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. Maybe God will use what I post (I am a Christian and this blog will have a most decidedly Christian bent to it) to good effect in the lives of my readers.
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Rather than reading through my now lengthy list of posts you may wish to read what I consider to be my very best posts or you can just read the posts that deal with a single subject category that might interest you.
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Thanks.
Carlos
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. Maybe God will use what I post (I am a Christian and this blog will have a most decidedly Christian bent to it) to good effect in the lives of my readers. I may turn some of my posts into a book. I may cease blogging here altogether. Who knows. But for now..I am content to post away in this, my own little corner of the world.
Rather than reading through my now lengthy list of posts you may wish to read what I consider to be my very best posts or you can just read the posts that deal with a single subject category that might interest you.
Please know that I am open to any input on any topic I write about. If you have something to say about anything you see written here please....feel free to speak up in the form of leaving a comment or sending me a PM (private message).
And if you are in San Diego and wish to meet the one and only Carlos (that's me
)...drop me a private message. I always enjoy meeting one of my readers!Thanks.
Carlos
PS. If you want to follow my blog such that you will get an email when I write new posts you can subscribe to my blog.
Properly interpreting the Bible.
Posted 06-08-2009 at 02:34 PM by carlos123
Updated 06-08-2009 at 02:36 PM by carlos123 (Changed a smiley to a smacky :)...)
Updated 06-08-2009 at 02:36 PM by carlos123 (Changed a smiley to a smacky :)...)
I was reading John 3 this morning and thought I would write a post on what I believe to be the proper way to interpret the Bible in part, to shed some light on why it is that so many Christians believe so many different things despite reading the same book 
.
Mind you...I don't have a corner on how to properly interpret the Bible but I do believe that the things I say below make sense and would, if followed, result in far less disagreement than is presently found in Christian circles.
The very first thing to properly interpreting the Bible is having a right heart.
Without a right heart we will have a tendency to "see" whatever we want or feel comfortable seeing in the text we are trying to interpret. And we may well miss the true meaning or acknowledge it only through a state of kicking and screaming against what the Bible plainly says.
A right heart for purposes of interpreting the Bible correctly involves (but is certainly not limited to) having a willingness to acknowledge what the Bible says no matter what it may mean for our lives or our world view.
We must be willing to accept what it says and more than that...do something about it as though what it says was said to us by God Himself and was not just the ramblings of religious man.
If we are not willing then it will be difficult to arrive at a proper understanding of what it says.
Jesus referred to the importance of our willingness in John 7:16...
To the Jews He was teaching...here was this man named Jesus. Saying all kinds of things.
Jesus make it clear that apart from a willingness to do the will of the Father it would be impossible to tell if the things Jesus taught were just the ramblings of a religious person or actually reflected what was on God's heart.
But if the willingness was there...then and only then would somone listening be able to easily discern the truth and the heart of God in what Jesus said.
It is no different today. We must be willing or we will miss God's truth and think the Bible's words are just some religious rambling that is no more of God than what any man might make up on their own.
Willingness does not in itself equal automatic and unquestioning acceptance but it is the first step in arriving at a correct understanding of what the Bible says.
Aside from our willingness we must also use common sense and sound principals applicable to interpreting any writings in whatever language we are reading the Bible in.
We should not come up with all kinds of fancy methods of reading between the lines that require us to twist our common sense into some sort of incredibly complicated technique that only the very educated few are able to apply to interpreting the Bible.
Even children who are old enough to understand English should be able to understand what it says. Paul the apostle did not write, for example, to the lofty religious elites of his day when expressing the wonders of God's grace but rather to the common man. He did not put much stock in fancy words and exegetical nuances and neither did his readers.
Neither should we.
Especially not when religious divines through all their mental exercises end up divining a completely different meaning from what the text may plainly say.
If the Bible says "blue" and literally so we should not spirtualize the plain meaning of "blue" to mean "red".
A case in point being the way some interpret the word "water" in John 3 to mean "baptism".
Resulting in the belief that we must be baptized in water in order to be born again.
I mean if the word "water" in John 3 actually says or means "baptism" then by all means we must be baptized to be born-again or become Christians. But if it refers to something else...well then, baptism is not neccessary (at least according to John 3) in order to become a Christian or be born-again.
The fact of the matter is that John 3 uses the word "water". It's there in all our bibles. I am not aware of any Bible that uses the word "baptism" in place of "water".
While we may go round and round to try and pin down what the "water" Jesus was referring to is...when all is said and done we can do no better than acknowledge that John 3 says "water" and not "baptism".
