So the bible says to test all things, does this include the bible?
If so, by which standard would you test it?
If not, what does the all things relate to?
How do you apply this?
Above people are using the word 'test' in more than one way, but another way of testing is actual real life testing of such as the proverbs and the instructions on how to live from Jesus, which is very radical in effect when one tests them I found out.
Maybe it's because I was an agnostic coming from a way of thinking from extensive reading in science and also getting a degree in the sciences, a worldview that sees endless hypotheses and theories -- all to be tested -- that when I was reading later a great many of the great thinkers and wisdom traditions, I was seeking not merely to intellectually compare, but instead I was gleaning ideas I could put into practice, test out.
To see if the idea was significantly better than how I was already living.
I tested a lot of things very well, like meditation (lived a year and a half in a meditation community), sweat lodges, reshaping my mental attitudes from The Tao (Lao Tzu), applying ideas from Emerson, and applying ideas of how to reform oneself from many of the great psychologists like Carl Rogers, Victor Frankel, Rollo May and many others, and a lot of comparing of outcomes.
I finally decided to test what felt like a bigger effort -- the primary and also emotionally risky things Jesus the Christ said to do.
Starting with "love your neighbor as yourself". I did this very literally, very much an 'as yourself' -- as if the person was going to be a very dear loved friend (this total stranger....) with precisely the next door neighbors on both sides (and again later in new locations also, since I could not believe how good the result was)....
I found that things Christ said worked far better than other competing ways, such as the more normal American way of --
Normal American way I was using:
--> Love a few select friends
--> be friendly to some advantageous acquaintances
--> usually be polite to people I'd encounter
--> be sure to keep 98% of people at arms length
--> be superficially polite to actual neighbors, for my own advantage
especially literal next door neighbors, to which it feels safer to just be truly superficial only.
So, see, I did test it -- real actual love, hard to do! and exhausting at first -- and as an agnostic.
It was an unbelievably good outcome.
I became impressed by that best-of-all-ways result of Jesus's commandment (in the love your neighbor as yourself instance).
Because of that, I tested more of what Jesus said, I think next the difficult and radical forgiving those not having earned it.
That, also, was so much better than what I had been doing. I knew because a meditator becomes more aware of their internal feeling, state of being. I could tell it was sharply better from having forgiven some people.
I began to think:
"I'll find something that doesn't work."
I chose to test the almost-certainly-wishful-thinking "love your enemy".
I thought that would only work a little, only as long as I was doing all the 'love'. Likely l'd get humiliated. But I was determined to test until I could find something that failed.
It worked impossibly well (the only enemy I'd had became a true friend with real love, even though I could only offer love a few seconds on the first day, then it was all him.)
Jesus's teachings were working
better than I imagined possible.
I had though they were just a good way to live in peace, a nice pleasant life. He'd be just a wise man. A good, wise man, and that was all.
Nope.
His instructions are far better than just a way to have some pleasant times and a less stressful life I discovered. They very radically improve life. Not just to a nice vacation day level.
I was finding what He said to do was better than all other competing alternative ways. Since "truth" about how to live is simply what works better than all other known ways, already I was finding what Jesus said is fully 'true' in the practical, everyday living way. The 100% success of His instructions began to pile up. I began to wonder if
everything He said was true. I know anyone can test things He said this way, as direct testing, first hand.
