Bible Read Thread

[SarahsKnight]

Week 7, Saturday: The Gospels

Matthew chapters 17 through 19.

 

[Owlette]

I really like the parable of the unforgiving servant in today's reading... The one from Matthew 18:21-35. I think we've all encountered situations with people that can be hard to forgive. This parable really puts things into perspective. It's a good reminder.

 

[Saucy]

Reading through Genesis still. I nearly forgot how Jacob had his sons. He had two wives and they both not only were trying to get pregnant, they offered their maids to him as well. Crazy! Then the part after he left his father-in-law's land and Esau was coming to visit him and he panicked and wrestled with God. I thought that was interesting...that Jacob prevailed against God.

 

[Goodbook]

Well, not really because God gave him a permanent limp.

 

[SarahsKnight]

This morning we will be closing out the week with Romans chapters 13 and 14.

 

[SarahsKnight]

After reading chapter 14 it occurred to me how unnecessarily often I see fellow believers asking others on CF if doing this or that (listening to heavy metal, playing video games of mature rating, etc.) makes them not a good Christian, or a "back-slidden" one, or will result in loss of salvation. I have always thought: here's the thing; if you even feel compelled to ask others if it's okay with God, you probably should not be doing it, because it obviously has a toll on your conscience right now. And the only thing St. Paul warns against here is doing things that affect your own conscience or those of a weaker faith. When I was younger, and therefore less mature as a believer, I once felt compelled to stay clear of certain forms of entertainment because I just did not feel comfortable with them, but a homeboy of mine from high school was living with me as my roommate during college at this time and was cool with it. I asked him simply to not partake of these things when I am around, precisely so that I would not be offended. If he himself was fine with it, great, but he would not have a right to cause me to stumble, having no regard for my own conscience. And I think Paul sums up really anything you do in your daily life by his particular examples in chapter 14. Things are permissible with God when you do not let them be an offense to you or to others, other than, of course, the obvious breaking of His commandments to love thy neighbor and thy God (by doing no wrong to either). So, if listening to a bunch of morbidly-dressed weirdos screeching emo vocals about pain and suffering and rocking out on electric guitars over flaming bass speakers in heavy metal music makes you feel like they are a hindrance to those close to you who have to hear it bleating loudly and obnoxiously from your room, or is a hindrance to your relationship with the Lord, then don't do that. Because if you do so against your conscience, that is when it is sinful. If you deliberately violate lent in front of a loved one who prefers to practice it by eating meat on Friday right in front of their faces just to assert yourself and your own standards of living as a believer, then it is sinful, because you are causing a person who practices their faith a slightly different way than you do to stumble, and, let's face it, that's just kind of jerk thing to do, you know? It is not fitting for one who follows the Lamb.

 

[Swan7]

There was a lot of support talk in both chapters, I found. It's just common sense, at least to me it is, that say for example: my sister got pregnant and couldn't drink. I wouldn't drink in front of her or at all just to show my support for her. The same thing here is said about doing what is Godly to your brother or neighbor.

How will you show support for someone today?

 

[Goodbook]

I like the point Paul says whether we live or die, we are the Lord's.

I think of the perspective that we going to living with each other for eternity in heaven, so we might as well get along with each other now...it would be hilarious if you went to heaven and then decided you werent gonna talk to each other there cos of something stupid you hadnt forgiven each other on earth.

 

[SarahsKnight]

Week 8, Monday: The Law

Genesis 28 through 31.

 

[Swan7]

Genesis 28:12
I wonder if this is where people got the "stairway to heaven" idea.

I always try to remember this: Genesis 28:20 because He takes great care of His children. I don't know why, but this is hitting more at home with me than before. God will take care of His creation, be it animal or human, much better than anyone in the world. With God all things are possible. It's as if this is sinking in more and more for me, like I'm not just knowing it, but understanding it.

 

[Swan7]

Genesis 29: 17-18
Hmmm.... Lust at first sight? In the whole chapter, I saw no loving these women for who they are, but what they look like. The father of these women even tricked Jacob, son of Rebekah, into marriage of the first born.
Then shortly after, God saw Leah was hated and so He blessed her and cursed Rachel. Makes me wonder if more went on than what the Bible says.