Another example of this is in 1 Corinthians 13 where verse 10 says "but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away." In context whatever this "perfect" is, when it comes, many of the sign gifts like tongues and prophecy will cease and be no more.
Some Christians interpret the word "perfect" to mean the Bible itself. Resulting in the belief that because the Bible has come that...well...tongues, prophecy and other such gifts are no longer around and what some practice as these gifts is nothing more than gibberish as a result of this "truth".
Others believe that "perfect" refers to Jesus at His second coming.
Since Jesus has not come...well...the "perfect" has not come such that these gifts are still around as much as ever.
The fact is that the Bible does not say "Jesus at His second coming" or "Bible"! It says "perfect".
Sincere Christians all too often get caught up in siding with this or that camp who believes this or that word clearly indicated in the Bible actually means this or that other word that isn't even there!
That's just plain intellectual dishonesty and I would even dare to say...perhaps even to have a wrong heart in taking pride in an argument rather than in God and His truth.
As Christians we need to give each other liberty to believe various things that may be true but which are not explicitly supported by what the Bible actually says.
So for example if one of my brethren chooses to believe the gifts are no longer around and that the "perfect" actually refers to "Bible"...well...maybe it does.
But then again maybe it don't.
I must give them liberty to believe this and they in turn must give me liberty to believe that "perfect" refers to "Jesus at His second coming".
And we must both operate in love to respect and not put each other down for believing different things.
All of us need to ultimately approach biblical interpretation with a willing heart, with intellectual honesty to not read into what it says more than what it actually says, and giving each other liberty to believe various different things where the Bible does not explicitly and plainly makes something clear.
Carlos
. Mind you...I don't have a corner on how to properly interpret the Bible but I do believe that the things I say below make sense and would, if followed, result in far less disagreement than is presently found in Christian circles.
The very first thing to properly interpreting the Bible is having a right heart.
Without a right heart we will have a tendency to "see" whatever we want or feel comfortable seeing in the text we are trying to interpret. And we may well miss the true meaning or acknowledge it only through a state of kicking and screaming against what the Bible plainly says.
A right heart for purposes of interpreting the Bible correctly involves (but is certainly not limited to) having a willingness to acknowledge what the Bible says no matter what it may mean for our lives or our world view.
We must be willing to accept what it says and more than that...do something about it as though what it says was said to us by God Himself and was not just the ramblings of religious man.
If we are not willing then it will be difficult to arrive at a proper understanding of what it says.
Jesus referred to the importance of our willingness in John 7:16...
Quote:
So Jesus answered them and said, "My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me.
If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself."
If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself."
Jesus make it clear that apart from a willingness to do the will of the Father it would be impossible to tell if the things Jesus taught were just the ramblings of a religious person or actually reflected what was on God's heart.
But if the willingness was there...then and only then would somone listening be able to easily discern the truth and the heart of God in what Jesus said.
It is no different today. We must be willing or we will miss God's truth and think the Bible's words are just some religious rambling that is no more of God than what any man might make up on their own.
Willingness does not in itself equal automatic and unquestioning acceptance but it is the first step in arriving at a correct understanding of what the Bible says.
Aside from our willingness we must also use common sense and sound principals applicable to interpreting any writings in whatever language we are reading the Bible in.
We should not come up with all kinds of fancy methods of reading between the lines that require us to twist our common sense into some sort of incredibly complicated technique that only the very educated few are able to apply to interpreting the Bible.
Even children who are old enough to understand English should be able to understand what it says. Paul the apostle did not write, for example, to the lofty religious elites of his day when expressing the wonders of God's grace but rather to the common man. He did not put much stock in fancy words and exegetical nuances and neither did his readers.
Neither should we.
Especially not when religious divines through all their mental exercises end up divining a completely different meaning from what the text may plainly say.
If the Bible says "blue" and literally so we should not spirtualize the plain meaning of "blue" to mean "red".
A case in point being the way some interpret the word "water" in John 3 to mean "baptism".
Resulting in the belief that we must be baptized in water in order to be born again.
I mean if the word "water" in John 3 actually says or means "baptism" then by all means we must be baptized to be born-again or become Christians. But if it refers to something else...well then, baptism is not neccessary (at least according to John 3) in order to become a Christian or be born-again.
The fact of the matter is that John 3 uses the word "water". It's there in all our bibles. I am not aware of any Bible that uses the word "baptism" in place of "water".
While we may go round and round to try and pin down what the "water" Jesus was referring to is...when all is said and done we can do no better than acknowledge that John 3 says "water" and not "baptism".
