Official Bible Interpretation Thread

Sorry... I'm behind in replies...

What you said sounds very much like Hinduism to me.

Don't think life is a dream, very much real. Death is the complete absence and removal of reality. If we die, then life is limited, so that doesn't sound much like eternity. But if life was never interrupted, then that would be eternal.

 

The particulars are a dream, reality is non local not is it remote. What is not real does not exist.

Mark 13:35 thru 37 "Watch therefore for you do not know when the master of the house will come in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow or in the morning lest he come suddenly and find you asleep and what I say to you I say to you all: Watch.

Luke 12:37 "Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes; truly I say to you he will gird himself and have them sit at table, and he will come and serve them."

 

Waterbrother, if the measure we give is the measure we get, then the only thing absent from any situation is what we have not given.

I apologize for any way I have slighted you, real or imagined. It is not my intent.

 

These are parables and seem to go well with this parable:

The Parable of the Talents

"Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents[a] of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money.
"After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.'

"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'

"The man with the two talents also came. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.'

"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'

"Tw that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathen the man who had received the one talent came. 'Master,' he said, 'I knehering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.'

"His master replied, 'You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.

" 'Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'

----

The "awake" and "asleep" are referencing to housekeeping the masters house while he is away. If we are asleep, then we are not keeping his house secure. If we are awake, then we are keeping his house secure and when the master returns, will reward those who remained awake. For those that took it easy and tried to find a loophole, they were cast out of the house. In the end, it seems to reference the readiness of faith and keeping it true and secure rather than letting our guard down and end up getting robbed by a sneaky thief (Jesus sometimes refers to himself as a thief in the night). This is never in reference to how any of us are in a dreamlike world created by God.

 

It seems that you know neither the nature of God or pleasure.

 

But it is God's word written through men. Jesus believed it to be be so and who am I to argue with him about it.

Yes, Jesus changed argued against many of the Jews traditions but then they were not part of the Law.

The reason we are Christians and not Jews is that the Jews rejected the Christ but that does not mean that the "old testament" is not God's word. The "old testament" is a tutor that leads to the Christ and it is still leading people to the Christ.

That Jesus referenced those texts at times is held as evidence of their veracity? Are you saying that you think Jesus would take something untrue and use it as an authority, just because it was handy or convenient? I don't think so.

Do you really think that God would write the "old testament" for our benefit and then just have us discard it when the Christ came? Do we really no longer need to know who we are and where we came from? When Jesus speaks of Adam how are we to know what he was talking about?

Really, when most people talk of "discarding" the "old testament", it means that something there disagrees with what they believe and they don't want to deal with it.

 

Jesus was against traditions that were making the Law invalid, he was not against the Law itself and did not consider the Law to be traditional.

 

Perhaps archaic to you, since you seem to consider God's word the Bible to be archaic but to those who actually love God nothing he has to say to us is ever archaic.

The term sin, meaning to miss the mark can not be effectively couched as an "error in perception", they are two different things.

That's not what the Bible says

"Who told you that?" is not an answer but a question.

Again with the archaic, if in heaven we are to be as the angels, then are we to be in heaven like "archaic metaphors for our states of being"?

We know no such thing and just because you say so doesn't make it so.

Yeah, don't tell someone that they are standing on the track and a train is coming, it might frighten them. It's much better to confuse them with bad metaphors and symbolism and let them die where they stand.

And if no one else has noticed, your calling into question the reality of spirit beings like angels and demons also calls into question the reality of god who is also a spirit being and Jesus who stands beside him.

 

Like how we have to gnaw, chew, and eat the flesh of the Son of God (cf. John 6)?

 

The whole teaching of christ goes nicely together. Wakefulness and productivity are not the same thing. The parable of the talents is about learning and growing and sharing. I feel that wakefulness, alertness, is a separate issue.

 

I know that you think that I am ignorant. It may or may not interest you to know that I don't care what you think of me, love is not negotiated in that way.

 

You make up a belief for Jesus and then say you are not going to argue about it, that is rich. God's word is a living word, that is why Jesus said in all that you do "remember me", remain awake, watchful for god and his kingdom.

The bible has never led any body to anything. People are led to Christ through the testimony of others. You don't read a book unless you are at first in some way attracted to it. God's word is a living word.

 

New skins for new wine is not about the law it is about our entire perception of reality. We do not see the world as god created it because it's appearance is clouded by our judgments against it.

 

The terms are archaic, not the message. We know that sickness is caused not by demons but by pathologies. The terms frighten people and insult common sense.

I know it is a question, I meant answer as in respond.

No, as the angels, without a biological sexual dimorphism.

Not only are they archaic metaphors but in large part they represent primitive and archaic superstitions, i.e. my life is messed up because I did something to piss god off.

No, I point to the reality of being.

 

I understand what worldsofdarkblue is saying. So confusing and obviously mistaken by virtue of results, are all the "ideas about" Christ teaching. When I was just 8 years old I could see the hypocrisy. Jesus loves the little children, all the little children of the world. So I took the sayings of Jesus by themselves and asked the holy spirit to teach me.

 

"We know no such thing and just because you say so doesn't make it so.
Yeah, don't tell someone that they are standing on the track and a train is coming, it might frighten them. It's much better to confuse them with bad metaphors and symbolism and let them die where they stand."

There is no fear in love, and perfect love cast out fear. Fear flees in loves presence. The teachings of Jesus are discarded on the evidence of a cruel and vengeful god. I don't think Jesus' message is come unto me or you will all be schmucked.

 

The guy in that video claims proof. First of all one can't prove anything ever happened if one wasn't actually there. Second of all, he quotes Jesus by saying something to the effect of, "Have you not read that he who made them in the beginning made them male and female." And then he says it's proof. No...all Jesus was saying there is that mankind was made into males and females. He doesn't say anything about Adam, Eve, the garden, nor what happened to them in the garden. He simply states that they (mankind) were made male and female. That's a simple fact, walk outside and take a look around.

 

Why can't a dream be real? Have you ever had a dream so vivid you woke up sweating or scared? This proves the real consequence dreams can have. Death is not removal nor the absense of reality. Death is real and what is real is reality. There can never be absense of reality for nothing can't not exist. You dream while sleeping do you not? Well, part of your day (your reality) is spent dreaming, thus dreaming makes up part of reality, thus is real. Death is not an end but a door.

Walt Whitman has put this much better than I ever could.

"The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the
end to arrest it,
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier."

 

Why would he need to be asleep? Adam and Eve were created in god's image. None felt pain therefore it wouldn't have been to spare Adam the pain.

Why can't people talk in dreams? You've never had a dream with a man who spoke in it?

What problems? The dream is that there is problem. The problems were dreamed. Thus there are no problems. You're sensationalizing the issue. No one is accusing god, and there are no initial problems to be blamed for. It was a dream.

"A mouth can drop honey and a mouth can drop shit."

This was terribly unfair of you to say and very judgmental. I'd normally not expect this from one who calls himself a christian but I can't say that it surprised me.

 

Like I say, these are archaic expressions, "god cause a deep sleep to fall over adam". "That god caused it," is part of the superstition.

A man dreams of his fiance. We say all kinds of things in dreams. The sleep we find ourselves in is of the nature of hypnotic trance. We are taught dreams as though they were reality.

No the trouble started when man felt himself separate and alone.

I didn't

Like I said it is not doctrine. It is a way of understanding the state we are in.

How do I dishonor god?