Official Bible Interpretation Thread

No, I think doing service to god is loving god, loving and serving your brother,
practicing forgiveness, healing the sick, feeding the poor.

I also suggested that to bear witness, against our brother thinking it is in service to god is in the same vain as killing him for the same reason, we disrupt the sanctity of the sonship, our relationships are holy.

 

I have said that the bible was written by men. I have said that the word of god is a living word.

I was predisposed from the beginning. Practicing the teachings of Jesus gave me empirical evidence that the words were true. I saw the promised results.

 

What was it an answer to or what point are you making?

May I ask you why you are not forthcoming with an explanation for something that I obviously have a question about? Why waste the time of posting?

 

Pretty please?

 

Yes, it does demonstrate what you say is not a fact. It is what comes out of a man that defiles him. We may believe that we are victims only because we had not understood that it is by our own words that we are justified or condemned. When we forgive we see that we were never condemned in the first place.

 

You shouldn't believe it waterbrother, it is not true.
I am not judging you guilty of using emoticons. I said you would not feel the need to be sarcastic if you weren't defending yourself. I'm not the one who inserted the emoticon. You did it and then you say you don't usually do it. So what I'm asking is why? Does saying you don't usually do it mean you didn't do it?

 

It is my understanding that christians don't ask for apologies, they forgive.

 

Is life not just a dream? A passing moment? And the fact that we die. Death is a dream. Life is eternal, though it has different stages. This one is physical.

 

There is scriptural evidence for what I am saying. Jesus saying not dead but sleeping. He did go on to clarify that they were physically dead, but his first statement was alluding to this aspect of our current condition. This is a way of understanding how it can be that god can let terrible things happen. He doesn't, we dream or imagine this is so.
Teaching about salt, and light, and measures given point to the way we generate experience.

God is not doctrinaire. Men have many ideas about god.
I do not feel it implies some sort of secret wisdom, it is plain.

I do not feel that it implies that god instilled a deep sleep to relieve potential suffering. What reason would there be for this when pain as of yet did not exist? It says a deep sleep fell over him, it does not say god caused it. What caused the sleep, the idea that man was separate from his own good. At last bones of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

That is an interesting fact about ribs.

 

It does not make sense that god "gains pleasure". What is missing from god?

 

They're also delicious when BBQ'd.

 

Several posts seem to have presented an opinion that belief in the instructions of the Christ (Christianity) should be accompanied by a belief in the literalness of the old testament (God's word, written through men). That Jesus referenced those texts at times is held as evidence of their veracity. It has been 'suggested' thar it makes no sense to be a believer of gospel if one is not in agreement with traditional interpretations of the old writings.

As Jesus was a Jew, among Jews, talking to Jews, He referenced those things of which Jews were familiar. And yet He changed much that was traditional when He taught them the higher truths. Otherwise, we would not be Christians now - we would be Jews.

If He was empowered to bring to an end previous laws of Moses (a man), then not all previously 'given' law is necessarily the final word of God.

I've tried to say this before, but I'll try again - you cannot be Christian and hold the old testament to be the higher authority. To do so is a rejection of Christ's divinity. Is He God's son, with the full truth of the Father, or isn't He?

 

No one puts new wine in old skins or the skins will burst and both the skins and the wine are ruined.

I have to agree with you worldsofdarkblue. This is another instance where Jesus suggest we need to transcend tradition. It is not blood that passes sin, it is education.

 

Agreed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTXNSZ7M7VE&feature=related"]YouTube- Baby Back Ribs 2

 

In other verses it says that Jesus did not come to abolish the law or the prophets but to fulfill them.

If he said that, then what could we make of the Law and the Prophets and how he fulfilled them? Did he break the law?

Often Jesus ate with his disciples and then referred this to the sabbath.

Here Jesus says a lot but one of the most striking is that he refers to the sabbath as what they are doing with Jesus. Jesus is feeding those in need as well as the disciples are with the one that will give them rest. The sabbath means to "cease" or to "rest", so then we can say that all disciples of Jesus are given 'rest', thus fulfilling the true meaning of the sabbath; With this in mind, it wouldn't make sense to say that he abolished the law or the prophets but has shown it's true intent and could only be fulfilled by Jesus.

