Yes ma'am and do quite understand. May you enjoy your walk and thank you for your insights, and comments. May the grace, peace, and love of God, and of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you and all here.
If you are a Christian, do you get to pick and choose which parts of the Bible to read and believe?
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Yes ma'am and do quite understand. May you enjoy your walk and thank you for your insights, and comments. May the grace, peace, and love of God, and of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you and all here.
Grailhunter
Well-Known Member
Of course. You see it all the time...watch what goes on here on the forum.
Of course I am unique in that I am multi-denominational. So I run across differing beliefs a lot.
My best friend who died last year had never read the Bible through even as you... but he studied the Bible all of the time led by the Spirit. In this he was similar I guess to you.
I, on the other hand, have read the whole of the Bible many times over the years. I do have a regular reading program which takes me through more than once a year... but I also go the way that you go and as my friend went. None of it is wrong as long as we are doing what we can and following as we are led by the Holy Spirit. God works with and through people, I believe, in many different ways. If God is in them are they not correct?
I don't know the man of which you speak and likely have never heard him preach or teach, but I would say that the words I emboldened in blue are true of every one of us who has not yet overcome all the world which stands between us and God. It is certainly true of me... but God is not finished with me yet!
I will admit that I have been afraid of reading the bible as a means of studying... and to be quite frank... I have tried many times to find someone who could tuck me under their knowledgeable wing and teach me a thing or two... or three or four... LOL
I have not found such a person whom I can trust... and so ... I listen to pod casts... Christian radio on a daily basis... and so I do get a good dose of scripture... I also find topics... and then look for the scriptures to match...
I don't use the bible as a weapon... like I have found many do.... for me it is MY HOPE... and MY COMFORT...
Because we love Him! If we really do love someone, don't we do all that we can to please that person? Should it not be even more so with God and His Son?
and because we can't believe that He would love us. It took me so long to understand and believe that HE actually loves me.
Hidden In Him
Well-Known Member
Actually Addy, Him revealing to me more and more of the Scriptures was HOW I came to feel He loved me. He would show me things from scripture that astonished me (I always pray that the Holy Spirit will reveal things to me), and this had the effect of letting me know He was right there, ready to teach me as much as I wanted to know.
Changed my life.
No need to be afraid! What I do when I do not understand something in scripture is effectively put it on the shelf for possible future use or understanding. In spite of all my reading, some things still have yet to come together into something meaningful or even understandable from the scriptures. Lots that I have set aside in the past, God has clarified for me later.
And there are still some huge gaps and likely some things which I think I understand correctly but do not. That's OK too. We should always be leaning on and trusting God.
You stay in touch with God all of the time keeping your mind and heart open. Then the Holy Spirit will do any necessary sifting for you to bring to you what God knows that you need. He may use a person in the process or... He may not. Don't pay too close attention to someone who insists that he/she has all of the answers that you need. Only God has them all.
Ah yes, I have also met some like that. When I was young in the Lord and had not read the Bible at all sometimes they hit me hard [weapon bearers] with scriptures intended to force me to go the way they wanted me to go. God held me up during those time. Eventually He showed me this:
"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." Matt 5:6
In the physical someone may be able to starve us to death... but not so when we are really hungry and thirsty after the righteousness of God. Give God the glory!
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@amadeus ... thank you for these words... they are like a kiss of LIFE to my heart...
I am weary with the forums... I have been struggling for weeks now in this place... so many seem to be JOY and PEACE stealers... they have exhausted me. One should not have to FIGHT to be understood... and one should not delight in the NEED to correct and twist words of another.
I need to rest and come back to this place of stillness in my soul...
I am weary with the forums... I have been struggling for weeks now in this place... so many seem to be JOY and PEACE stealers... they have exhausted me. One should not have to FIGHT to be understood... and one should not delight in the NEED to correct and twist words of another.
I need to rest and come back to this place of stillness in my soul...
This is a beautiful testimony... It is HIS promises that have led me to believe that I am loved and cherished by HIM... which is still from scripture... but has not come from me reading the bible personally... It has come more from listening to sermons and worship music. Which I guess is the same thing in a roundabout way...as the promises are scripture.
