forum that recognizes that all Christians are a work in progress.
You will need to register to be able to join in fellowship with Christians all over the world.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!
I sure do hope it works and he can’t be browbeaten or manuevered into judging unbelievers.
Even so. They are imposing an interpretation on his words, which I do not believe is there. As so often is the case because a person is misunderstood, he may find himself attacked and condemned.
How does one stay on the highway of holiness to the end of the road with God? Reading and studying the Bible? That certainly is helpful, but it is not enough alone. We need help.
The Holy Spirit needs to be guiding our understanding and obedience to Scripture, as the reader by God's grace follows the crucified and risen Christ, Who is the central theme of Scripture.
It was written as God inspired men to write. To understand what it means required the same inspiration by the Spirit of God. A carnal man reading the Bible will not understand what he is reading. He needs help. Consider the Eunuch who was reading from Isaiah and needed help. God sent to him a Spirit filled man.
The Holy Spirit needs to be quickening within us what we read or hear cited from the scripture in order for us to understand God's message to us.
Amen even as Saul of Tarsis held their coats as they stoned Stephen to death. Who is able to understand this?
Jesus also said that if we have a lustful thought we have committed Adulery in our hearts ....how ya doing with that one? You are as guilty as an Adulterer in the eyes Of God....Personally, I am glad we no longer live under law and I thank God for His Grace.....best get ya some.....it’s the only way out....it’s the only thing that can save you.....
Jesus said that if we look lustfully on someone, we've committed adultery (Matthew 5:28). Is there some reason we should look lustfully at people?
Nehushtan only appears in the Bible once: II Kings 18:4
My good friend, @bbyrd009 had to bring home to me the significance of it a long time back now.
Back in Numbers 21:5 when the natural children of Israel once again spoke out against Moses and God the result was fiery serpents biting and killing people. Then one more time they repented, and God had Moses prepare a brass serpent on a pole upon which bitten people could look and be healed.
This same brass serpent prepared by Moses at God's direction is seen about 700 years later having become an idol to the people, which King Hezekiah destroyed.
The Bible, I believe, could be a Nehushtan when people have elevated it above God Himself when they treat and honor it more than they do God Himself.
Jesus is the Word of God! Jesus is too often unopened and unread, but he is not a book of paper and ink. Eat his flesh and drink his blood to encounter the Word of God within yourself.
"To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:" Col. 1:27
God never told people to worship or even look upon Nehushtan once the episode with the fiery serpents in Numbers was finished. He also never told them to worship a book, not even a book filled with the writings of men anointed by God to write.
In the Bible, unread and unheard, they remain without Life. They are it seems to me the very flesh of Jesus but without Life giving blood! Are the word of scripture ever Alive in a person who does not have the Holy Spirit within himself to quicken them as he reads or hears? Without the quickening Spirit, do they differ in any essential way from Nehushtan?
I just have no idea how, when we read the words of God, that they are more important than Him? How's that?
So if I read about what God did or what Jesus said, then I am not honoring God? Granted, the Holy Spirit is given, but how could we know God if we don't read His words?
People know me by what I say. I communicate. The Bible is an avenue of communication. Why would you poo poo that? and say it is better to have a relationship with Him? But how can you have a relationship with the Lord, if you don't know what He says, or how He feels about things? Are you absolutely sure that whatever you are getting isn't just your mind telling you that? There is a sure way to tell:
Isa 8:20 " To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them"
Also, Jesus often responded,when questions came, or even when satan was tempting him, "It is written", followed by what the Scriptures said.
So if I read about what God did or what Jesus said, then I am not honoring God? Granted, the Holy Spirit is given, but how could we know God if we don't read His words?
People know me by what I say. I communicate. The Bible is an avenue of communication. Why would you poo poo that? and say it is better to have a relationship with Him? But how can you have a relationship with the Lord, if you don't know what He says, or how He feels about things? Are you absolutely sure that whatever you are getting isn't just your mind telling you that? There is a sure way to tell:
Isa 8:20 " To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them"
Also, Jesus often responded,when questions came, or even when satan was tempting him, "It is written", followed by what the Scriptures said.
It does not matter.....if “ that” human source of stumbling does not snag you to show that you are a Sinner That needs a Savior,something else will......ever get angry at somebody? You are no better than a murderer as far as God’s Standard is concerned.....if I slap you will you offer me the other cheek to slap also.....if I ask for one of your cars, will you give me the other car if you own one? The point is that you can’t meet Gods Standard if you want to try to enter His Heaven on your own merit—- you are a Sinner by birth .....completely wretched and lost without Grace provided by a Savior...Anybody that thinks they are “ good enough “ for Heaven is damned......
GEN2REV
Well-Known Member
For those with even an ounce of reverence for God's Word, this video will ignite a fire in your soul for it.
Many lived and died for the Bible, countless powerful men throughout the ages have tried with all their might, wealth and military power to destroy it and failed.
Most martyrs for the Bible, like John Wycliffe, considered the Bible God's voice upon the earth (12:38). Those who do not hold the Bible in high regard, considering it God's Word in its entirety, have a problem with their testimony as sincere Christians. Pastors and seminary professors destroy the faith of their flocks by diminishing the significance of the Bible.
This video will either confirm your faith in its sacred significance or expose you as absent of His Spirit.