The traditions given to the Israelites are merely to show the characteristics of God and Jesus and what all of those traditions are meant. Jesus fulfills not only the sabbath but the other laws as well in this way.

Jesus is the Sabbath rest. The Festivals were created to showcase the ministry of Jesus and what he would do for man. Just like how matzah bread has no yeast in it, is punctured, and has stripes represents Jesus' sinless yet beaten body.

Some of the festivals were: The Passover, Unleavened Bread, Grain Harvest, Autumn Festival and others.

Not higher authority, but it is part of the authority. I would say that it is of the same authority, something that Jesus often said, just not in the same exact words. Don't see why it would be a rejection of Jesus' divinity or His 'Son-ship'.

 

We would still be Jews. That's true, but the Jews did have the prophecies of the Messiah and if the person who says he is the Messiah truly is the Messiah, then there really is no need to add or subtract from what the gospels and the rest of the Bible has said since doing one or the other would render everything useless; We can't know who the messiah is without the 'old testament' and we can't know the 'new testament' without the messiah. Since the messiah is authoritative on matters of the Bible, then what he has to say is also authoritative. It seems to be be one continual line.

 

I meant that God doesn't find suffering of others pleasurable.

What is missing from God? Don't know, I'd say nothing, but he does reach out to sinners. So maybe what he misses out on is more people go to his Son Jesus for rest.

(Why need rest if they are already sleeping?)

 

Not our current condition, just the condition of the dead was referred to as sleeping. It matches the other parts of the Bible where the dead are mentioned sleeping the the grave, just to illustrate the first and 2nd deaths. I never seen him referring to sleep to a person that was not dead.

It's not God that causes terrible things. It is man that does terrible things. God is in ultimate control, so you're right that he allows it to go on, but it won't go on for long. God never intended the state of the world we are in now to occur.

I am not sure about the teachings of the salt.

The light was just pointing to who Jesus is. Jesus is the light as well as many other things. The light is just to keep us out of darkness and that we should shine this light on everyone so that they may end up giving thanks to God.

Doctrinaire? Doctrine just helps us to explain God's word or his message, so I guess he does create doctrine, just only one.

The wisdom is plain and God wants it to be this way, but how can wisdom be learned if we don't follow instruction?

Men do have many ideas about God, which is why it's so important for us to follow what the Bible actually says, otherwise we may create different ways of looking at God.

I don't think God would want to confuse us or to not make it plain.

I guess pain did exist before Adam and Eve were abolished from the garden. I don't think that this also means that there was suffering. We can stub our toe against our bed post, but I don't think I would call that suffering. They were still living in a world before all the happenings that go on in our world today, such as disease, pestilence, starvation, murder, rape, et al.

There was pain and we do know this from reading the scriptures. What caused the pain? There were none, but what prevented the pain from happening was God. Who caused the sleep? God did, it does not say that it was caused by what you say it was caused by.

Bone for my bones I think just illustrates that Adam and Eve share the same body, or that husband and wife are attached to each other 'side by side', united as one, and share the same body.

Agreed

 

I see the tendency to loose perspective because of archaic terms. The term sin, meaning to miss the mark of god could be effectively couched as an "error in perception" as opposed to the efforts of some satanic creature.

We come into this world innocent, however we suffer from an accusation that is not true. "We were ashamed that we were naked and hid", god answers, "who told you that?"

The terms angels and demons are archaic metaphors for our states of being.
"You don't understand, in heaven we are as the angels".

We know now, that all these things are qualities of mind. We name the animals.
This archaic symbolism when presented as truth, frightens people and insults the most common sense. They are metaphors for qualities of mind, not a pantheon of lesser gods.

 

God sees only what he created. It is mans nightmare dream that he offended god.

We are weary and heavy laden because we have misapprehended what is so,
sin, an error in perception. It is the truth that sets us free.

Further emphasis is found in the garden as Jesus asks his disciples to watch while he prayed, came out found them asleep, can't you watch one hour? goes back, comes back, same stuff they are asleep but then the hour is upon them and it is too late.