When being tempted by Satan the Devil in the fall of 29 C.E., after having not eaten for 40 days following his baptism, Jesus Christ told Satan who had just said that if Jesus was a son of God, "tell these stones to become loaves of bread", to which Jesus responded: "It is written (at Deut 8:3): ‘Man must live, not on bread alone, but on every word that comes from Jehovah’s mouth.’”(Matt 4:3, 4)
And what is "every word that comes from Jehovah’s mouth" ? Sixty-six "books" of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, but not the Apocrypha, the non-inspired "books" that the Catholic church put in the Latin Vulgate in 1546 C.E. at the Council of Trent, which are Tobit, Judith, Wisdom (of Solomon), Ecclesiasticus (not Ecclesiastes), Baruch, 1 and 2 Maccabees, supplements to Esther, and three additions to Daniel: The Song of the Three Holy Children, Susanna and the Elders, and The Destruction of Bel and the Dragon.
Jerome, who translated the Latin Vulgate in about 405 C.E., took a definite stand against such Apocryphal books and was the first, in fact, to use the word “Apocrypha” explicitly in the sense of noncanonical as referring to these writings, calling them "mud".
Thus, in his prologue to the books of Samuel and Kings, Jerome lists the inspired books of the Hebrew Scriptures in harmony with the Hebrew canon (in which the 39 books are grouped as 22) and then says: “Thus there are twenty-two books . . . This prologue of the Scriptures can serve as a fortified approach to all the books which we translate from the Hebrew into Latin; so that we may know that whatever is beyond these must be put in the apocrypha.”
In writing to a lady named Laeta on the education of her daughter, Jerome counseled: “Let her avoid all the apocryphal books, and if she ever wishes to read them, not for the truth of their doctrines but out of respect for their wondrous tales, let her realize that they are not really written by those to whom they are ascribed, that there are many faulty elements in them, and that it requires great skill to look for gold in mud.”—Select Letters, CVII.
The first-century Jewish historian Josephus (37 ?-101 ? C.E.) shows the recognition given only to those few books (of the Hebrew canon, commonly but inaccurately called "the Old Testament") viewed as sacred, stating: “We do not possess myriads of inconsistent books, conflicting with each other. Our books, those which are justly accredited, are but two and twenty [the equivalent of the 39 books of the Hebrew Scriptures according to modern division], and contain the record of all time.”
He thereafter clearly shows an awareness of the existence of Apocryphal books and their exclusion from the Hebrew canon by adding: “From Artaxerxes to our own time the complete history has been written (in which Nehemiah and Malachi closed out the Hebrew Scriptures in 443 B.C.E.), but has not been deemed worthy of equal credit with the earlier records, because of the failure of the exact succession of the prophets.”—Against Apion, I, 38, 41 (8).
And of the Christian Greek Scriptures, commonly but inaccurately called "the New Testament", they are 27 "books", from Matthew through Revelation. The apostle Paul (who penned 14 of them) wrote: "All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness, so that the man of God may be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work."(2 Tim 3:16, 17)
Hence, for a person to become a true Christian, they must accept all 66 "books" of the Bible, realizing that God, whose personal name is Jehovah (Isa 12:2; 26:4), intentionally made the Scriptures almost impossible to understand accurately by ourselves, for Jesus said in prayer to Jehovah God: "I publicly praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intellectual ones and have revealed them to young children (or humble ones). Yes, O Father, because this is the way you approved."(Matt 11:25, 26)
Daniel 12 says that during the "time of the end", that "many will rove about, and the true knowledge will become abundant.”(Dan 12:4) But who are the ones who can make ' true knowledge of the Bible abundant ', such as explaining Genesis 3:15 of the "woman" and her "offspring" as opposed to "the serpent" and his "offspring", whereby the "woman" is seen again at Isaiah 54, 60, 62, and Revelation 12, and of which Genesis 3:15 is the center point or theme of the Bible ?
At Daniel 12 again, it says: "Then he (or the "man clothed in linen", verse 6, an angel) said: “Go, Daniel, because the words are to be kept secret and sealed up until the time of the end. Many will cleanse themselves and whiten themselves and will be refined. And the wicked ones will act wickedly, and none of the wicked will understand; but those having insight will understand."(Dan 12:9, 10; Note: at Matthew 13, Jesus used the Greek word syniemi six times, that means "to mentally put the pieces together", concerning understanding God's Kingdom)
Again at Daniel 12, Daniel is told that "there will occur a time of distress such as has not occurred since there came to be a nation until that time. And during that time your people will escape, everyone who is found written down in the book (of life)."(Note: the "time of distress" is the "great tribulation", Matt 24:21, that is a two phase event, first the destruction of Babylon the Great [Rev 17:5] or the religions of the world by the political "ten horns" [Rev 17:12] or member nations of the United Nations ["the scarlet-colored wild beast", Rev 17:3], Rev 17:16, 17, that is immediately followed by "the war of the great day of God the Almighty", called Armageddon [Rev 16:14, 16], a world situation whereby the political nations and their supporters "face off" against God's Kingdom and are "crushed", Dan 2:44)
So, who are Daniel's "people" ? Originally, the loyal Jews who did as spoken of at Malachi 3: "At that time those who fear Jehovah spoke with one another, each one with his companion, and Jehovah kept paying attention and listening. And a book of remembrance was written before him for those fearing Jehovah and for those meditating on his name."(Mal 3:16)
So, Daniel's people is "everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah (and) will be saved."(Rom 10:13)
Take your rest from here sister, but stay always and everywhere close to God!
