Rarely ever touch a Bible. Has some amazing stuff in it and some not so amazing, ordinary bits. OK bits, crazy bits, Loving bits, hateful sweet bits, naughty bits, bad bits. Hmmmm.
By night my bed I sought him whom my soul
loveth; I sought him, but I found him not.
I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and
in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth:
I sought him, but I found him not.
The watchmen that go about the city found me: to
whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?
It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found
him whom my soul loveth; I held him, and would not
let him go, until I had brought him into my mother's
house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.
.....from Song of Solomon, Chapter 3 attributed to King Solomon
Unless of course there can be a pretty neat explanation. And there may well be...
"If two men, a man and his countryman, are struggling together, and the wife of one comes near to deliver her husband from the hand of the one who is striking him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals, then you shall cut off her hand; you shall not show pity."
So much FUN stuff from God. He ought to be on the stage!
March 10 2010, 12:15 PM
"A marriage is considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is discovered not to be a virgin, the marriage is considered dissolved and the woman is to be executed."(Deutereonomy 22:13-21)
Haha.....priceless. I am wetting myself....woohoo! Go God.
Interesting point, my darling Mondo, BUT...........
March 10 2010, 12:41 PM
...
(IF) The Source wants to Know Itself and IS ALL, then ALL it is! Pain, sadness, crime, love, hunger, fun, wa, pestilence, devil, Satan, hell, heaven, do be do be blah blah and onwards..
Maybe we need to be thinking on WHY the SOurce IS, has to be, ALL these things?
Well, you know, no matter one's stance, its effect will be directly proportional.
Believers, by definition, are sentenced to 'reason' from ignorance
If believers would actually know what they claim
they'd be known as knowers, not as believers.
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult
For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
Let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth
Come let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves.
My lover spoke and said to me, 'Arise my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come. The cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me
People, whether they are believers or not, usually have a preconceived idea of what the bible says, based on the scriptures they have heard from their youth: John 3:16, Eph. 2:8, John 5:24, etc, etc. When they read the bible, they tend to read with mind glazed over until one of the remembered scriptures comes along, and then they say to themselves; "Yup, it's in there, just like I was taught".
In other words, we read from recognized verse to recognized verse, without a clue about what was in between those verses.
I think that the best thing is to read a child's bible story book to get a simplified view. Then put those stories together in a logical, chronological, progression, to see how one story leads to another, and therefore see the larger story that they lead to. Once one recognizes the larger story, then he can read the bible from beginning to end, always keeping in mind the context of the whole story, and can form a more honest opinion of what the bible actually says.
"I don't speak for God. All I have is personal opinion based on the story of continuity which runs through the bible!"
When I think back to Sunday School, it was the same stories over and over, and the focus was always on the bright side. You know, like The Flood. The focus wasn't on all those poor women, and children and animals drowning because God was mad at the world, but on Noah, the one good guy -- and surely, we would be Noah or his family if we were around then.
And of course "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so."
Not so much about, God is going to burn you in Hell for eternity if you don't believe the correct doctrine.
And so on ..
Preconceptions. Reading the Bible and studying it, can be very disturbing to those preconceptions. Suddenly "God" is insane, inconsistent, incoherent .. enter "apologetics".
Mark 10:15
15 "Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it {at all.} (NAS)
Mark 9:36-37
36 And taking a child, He set him before them, and taking him in His arms, He said to them,
37 "Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me does not receive Me, but Him who sent Me." (NAS)
Unless we LOVE the truth, we cannot know it ~~ Pascal
