A Thread to "Fully Discuss It"

[Palee]

I feel that many people that would "fit" into this room have similar beliefs, and many have quite different beliefs. It looks like about half of APA members identify themselves as Christians, yet I haven't seen many post here. Being a room for Christians, it seems to me that anyone that believes in Christ should be able to post any belief or pose any question that they wish regarding to their own faith or curiosities--without intent to offend, of course. I don't think this is a place to try to "convince" the validity of one belief over another (faith doesn't work that way, after all), but it does seem like it should be a safe place to explore varying thoughts, values, and opinions. I think the more we explore and even question our own faith the more answers we get, and the stronger our faith becomes. There are many, many areas where my knowledge base is lacking and I'd love for all of you to share your insight with me.


I wanted a place to talk about things like the following statement from KC'swifey:

But as briefly as possible, the question of taking the Bible literally or not, is a question that inherently causes confusion. What I mean when I answer is probably not what you mean when you ask. What I can say is that I try to read the Bible with the intent that the author wrote it. In addition, I also believe that it is the infallible Word of God, meaning I don't pick some passages as God inspired and others as not. Its either all true or none of it is.

I want to ask things like...the intent of WHICH author of the Bible? And what about the translators...were all of them also God-inspired, or how does that work? There are soooo many translations of the Bibles, and the passages are really different in some of them...how do you know which one to believe? Which canon of works do we claim as the "true" Bible, and what does that mean for the other Bibles that are out there...are the blasphemous if they contain more or less "books" than ours? And, of course, our own interpretations of what we read differ, I think especially depending on our purpose for reading the scripture.

To say that something is "the infallible Word of God" and "God inspired" mean two totally different things to me. God inspires plenty of good acts and good intentions, but that does not mean that mankind does them without fault. It is not like any of the authors of the different parts of the Bible claim that what they are writing is without fault, or that they wrote it while in being divinely controlled, just that they were divinely inspired.

Anyway, I'd love some insight from all of your, and to see questions of your own!

[JJorn]

There are lots of good things to discuss here. I don't have a ton of time at the moment, but did want to broach one subject.

The Bible is the word of God - he ultimately wrote it. He inspired men to write what they did and ensured that what those men wrote was entirely error free. One analogy that helps me understand this is comparing the work of the Holy Spirit to the wind. We don't ever see the wind but it has many effects. For example, when a leaf moves it moves because the wind moves it. The leaf itself has no power to move itself. Now, take a stick. It also does not move on it's own, but is rather moved by the wind. Now, the leaf and the stick move differently in the wind, but the wind still is the cause of the movement and there is nothing that either can do to prevent moving. So, just as the Bible was "written" by different men and a bit of their personality is there (they move slightly differently in the wind), ultimately the Lord inspired those men to write his words.

There are zillions of proofs for why the Bible is error free today and how the original Bible was put together, but my resources are packed away and I only have so much time with two small children. I'll check back in later to see how the discussion is going.

[KC's wifey]

Thanks for taking this to a different thread.
I am at a family reunion vacation right now, so if my post seems disjointed I am sorry. I have about 20 people and a bunch of kids around distracting me. lol And I just want you to know I like your questions and I enjoy a good discussion, especially when it explores issues and doesn't get into personal attacks. So I hope this will be a great thread.

Lets see... first "which author"? All of them. Jessica brought up a beautiful analogy of how God spoke through many individuals that physically wrote the words down, and how He used their unique personalities, social status, expertise, etc., to weave His amazing Word together seamlessly. This is one of the reasons I believe the Bible to be the infallible Word of God. It contains 66 books written over a period of 1500 years, by 40+ authors, including shepherds, fishermen, doctors, kings, and prophets, most of whom never knew each other personally in order to collaborate the message. Over 2500 prophecies were written down, about 2000 of them have been fulfilled already with no errors (others remain unfulfilled until Christ comes again.) The odds of that happening are astronomical. And over the course of the entirety of the Bible, the message remains consistent, fluid, and without contradiction. The very nature of the Bible is inherently miraculous.