Hidden In Him
Well-Known Member
I would say somewhat yes.
And we can only be what He created us to be. That said, my wife is very much like you. Worship is what "does it" for her, so to speak. I think with believers like that, what they need are truly anointed worship services, where the Presence of God descends in power and in undeniable manifestations of the Spirit. I think this is what serves as greater confirmations for those like yourself.Her experiences have only been sort of few and far between when it comes to this. She frequently complains about the worship teams she sees and how they seem sort of lifeless and don't truly get into worshipping God, maybe because she missed when I was on the worship teams in her churches. We experienced great moves of God, and I sometimes miss it myself. But we all have to go where He leads us, and for me that has been primarily in the direction of teaching ministry.
You get it.... I am so happy you get it... there is something about CORPORATE WORSHIP that is so intensely powerful...I would say somewhat yes.
Her experiences have only been sort of few and far between when it comes to this. She frequently complains about the worship teams she sees and how they seem sort of lifeless and don't truly get into worshipping God, maybe because she missed when I was on the worship teams in her churches. We experienced great moves of God, and I sometimes miss it myself. But we all have to go where He leads us, and for me that has been primarily in the direction of teaching ministry.
I am not a reader.... but sing it to me... speak it to me... and I will absorb it.
Hidden In Him
Well-Known Member
Maybe this is why the command in New Testament times was to sings songs which had large amounts of the word and revelation IN it, so that it built believers up in more ways than one. (Colossians 3:16).
Still waiting on that day, but that is not to say I complain about modern worship. Just that I think it could be better.
Glad you got some pleasure out of me "getting it," LoL.
I do.
ByGraceThroughFaith
Well-Known Member
The Holy Bible in the Original Autographs, IS The Inspired Word of Almighty God, in 66 Books. This means that the Books in the Original are 100% Infallible and Inerrant. No one who says they are a born-again, saved beliver in the Lord Jesus Christ, would ever even consider choosing which parts of God's Holy Word, is suitable, and which are not! It is either ALL, or NONE!
DuckieLady
Well-Known Member
How can I be a whole Christian without the whole Bible?
abby let me share something with you. The New Testament is the Old Testament. Before the New Testament was form in to what we today call the New Testament all the apostles had to read was the Old Testament. As they were revealed the scriptures they wrote letters to the churches explaining their findings. Over a period of time they came to form the New Testament. I would like to tell you something that will lift your hope in Christ. There are only two commands that are required under Christ. The first is, that what you received in Christ remains in you all the days of your life. That is to say when Christ enters a person’s heart he puts the gift of trust in them. This is the gift the Holy Spirit gives us. You are to stay faithful to that. The second is, God puts his love in your heart that you may walk in his love. Loving your neighborhood. The Apostle wrote if these two things remain in your heart your gift is eternal life. Eternal life is not to live forever as most men say but as Christ told us eternal life is a personal relationship with the Father and the Son. One of his Apostles asked him how can it be that you will reveal yourself unto us. Christ replied those that love me keep my commands and those who do my Father and I will make ourself know unto you. So eternal life is the personal relationship with the Lord. Remember the words of the Apostle. Those who say they love God and hates his brother is a liar and the love of God is not in them. These two commands are written upon our heart through the operation of the Holy Spirit. This is why Christ my yoke is easy and my burden is light. When you walk in his love you fulfill the whole law of God. When the scripture told us to seek the scriptures out to see if you are approved of God meant this. When you study scriptures and God gives you understanding know this he only reveals his scriptures to his children. How can you separate human reasoning from understanding from God. Human reasoning will always question it but understanding from God you will never question it.
Nancy
Well-Known Member
I've nothing against the man either Hidden, except for his doctrine of Calvinism.
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