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by blarman

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by blarman

You can either look for the truth in something, or you can dismiss it prejudicially. There is very little in the Bible that - understood in context - can not help us become better people. Many of the stories in the scriptures describe the failures of many individuals - such as David with respect to Bathsheba - as examples of the negative outcomes of such decisions. There are others (such as the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife) that teach of positive outcomes.

It should also be recognized that the Bible itself is NOT a complete record. All we have are the parts that have been found/preserved over the last 4000+ years, which understandably may lead to confusion. The great thing is that we can learn the truth of a matter simply by taking it to the ultimate author himself - God. If we ask sincerely wanting to know the truth, it will come.

by john.a.wills

specifically, one of the things Peter's letters tell us (I am not looking up the text at the moment), is that the Bible is liable to be misunderstood if we do not read it in the context of a believing community, i.e. the Church, which gives us the Bible in the first place, whether it is the Rabbinical Jewish Church giving us its list of books at the Council of Jamnia ca. 90 CE, the Church commonly called Catholic giving us its list via Pope Innocent I in 405 AD, or the Lutherans giving us their list via the opinion of Johannes Metzger von Karlstadt (Luther himself had a different opinion) in 1520 AD. So, in what Church are we to read the Bible?

by ansugisalas

It's a bunch of people sharing a belief.

It's not a bunch of clerks - although the clerks will have you believe it.
The pharisees had usurped control of belief, and Jesus wrastled with them... and they had him executed for it - that's pretty clearly written, I should say. Jesus gave people the Holy Ghost, which allows them to know for themselves what's right or wrong, without no damn bookthumpers to tell them.

Except the pharisees took control again, in catholicism and again later... the faith breaks free, they rein it back in, repeat ad vomitum.

by john.a.wills

without having read it, or at least read it with your brain switched on. I remember a woman complaining about some marriage problem a relative of hers was having; I quoted Mt 19:9, Jesus' words on the subject; she responded bitterly "Jesus wouldn't say that". She had, perhaps like you, an idea of Jesus which came form some place other than the Bible.

Now, get an NT and tell me what you understand by ekklesia, which in most translations into English is translated as "church"; the word occurs scores of times in the NT. And read 1 P 1:20 - 21.

And what has blarman to say?

by ansugisalas

knowing that the pharisees have had their mitts all over it for 2000 years.
Matthew correctly states that a man ought not divorce his wife for any other reason than adultery, but women are free to kick out their husbands if they find that they are ones who should have been eunuchs.

by john.a.wills

but I will bite your side-issue. Mt 19:9 states "Whoever divorces his wife, here not upon fornication, and marries another, adulters". It does not read "here not upon adultery". A divorce upon fornication is a divorce because you wren't really married.

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