It is now my belief that the True message of God is not nearly as
complicated as the various orthodox churches have made it. It’s pretty simple.
Love God, Accept Jesus as your Lord, and Love your neighbor Period.
Love God, Accept Jesus as your Lord, and Love your neighbor Period.
And I am trying to walk out that simplicity in Love. I miss the mark many times, but that does not mean the Mark is wrong. It has taken me too long to see that every single solution to the problems that beset this world can be solved by me chosing to Love my fellow man and to Love God.
I believe that God Himself understood that the entire issue of Faith in Him was difficult to grasp. And many other religions offered a god to people that was whatever the priests said that god might be. In the case though of Christianity, God said, "I'm going to make this easier for you. I'm going to come to Earth and show you all the Exact Representation of Myself". And then He did that thru Jesus.
Here is what I have reduced it to as being important and
foundational about the bible and the Christian walk.
1. Millions of Christians today would say they are Bible
Believing Christians (BBCs), but I have never met one that actually was. I would have proclaimed myself as one in
years past, but I was a phony in that affirmation. I am not one of them. I do believe the Bible is the best, finest,
most important, life-changing book ever written and unequaled in its Divine
picture of God. It contains many of the words of God Himself from the Father or
the Son. And it has many excellent teachings in it from men/women
who had a closer walk with God than myself and therefor are good
lessons/mentors to me. The world and mankind often times (though
not always) have been better because of it. In the case of those imperfect rulers
and armies who have held it forth as their banner to go and slaughter people it
has certainly not been stellar in its motivation. The Bible, nor God, has ever been on the side of War. I am a better Christian, man, father,
friend and a better person for having it, studying it and holding it
dear. It inspires me. Gives me Peace in turbulence.
Gives me Hope in distress. Motivates me. Assuages my fears.
Refreshes me. Other times it has beat me into the ground because of
me using it as a stick to beat my own self over the head with or worse for
others to beat me up with. I have though been just as inspired,
motivated, and refreshed by the gospels of Nicodemus, Mary, and Thomas as I
have been by the books in the "authorized" book we call the
Bible. I am also inspired as much by the writing of St. Francis and St.
Augustine as I am James' and the other epistles.
2. I believe that most of what the Bible has accomplished in
changing men and women came as a result of the 4 gospels and, as we call them,
The Red Letter verses, and that all the other books just add to the Christian's
life. In at least a few cases though, the other books have given them a whole new set of
instructions or laws to obey. For many, many of them, they don't just become
instructions but have become a whole new law of touch not, taste not that have
put “Bible-Believing-Christians” in bondage rather than freedom. I
think the world would have been just as positively impacted if the Bible had
been just the 4 gospels, and maybe even better and certainly with fewer
divisions. It might have been better with 8 or 9 Gospels?
3. I believe the messages and words in the Bible are the
finest hope for mankind walking toward his eternal life and they are the
greatest lifeline to bring back those who have walked away. But the 4
gospels, or at least their message, are the Only Hope for finding that Eternal
life to pursue in the first place.
4. I believe the Bible, any of them, as written in its
wholeness, is a great guide book to speed along the Christian's walk toward
maturity. I also believe a person could achieve just as great, or
greater degree of maturity, even if illiterate and never reading a word, but
spending their life walking in the shadow of Mother Theresa, my missionary friends in north Africa, or the founder of Waco's mission to the homeless, night and day.
As I've already pointed out, using it as a strict guide book to the letter, it
would have also resulted in the body of Christ biologically being eliminated in
the first century. It would taken bottles of Pepto Bismal off the shelves of
BBC homes and replaced with bottles of Gallo Rose. We would have our
leaders summoning people up before the congregations and speaking them to be
cast down dead for not bringing all of their possessions to the church for
sharing. We would each own nothing privately, but all would be held in
common. There would be no rich or poor among the brethen, but all would
be equal. And men would all be marrying young girls of about 12 when they
entered womanhood. Granted these are extreme examples. But
for those who say it is perfect and inerrant, they can't get a "free
pass" to say "oh, except that verse".
5. I believe the words of Jesus in the 4 gospels and Acts
were in fact what He said, in more-or-less, the words He said them. It is not
important to me that the words be known to be the exact interpretation.