Many lived and died for the Bible, countless powerful men throughout the ages have tried with all their might, wealth and military power to destroy it and failed.
Most martyrs for the Bible, like John Wycliffe, considered the Bible God's voice upon the earth (12:38). Those who do not hold the Bible in high regard, considering it God's Word in its entirety, have a problem with their testimony as sincere Christians. Pastors and seminary professors destroy the faith of their flocks by diminishing the significance of the Bible.
This video will either confirm your faith in its sacred significance or expose you as absent of His Spirit.
"Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." II Peter 1:20-21
People do read the Bible with a wrong purpose at times. An easy one to see is the "dyed in the wool" atheist, who is reading in order to be able to trip up some ignorant believer.
Are any believers ignorant of what is written in the Bible? Are there any believers reading anything in the Bible without really understanding God's message to them? Consider the Ethiopean eunuch! Was he a believer or a potential believer already before God sent Philip to him?
However, reading through some of the multitude of posts on this forum by people who do read the Bible and who do believe in God, why are there so many disagreements and confrontations among them?
Solomon wrote this:
"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:...
...a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;" Ecc. 3:1,7
Apostle Paul wrote this:
"But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church; and let him speak to himself, and to God." I Cor 14:28
[Some people may want to jump in here with an argument then about what and where the "church" is. I am not touching that at the moment.]
Who is our interpreter of what is written? Is it perhaps our own mind, or our own pastor or minister... or perhaps the Holy Spirit within us? Is this not why Apostle Paul also warned us not to quench the Spirit?
Absolutely, read those written words, but with understanding. Without the Holy Spirit there is no understanding!
"Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;
Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." II Cor 3:5-6
The letter of what is written alone is a killer, a killer of carnal men who use or men quenching the Holy Spirit within themselves and allowing their residual carnal old man to lead. So let us not be carnal but rather led by the Spirit!
Why do unbelievers who have read the Bible and backslidden believers, who have read their Bibles as you say, "poo poo" what they have read? Perhaps, they have never loved the truth, or they have lost their love for truth and been moved into delusion...
Following the lead of the Holy Spirit always, will we ever be wrong or deluded? Since so many people, who are Bible readers do disagree, could some of them be in error or be deluded, in spite of their reading?
Can a person know what God is saying by reading the Bible if he dies not also hear or listen to God? Are the two not connected? Are not both necessary? Did not Jesus tell us to both eat his flesh and drink his blood?
I believe a lot of people eat too much flesh [scripture] without consuming also the quickening Spirit [his blood].
"Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." John 6:53
Who can see God's message without the Light... that is without the "eyes to see" about which Jesus speaks?
"I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see." Rev 3:18
What is that "eyesalve" if not the Holy Spirit within us?
Yes, he used that expression, and he did so properly as he, Jesus, the very Word of God, always understood what had been spoken by the Holy Spirit to the anointed writer so that he would write it, so that we, when similarly anointed, might also understand!
Can we say "it is written" without also having the Holy Spirit providing the proper and correct interpretation?
Certainly, which is again why we see so many disagreements and confrontations among believers on this forum. Too many believers, too often, I believe, quench the Holy Spirit within and speak/write things here from the resources of their carnal minds alone instead as prompted/led by the Holy Spirit.
Last edited:
Why did you quote me? Where did I say that the Holy Spirit is not involved? Your statement is is all well and good, but I maintain that whatever you are hearing must match with the word of God. The Bible makes this clear.
I think God speaks to us through his word. If you don't that's okay.
You write:
"Can we say "it is written" without also having the Holy Spirit providing the proper and correct interpretation?"
Who said this?I sure didn't.
This is what I said. 'So if I read about what God did or what Jesus said, then I am not honoring God? Granted, the Holy Spirit is given, but how could we know God if we don't read His words?" So we need both, don't we?
Without His Spirit is my very point. The Scriptures consumed without the Holy Spirit quickening is where the problem of many men is found. It is where the reason for the contradictory doctrines and/or beliefs is found.
The solution, I believe, for any man who really wants to always follow God is to always be immersed in the Holy Spirit and to always be following the lead of the Holy Spirit and to never be quenching the Holy Spirit. Impossible for any man alone, but for God?
"...With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible." Mark 10:27
I agree wholeheatedly, and what did you do? Match it with a Bible verse, which was exactly my point.
To the law and to the testimony...
Why so defensive? I was not attacking and only meant to clarify my own belief.
I agree absolutely!
But who is qualified to do the matching between what a person hears and what is written? No man! Not you and not me without that in the matching we are led by the Holy Spirit!
The Bible only makes anything clear to a person who has "ears to hear" and "eyes to see"... and the person is paying attention and not quenching the Holy Spirit!
Why did the unnamed prophet out of Judah prophesy truly according to God at the first when he came to Jeroboam but then end up being killed by a lion on his way home? [I Kings 13] He failed to stay always in touch with God instead of later hearing, believing and following other voices!
The question people may now ask is, How does a person know the difference between the Lord's voice and the voice of a stranger?
I agree!
Don't look for disagreement where the difficulty sometimes is simply in communication. Then clarification may be all that is needed. I have a different definition for the Word of God than most people. Perhaps you did not understand that?
That is what I am saying... that we need both!
Last edited:
Similar threads