Another example of this is in 1 Corinthians 13 where verse 10 says "but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away." In context whatever this "perfect" is, when it comes, many of the sign gifts like tongues and prophecy will cease and be no more.
Some Christians interpret the word "perfect" to mean the Bible itself. Resulting in the belief that because the Bible has come that...well...tongues, prophecy and other such gifts are no longer around and what some practice as these gifts is nothing more than gibberish as a result of this "truth".
Others believe that "perfect" refers to Jesus at His second coming.
Since Jesus has not come...well...the "perfect" has not come such that these gifts are still around as much as ever.
The fact is that the Bible does not say "Jesus at His second coming" or "Bible"! It says "perfect".
Sincere Christians all too often get caught up in siding with this or that camp who believes this or that word clearly indicated in the Bible actually means this or that other word that isn't even there!
That's just plain intellectual dishonesty and I would even dare to say...perhaps even to have a wrong heart in taking pride in an argument rather than in God and His truth.
As Christians we need to give each other liberty to believe various things that may be true but which are not explicitly supported by what the Bible actually says.
So for example if one of my brethren chooses to believe the gifts are no longer around and that the "perfect" actually refers to "Bible"...well...maybe it does.
But then again maybe it don't.
I must give them liberty to believe this and they in turn must give me liberty to believe that "perfect" refers to "Jesus at His second coming".
And we must both operate in love to respect and not put each other down for believing different things.
All of us need to ultimately approach biblical interpretation with a willing heart, with intellectual honesty to not read into what it says more than what it actually says, and giving each other liberty to believe various different things where the Bible does not explicitly and plainly makes something clear.
Carlos
Total Comments 6
Comments
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I hear you Carlos,
30 years ago, I spent several years studying the bible and other religious books including the bible in 26 translations. I still use that tool to help me when I review the scriptures today. Now, it is available online for free.
It is amazing how subtle differences in the translations can make a scripture mean something entirely different than you thought when compared to the regular King James or New American version.
I truly believe that the bible was inspired by God, but it is, after all a collection of essays written by men, and compiled by men hundreds of years after the birth and death of Christ. It is historically known that all of these essays were not included in the bible only 66 of them (six being the number of man). The original essays were also translated by man. So, I have honestly always wondered, what is the real word and what has been altered by one man's opinion? Unfortunately, I don't possess the skills to read the original languages to determine that for myself. So, like you say, I have to depend on God's influence in my heart to recognize the truth as it applies to me.
I believe, you should never be afraid to question anything because if it is the truth it will stand up and when you start aligning those truths, you will see a better picture.
The bible, to me, is surely a guide to how humans should live and interact while here on earth and what their goals to reach the next level should be. On the other hand, there are a lot of books from other religions that basically state the same facts. So is there only one true religion? That's what I was taught in Catholic School. As far as they were concerned everyone else was going to hell. (Sound Familiar?) When I attended, I was only about 7 and lived in a poor area near downtown LA. As Catholics, we were not permitted to eat meat on Fridays in respect to the body of Christ. Every friday, the nuns would make the children open their lunches. If there was meat in the lunch the nuns would sieze it and throw it in the garbage and let the children go hungry. These children were poor and many of their parents brought home food from restuarants, etc where they worked. They provided for their children as best as they could. After "saving these poor souls" Then the nuns would go to their house which was on the premisis and be served lunch in a beautiful dining room by a servent. I was once sent to the house with a message and when I saw them sitting at that fine table with a crystal chandlier and silver candlesticks and the servent offering them food from a silver tray, even at my young age I was horrified. I was always taught that nuns took a vow of poverty as part of their calling.
The next Friday, I confronted the nun and asked why wouldn't she offer this child her lunch as a gift of charity.
She slapped me so hard, I fell down on the ground. After that, I always brought extra sandwiches to share with the other kids because, I knew these nuns were evil. After that, I was always suspect of religious people until they proved to me that they walked in faith.
I recently had a conversation with a person who was extremely committed to the fact that he had to basically live a perfect life so he would be approved by God to go to heaven. One of the first Evangelist women in Los Angeles, Katherine Kuhlman, actually sold property deeds to heaven. I frankly don't believe that you can buy your way in with your money or your works. But if someone believes that with all his heart and lives accordingly, it seems like it should count. Maybe it is the intent that is more important than the content. Maybe that is what judgement is all about.
If God wanted us to be him, why bother to put us here to live this existence? My opinion is that he wants us to prove to him through our faith in him that we can accomplish what he wants us to accomplish.
Once we have faith, we have no choice what our works will be, but as HE assigns them, we had better get busy and acomplish them whether we like it or not.