When I said that rather than claim I read the Bible literally, I try to read it with the intent the author wrote it, I specified that because the Bible uses a variety of different literary styles. Narratives, poetry, parallels, analogies, proverbs, metaphors, prophecy, letters, parables, etc. (Another reason the Bible is so fascinating and amazing.) If the author meant to write something figuratively, I don't take it literally, but there was still a reason it was written, so I try to read it with the intention for which it was written. For example, one of the verses you brought up in the other thread was the verse about if your hand causes you to stumble, its better to cut it off and live without it in this life, than to have your whole body go to hell. I don't believe he was actually saying every time you sin you should cut off your hand. I think He was showing the seriousness of unrepentant sin. Our hands aren't what actually cause us to sin, so that wouldn't do any good anyway. But he is making the point that our concern should be less about this life and more about our eternity, even to the point of sacrificing whatever we need to in order to have life in Christ. I believe that interpretation better fits with the entire message of the Bible, and the context of the previous and post verses, rather than taking one verse in isolation and reading it as literally as possible.

As far as which translation, I read several different ones. I believe that the original writings are the infallible Word of God, not necessarily the translations since then. Even with reading several different translations, I haven't found that there are too many verses that lend to an extremely different message. I believe if God wanted to give us His word, He would continue to protect its purity for future generations. I enjoy learning about the original language meanings and definitions and learning about historical context, etc., that help me understand better. As I said, I don't claim to understand the whole Bible. But I love learning about it.

When I was agnostic and I was searching, I knew that if I became Christian (or anything else), it would be all or nothing. I do not see how some of it can be true, but not others. I believe in absolute truth. If I have to decide what in the Bible is true and what's not, and other spiritual writings can be from God, too, and I can just choose bits and pieces from here and there to fit my liking... I have nothing concrete. I might as well stay agnostic. The Bible makes its own claims about its truth and authorship: 2 Tim 3:16 "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness." And 2 Peter 1:21 "For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."
That says God is the ultimate author, overriding human error (divinely controlled, as you put it). So I see that as either all true, or completely false. I cannot see any other way around it, without making ME the author of my own truth rather than God.

The question of which canon to use gets into denominational differences. I don't want to start any debates or cause any offense on that. I think I will hang out on that one and see how the conversation goes for now. Besides, this post is long enough already. lol

Hope that helps clarify my perspective and belief on your questions.

[Kylix]

Thanks, Palee for starting this thread. I agree that it can be useful to discuss differing perspectives.
I'd like to start with this quote from Polly.

When I was agnostic and I was searching, I knew that if I became Christian (or anything else), it would be all or nothing. I do not see how some of it can be true, but not others. I believe in absolute truth. If I have to decide what in the Bible is true and what's not, and other spiritual writings can be from God, too, and I can just choose bits and pieces from here and there to fit my liking... I have nothing concrete. I might as well stay agnostic.

It is funny because I have the exact opposite perspective. I do not believe in absolute truth. Not in an absolute truth that we as humans can understand. I believe that God is so much larger than our understanding. And I would not and do not feel comfortable with the notion that I have all the answers or that my beliefs work for everyone. I think that diminishes the power and the mystery of God. In that way, I do not take the Bible literally but I take it as one source of inspiration and wisdom and knowledge in my life. Using the Bible as evidence that the Bible is the truth seems like circular logic to me. I believe there are other sources out there that are also inspired by God.

[KC's wifey]

Kylix - My sister has a similar view. We have had some interesting discussions on this. Your posts sometimes remind me of late night talks I've had with her (makes me miss her, actually. She lives on the other side of the country.)

I think if I were to say that the Bible is true simply because it says its true, that is circular logic. But what I was saying is that if it makes the claim for itself that ALL scripture in it is from God (which is worded many times in several different ways throughout), then that claim must either be all true or all false. It makes an exhaustive assertion about itself that does not allow for dividing out some truth and some error.

I agree that God is much larger than our understanding, absolutely. The Bible says that, too. But He chooses when and how much of Himself to reveal to us. And again, because of the exclusive claims in the Bible about Jesus being the ONLY way, and only ONE gospel can be preached, and how the way is NARROW, etc... it leads me to conclude that either the entirety of the Bible is God's only revealed truths, or none of it is true and I would have to turn to something else.

[Sakura]

I think this thread is great!

If/when I get two coherent thoughts to rub together to make a sentence, I'll jump in.