The author/writer may have not gotten the quotes word-for-word, and
that's not important. I believe those are the True, Perfect,
Infallible, inerrant, expressions, thoughts, instructions, counsel,
admonitions, assurances, and warnings from the Mouth of God Himself.
And He did this because He knew that the concept was just too hard to
fully comprehend without Him coming and showing us exactly what God looks like.
In our frailty we need a God that can be touched or at least know that someone
has touched Him. Without meaning irreverence, to use a colloquial
expression "it came straight from the horse's mouth". I also believe those 4 gospels were the only
ones chosen by a bunch of old men (only) in about 400 AD and not the others
because those 4 most exemplified the world view the leaders wanted the sheep to
follow and they had a personal agenda that narrowing it to only those 4 gospels
promoted.
6. I can imagine, though not know, that as He was with the
disciples, He could very well have spoken to them, like I would to one of my
kids and have said "now write this down so you remember it". I doubt
though He then said, "and be sure to take them to the synagogue on
Saturdays and make sure you read it along with Isaiah and the
prophets."
7. The Word of God is not printed. The Gospel of
John said: He is the Word become flesh. But mankind has always needed
something to touch and look at to put with their faith. The Jews coming
out of Israel needed the stones. They needed to be able to look down at
their penises and see something tangible and say "ah! I'm
in". Now we have a book and we can claim that is the way that
God has spoken to the church. We can hold it up as a mark of faith. We
can use it to measure our lives up against and still say "I'm
in". Or put a bumper sticker on the car saying 'God said it, I
believe it, that settles it" (at least for the scriptures that they
still think apply). I believe that most of mankind believe they need a book of Absolute Infallible Perfect instructions to put faith in, because they do not want the responsibility of hearing God
themselves. I believe that the
orthodoxy of the church denominations today is that we don’t need to hear God
ourselves but to come to church and the leaders and teachers will tell us what
God says.
8. Unfortunately with #7, I have seen in my life that
mankind is most prone to one of three opinions I am better than
Him, I am Ok, He is better than me. And the problem with letting
the entire book become THE benchmark, it also gives us an opportunity to
identify who is out. I cannot see in Jesus life that He spent much
time teaching about who the losers were. He did announce that there
were some losers, but then He focused on how to be a winner and offered us a
race that everyone can win. He basically said "no one has to
lose". "Everyone who comes into my House, gets a 1st place
trophy".
9. Even with my narrow focus on what is Infallible (I don't
like the word a lot, but it's the best I can think of to make my point), I can
still be weak and worldly and once in a while catch myself looking at folks and
have an opinion about whether they are "in" or "out".
And I hate myself later for it. Now for the past few years when I
realize I'm doing that I now very quickly repent and repent and repent. When my children were growing up, I told them often that the easiest way to explain to anyone that their stick was crooked, was to lay a straight stick down next to it. I am trying as hard as I can, and praying fervently that my straight
stick is simply: "do they profess the name of Jesus as Lord and
acknowledge Him as "their" Savior?" And if I cannot determine that then I can simply look at their lives and see if they Love others. I believe it
has to be a personal relationship because even Satan knows that Jesus is
Lord. Any person can be “in” regardless of their earthly condition
and nothing can separate us once we have made our personal choice. Nothing.
10. I'm not suggesting someone do it, because of the
spiritual elitism of it, but if there was a bumper sticker that said
"Jesus said it. I believe it" I would think that was something
I'd see and say "Amen". I believe that some of the rest
of the NT is for another culture and another time, and may have been written
for specific problems that different churches were encountering at the
time. I seriously doubt that Paul or the other writers ever imagined that
the church would take those letters and base a dozen dozen dozen different
denominations, sects, and factions on them or worse, make a new set of laws
from them.
11. If Jesus said it, I believe He meant that.
And if He didn't mention something it wasn't worth mentioning. His
teachings are timeless. His teachings and words reflect the Words
of God, because He is the Word of God.
12. Lastly for now, as of 2:45 am, Sunday, October 11, I
believe that the life of Jesus as I read it is available for me and each of
you, to walk out exactly as He did except greater works could we do.
Any impediment to us walking that walk is on our side of unbelief and not
on His part. He desires for us to do what He did and if it wasn't
available to us, He would have just told the disciples to remember Him and his
deeds. The reason the Church is not walking in His complete steps
is because the leadership is not walking in it and so they can't disciple
others to do so.