Well just one persons opinion.Posted 06-08-2009 at 05:27 PM by yukiko11
Updated 06-08-2009 at 05:37 PM by yukiko11 -
Thanks for sharing yukiko. I appreciate your thoughts. I am just so sorry you had to encounter such religious hypocrisy as you did so young in life.
I too was raised Catholic and while I do believe that there are some true Christians in the Catholic Church, biblically speaking the Catholic Church is way off with respect to what the Bible says about how one can be assured of forgiveness and eternal life.
I wept and wept over my dad's insistance that the Catholic Church could never be wrong in it's interpretation of the Bible. He went to his grave with that belief. His death was one of the saddest days of my life not only because he died, though that was bad enough, but much more so because I do not believe that I will ever see him again eternally.
One of the last things he told me on the day that I left him to never again see him in this life (I had gone to the country of my birth to bid him farewell and had to return home) was that he wished I could return to the Catholic Church. Something I told him that I could never do.
It broke my heart to see how obstinate he was in trusting the Catholic Church instead of in Christ.
One time a priest literally grabbed my throat and began to choke the living daylights out of me in grade school. Me and a friend of mine had foolishly laughed at some silly joke while standing in line during a practice for our first Confirmation and the priest had called us into his office, one at a time.
When my friend, who went in first, came out he was all red around the neck from what I remember. Then it was my turn. Almost as soon as I stepped inside his office and he had closed the door he grabbed me with both hands and literally started choking me while shaking my head. I just hung on to his hands for dear life.
Eventually he stopped choking me and let me go.
My parents tried to talk to the principal and others but it didn't do any good. It was all swept under the carpet as though nothing had happened.
Don't know what ever happened to that priest.
There are many terrible things done in the name of God these days, not just in the Catholic Church, that have absolutely nothing to do with God.
It's a wonder that any of us is able to see past our own hypocrisy, sin, and otherwise to the real God somehow. It is a tribute to God's grace and mercy that some of us are willing to look past our experiences and to grope about by faith until we find the One who calls us to Himself.
CarlosPosted 06-08-2009 at 07:35 PM by carlos123
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I truly believe that your dad is in heaven. He decided what his convictions were due to his religious beliefs and he lived them. He had faith and did his job as God directed.
You were right in not following his lead because you did not believe in his faith and that wasn't right for you, because you were destined by God to pursue another path. I believe God rewards a faithful life no matter what the basis for that faith. Many people disagree with me, but who will ultimately decide what is right and wrong? God will. If your father lived a true and faithful life, he went to his reward. If you do the same, so will you.
There are many Catholic people out there who did and have done the same.
My Nuns in catholic school punished me again and again because I questioned everything that didn't make sense to me (as you know by now, I have a big mouth and question everything that doesn't make sense to me) finally my parents had to take me out and put me in public school. What they didn't know was that for many years, I actually wanted to become a nun to make up for the failure of the ones I had known. I have that inborn ethical sense that leads me to always do what I consider the right thing even at my own cost. I guess that is why I choose a career as an accountant. As for the incident I shared, I never told my parents because the nun told me that if I ever told anyone, I would be eternally damned and go to hell. Now that I think of that it ads up to child abuse.
It took me 23 years before I was able to even look at God again. I found HIM by accident when I was living in a trailer park where a person who was a neighbor gave me $100 that she wanted to send to a church as a tithe and she didn't have a checking account. So I depositd it and wrote her a check to send to her church. I became interested in that church and attended, as I described in my previous post. I attended for 10 years and several years after I moved from the area, the pastor's ego became so huge that he decided that he had to have a bevy of female models in the front row and everyone in the church had to stand up and applaud when they appeared. I just resigned myself to the fact that the devil had taken over his spiritual mind and there was nothing I could do to prevent that. He soon died of cancer and his widow, who was one of his models eventually sold off all of his and the churches holdings for her own pleasure. That, in no way invalidated the teaching that I had learned from him which is the basis for MY faith. God puts us in weird places at weird times to learn what he wants us to learn in order to do his bidding in faith.
I truly believe there is only one God, but I also believe that he may appear in many forms and those who are faithful to their beliefs in him will be saved.
one persons opinium
PS
Carlos, although I have no problem with the Catholic religion, as you say, many are Christians, I think it may be interesting to see how many people other than us have suffered in the Catholic religion at the hands of people representing themselves as Representatives of God. I would bet even we would be surprised by this hypocrisy. I am going to post this question.Posted 06-09-2009 at 01:41 AM by yukiko11
Updated 06-09-2009 at 02:59 AM by yukiko11 -
Hi Yokiko,
We are alike in wanting to do the right thing no matter what yokiko. That's a good thing. For sure.