[Palee]

I believe that God is so much larger than our understanding. And I would not and do not feel comfortable with the notion that I have all the answers or that my beliefs work for everyone. I think that diminishes the power and the mystery of God. In that way, I do not take the Bible literally but I take it as one source of inspiration and wisdom and knowledge in my life.

Beautifully written! This describes my beliefs so well; thank you for posting it.

And thank you for posting too, Jessica and Polly. I like the wind analogy, but my brain always takes things and runs and I know that while the wind can push the leaf, another wind can come and push it off of its course. And to me--even with Divine Inspiration--once something is in the hands of mankind it becomes imperfect. I know that I am imperfect and may certainly be wrong in this and all of my other deductions. BUT, that's ok...at least we have Grace and need not rely on perfection! I so want to read and write more but no time tonight. Hopefully soon.

[JJorn]

To me, it ultimately boils down to this - Christ said that he is the only way to the Father. Since I also believe in absolute truth and believe that the Bible is absolute truth, I will always disagree with anyone that says that there is any other way to God. The Bible is everything that God wanted to tell us about himself. I could never say that I have God all figured out or understand all of the Bible. God's book is so complex that it would be deceiving to say that you could understand it all. Just think, one book that was written by so many people over such a long time - what are the odds that there wouldn't be any contradictions, that the actual words haven't changed over that time period either (check out the Dead Sea Scrolls). I so wish that I had my resources...but maybe some of the other ladies here have that available.

The work of the Holy Spirit is unique. Once you have turned from your sin and accepted that free gift of forgiveness/salvation only available through Christ's death on the cross, you have the Holy Spirit with you always. Any other "wind" is not the Holy Spirit frankly but certainly has whatever power you grant to it. There are things that you can do to diminish the workings of the Holy Spirit in you. The first is to quench the Holy Spirit which is when you don't do what the Holy Spirit prompts you to do (good left undone). The other is the grieve the Holy Spirit which is to have habitual, unrepentant sin. Just think, God Almighty has forever placed his Spirit with you. He is perfect, holy and we certainly are not. So, whatever you do whether good or bad - the Holy Spirit is right there with you. When you sin, He has a front row seat and is grieved by that sin. Whether you quench or grieve the Holy Spirit, his voice/prompting which was so loud/obvious because less and less so. Those other "winds" then get louder and louder....Satan is called the Great Deceiver and has been perfecting his deceit for so long and I certainly know how good he can make what is wrong look great/smart/right. And then when the consequences come along as they always do, he is also there saying how awful you are, how you'll never get over this, you're stupid and powerless, etc. What an awful cheerleader! On the other hand, you have Christ saying that you can do this with him, you are a precious child of God, that he has paid already for that sin, so let's get up and move forward again.

I am so thankful that we don't have to be perfect or know everything (apart from God, who could ever do that?), all we have to be is forgiven. But God doesn't even stop there, not only does he extend mercy (not giving us what we deserve) but he offers us grace (gives us what we do not deserve). Mercy and grace!

Have any of you read "The Oath" by Frank Peretti? I read that recently and it has stuck with me. It's a fiction novel and somewhat pertains to parts of this discussion.

[Palee]

I am on my phone so will be short, but I love what you said about the Holy Spirit. It brings to mind something i read once about being mindful because the Spirit Is present in the space between the words.

[lilo1225]

i am enjoying this thread... i am learning lots too. I am learning so i don't have answwers to any of those questions. My hubby and I just started reading the bible from the beginning a chapter at a time. We just started on Monday so we aren't far but we have enjoyed it and the time we sit together to read it. Some times we feel like reading more than one chapter so we do... but i have no input right now just wanted to say i love this thread!

[jerb00]

I like this thread, too. And, I love getting different perspectives. The only thing I am sure of is that I am not super sure of anything except that Jesus is the son of God and it is through Him that we are saved. All the other stuff about the bible, virgin birth, physical resurrection is kinda up in the air for me. At forst I felt I had to believe it, and I did, but then I began to read more and question more and I cannot wrap my mind around some of the things I am "Supposed" to believe if I am a Christian. But, after lots more reading and discussions with Dh I have come to the conclusion that I need to follow Jesus' example, he is the Son of God, and we are called follow his example and to be his hands and feet on earth. That I know, for sure. It really bothered me about the rest, for a long time, nd then I realized that I'll know what the rest means soon enough, so I need to concern myself with the task at hand.

Thanks for the thread!!