MFT69

THE BIBLE

I know many people who boast that they believe every word that is written in the Bible and believe that God inspired it all. I am going to take exception to that point of view and try to explain why. I realize that this will be controversial and that many people will disagree but here are my views on the subject. I would like to insert a passage from George Birkett’s writing that disagrees with that point of view also.

“Many extol the bible as the divine or inspired word of God. This poses a problem, not with the Bible, but with what we expect from it. When we insist that every character physically existed, every event occurred exactly as the bible describes, every prophecy has happened or will happen, we place constraints on what and how we learn from the bible. It's inevitable that we will encounter conflicts between what the bible says and what we know to be true of our world -- and what we believe of God too. The divine word tenet of Christian beliefs entangles us in a conflict that we are totally unqualified to resolve: that of defending the integrity of God's word. We rationalize, explain away and attempt to justify and worst of all, we twist what we believe of God to accommodate scripture attributed to God. And then, we pick and choose. I've been doing it most of my life, this pick and choose business. There are large portions of the bible that I find just totally contrary with what I believe of God. When I encounter the "contraries," while I may read on, I mentally discard what it says. We do sometimes explain it away by saying, "that was then," but I believe that God is constant and unchanging. I NEED for God to be constant. "That was then" just doesn't work for me. So, I've discreetly ignored large portions of the bible and the lessons from those scriptures have been lost to me. The "divine word" tenet really does have the effect of limiting what and how I learn from the bible. How ‘bout you?” Taken from one of George’s thoughtful web pages: http://hometown.aol.com/geobrkt/faith/bible0/bible01.htm

I quote George because he says it so much better than I can. I honestly feel that the Bible is more a book about what men have conceived God to be rather than a book that God inspired men to write about him. I can accept the Bible as containing many passages that are truly inspired and that they inspire us when we read them. I have preached for lo these many years from the scriptures to not accept that. But having said that let me say that I do not believe that God ever expected or demanded the sacrifice of animals, much less human beings. I believe the children of Israel got that idea from their pagan neighbors and adapted it into their worship of the Almighty. And there are places are in the Bible that substantiate that view. When Micah says, “ Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? KJV

Obviously the Israelites were practicing the things Micah so boldly condemns. Just as their pagan neighbors were. But Micah sets them straight, they were to "do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with their God."

That my friends is what the Lord requires of we humans. The bulk of the New Testament was written by Paul who was a devout Jew before he became a Christian. He had practiced his religion based on Jewish beliefs and practices and he was trying to convince Jews to become Christian. Why wouldn’t he use Jewish concepts in his presentation. Jesus never followed the Jewish pattern. He said “Love God and love your neighbor.” And he certainly demonstrated who our neighbors are.

We tend to make religion too difficult. Both the prophet and Jesus made it very, very simple. Love God and love your neighbor. You cannot love your neighbor and go out and shoot him. Neither can you drop bombs on your fellowmen because they don’t see eye to eye with you. Another teaching of Jesus was “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God.” He never, ever said blessed are the warmakers for they shall be called the children of God.

The Essenes, the Jewish sect that became Christian after the time of Christ, were emphatic on the principle of animal sacrifice. And they had been in existence since the time of Enoch. They did not practice the rite of animal sacrifice at all. In fact neither did they eat meat of any kind. They were strict vegetarians.

So I would invite everyone to accept the teaching of Jesus and simply “Love God and your neighbor as yourself.” That is about as simple as it gets.