I wish the world had more people like you in that regard.
Just a couple of comments on some of what you said if I might yokiko.
You say that you believe that my dad is in heaven and that your basis for believing this is that he had faith...well...at least in God through the Catholic Church and that he was sincere in his belief. Both true yokiko.
But neither of those two things, belief in God generally and sincerity in that belief will get anyone to heaven or assure them of forgiveness. At least not biblically.
Jesus said point blank that He was the way, the truth, and the life and that no one could come to God apart from coming to God through Him.
That's pretty exclusive yokiko. I mean He did not leave any room for other religions other than that which is based on faith in God through Him and Him alone.
And with regard to the Catholic Church, their beliefs may seem to be based on the Bible but they are not.
Salvation in the Catholic Church involves receiving grace from God throughout one's life through the Sacraments of the Church (such as Confession, Holy Communion, and otherwise). Sacraments that enable one to supposedly live for God and continue to be forgiven as they go along in life. With the desired outcome being eternal life...if one has maintained good standing as a Catholic and has sincerely continued in the Sacraments.
Forgiveness in the Catholic Church is not absolute nor is it given completely at one point in time for the rest of one's life. It is conditional based on how well one does as a Catholic in life.
The Bible on the other hand makes it clear that forgiveness from God through Christ is complete and absolute based on the finished work of what Christ did on the cross. That we are justified by faith in His blood. Which justification is credited to us as though we had lived righteously all our lives. His righteousness credited to us in exchange for our sinfulness placed completely on Him.
There is a vast difference between what the Catholic Church teaches and what the Bible says. A fundamental difference that cannot be excused away as an acceptable difference.
I do not believe that my dad is in heaven yokiko. The Bible makes that plain.
While it would be comforting to believe that he might have trusted fully in Christ on his death bed the fact is that he was at a place in his life where it is extremely unlikely that he would have brought himself to trust in Christ completely. He was absolutely sold on the Catholic Church and it's system of Sacraments as the way in which he would be forgiven and enter heaven. Committed to that until the day of his death.
It is a sobering thing to realize that some of our loved one's may end up in hell but if they do so it will not be because God is unjust but because they chose to ignore the One who was holding out true forgiveness to them.
My dad knew what the Christian belief was outside the Catholic Church. He was not ignorant of it. He just chose to not believe it and simply could not bring himself to acknowledge that his faith and the faith of many...indeed most of our relatives, in the Catholic Church to save them, was misplaced.
I myself struggled to acknowledge that same thing for a long time before I chose to become a Christian.
It is far easier to entrust ourselves to God through a religion (at least outwardly) than to truly entrust ourselves to God from our hearts as individuals who are accountable for our own faith or lack of it.
Religion allows us to avoid the inevitable choice that we must all make to face God alone, naked as the day we were born with our soul laid bare before Him who knows and sees all.
I do wish you well in discussing any potential hypocrisy in the Catholic Church in the open forums here yokiku. I think you will find that there are many Catholics who will vehemently oppose any attempts to shed light on any such hypocrisy within their Church.
It has been my experience that Catholics in general but even more so, devout Catholics, are absolutely adament in not acknowledging the potential that their Church is wrong, fundamentally wrong in even just some of their core beliefs. If they admit to one the floodgates might open and the whole deck of cards might come tumbling down. So they are vehement against anything that might imply that some aspect of their Church is way off.
I would highly suggest that you not even broach this whole topic on the open forums yokiko. It usually does no good and just results in a lot of turmoil.
CarlosPosted 06-09-2009 at 03:55 AM by carlos123
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That's an interesting post Carlos.
It is amazing to me how the majority of people in the world all truly believe that their religious beliefs are based on the only true religion and everyone else is lost. Since recorded time, more people have died fighting in the name of God than from any other cause.
I imagine we will all find out when our time comes if we were all right or all wrong or something in between.
Until then, I think I'm done. Nice talking to you.Posted 06-10-2009 at 06:32 PM by yukiko11
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Hi yukiko,
The interesting thing about the Christian faith, well...there are many interesting things about it but, one of the things that sets it apart from all others...is that it is rooted in a real person who lived, died, and rose again.
You see my Christian belief stands or falls on whether or not Jesus Christ rose again. If He did not then my faith, along with that of many others is groundless. Just a pie in the sky religious philosophy.
But if Jesus lived and actually rose from the dead then it is based on a fact of history.
No other world religion can make a claim to a belief that is so rooted in historical events, like the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ like the Christian faith can.
CarlosPosted 06-11-2009 at 02:06 AM by carlos123