 

[Noxot]

After reading chapter 14 it occurred to me how unnecessarily often I see fellow believers asking others on CF if doing this or that (listening to heavy metal, playing video games of mature rating, etc.) makes them not a good Christian, or a "back-slidden" one, or will result in loss of salvation. I have always thought: here's the thing; if you even feel compelled to ask others if it's okay with God, you probably should not be doing it, because it obviously has a toll on your conscience right now. And the only thing St. Paul warns against here is doing things that affect your own conscience or those of a weaker faith. When I was younger, and therefore less mature as a believer, I once felt compelled to stay clear of certain forms of entertainment because I just did not feel comfortable with them, but a homeboy of mine from high school was living with me as my roommate during college at this time and was cool with it. I asked him simply to not partake of these things when I am around, precisely so that I would not be offended. If he himself was fine with it, great, but he would not have a right to cause me to stumble, having no regard for my own conscience. And I think Paul sums up really anything you do in your daily life by his particular examples in chapter 14. Things are permissible with God when you do not let them be an offense to you or to others, other than, of course, the obvious breaking of His commandments to love thy neighbor and thy God (by doing no wrong to either). So, if listening to a bunch of morbidly-dressed weirdos screeching emo vocals about pain and suffering and rocking out on electric guitars over flaming bass speakers in heavy metal music makes you feel like they are a hindrance to those close to you who have to hear it bleating loudly and obnoxiously from your room, or is a hindrance to your relationship with the Lord, then don't do that. Because if you do so against your conscience, that is when it is sinful. If you deliberately violate lent in front of a loved one who prefers to practice it by eating meat on Friday right in front of their faces just to assert yourself and your own standards of living as a believer, then it is sinful, because you are causing a person who practices their faith a slightly different way than you do to stumble, and, let's face it, that's just kind of jerk thing to do, you know? It is not fitting for one who follows the Lamb.

yeah but where would one draw the line that is the other side of the problem?

Matt 23:23-30 (YLT)
`Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye give tithe of the mint, and the dill, and the cumin, and did neglect the weightier things of the Law--the judgment, and the kindness, and the faith; these it behoved you to do, and those not to neglect. `Blind guides! who are straining out the gnat, and the camel are swallowing. `Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye make clean the outside of the cup and the plate, and within they are full of rapine and incontinence. `Blind Pharisee! cleanse first the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside of them also may become clean. `Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye are like to whitewashed sepulchres, which outwardly indeed do appear beautiful, and within are full of bones of dead men, and of all uncleanness; so also ye outwardly indeed do appear to men righteous, and within ye are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. `Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and adorn the tombs of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.

Titus 1:12-2:1 (YLT)
A certain one of them, a prophet of their own, said--`Cretans! always liars, evil beasts, lazy bellies!' this testimony is true; for which cause convict them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, not giving heed to Jewish fables and commands of men, turning themselves away from the truth; all things, indeed, are pure to the pure, and to the defiled and unstedfast is nothing pure, but of them defiled are even the mind and the conscience; God they profess to know, and in the works they deny Him , being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work disapproved. And thou--be speaking what doth become the sound teaching;

but ofc:

1Pet 1:22 (YLT)
Your souls having purified in the obedience of the truth through the Spirit to brotherly love unfeigned, out of a pure heart one another love ye earnestly,

Jas 3:13-4:4 (YLT)
Who is wise and intelligent among you? let him shew out of the good behaviour his works in meekness of wisdom, and if bitter zeal ye have, and rivalry in your heart, glory not, nor lie against the truth; this wisdom is not descending from above, but earthly, physical, demon-like, for where zeal and rivalry are , there is insurrection and every evil matter; and the wisdom from above, first, indeed, is pure, then peaceable, gentle, easily entreated, full of kindness and good fruits, uncontentious, and unhypocritical: -- and the fruit of the righteousness in peace is sown to those making peace. Whence are wars and fightings among you? not thence--out of your passions, that are as soldiers in your members? ye desire, and ye have not; ye murder, and are zealous, and are not able to attain; ye fight and war, and ye have not, because of your not asking; ye ask, and ye receive not, because evilly ye ask, that in your pleasures ye may spend it . Adulterers and adulteresses! have ye not known that friendship of the world is enmity with God? whoever, then, may counsel to be a friend of the world, an enemy of God he is set.

1John 3:18-24 (YLT)
My little children, may we not love in word nor in tongue, but in word and in truth! and in this we know that of the truth we are, and before Him we shall assure our hearts, because if our heart may condemn--because greater is God than our heart, and He doth know all things. Beloved, if our heart may not condemn us, we have boldness toward God, and whatever we may ask, we receive from Him, because His commands we keep, and the things pleasing before Him we do, and this is His command, that we may believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and may love one another, even as He did give command to us, and he who is keeping His commands, in Him he doth remain, and He in him; and in this we know that He doth remain in us, from the Spirit that He gave us.


I guess that i'm more inclined to freedom and liberty than to authority and making everyone else around me do as I think is right, which I also know some people have the right heart and wisdom to be a real authority out of love. it feels like the world is full of vanity now and they all force upon one another heavy burdens that make other people have to toil even more. for instance people whine if you don't mow your lawn and they make rules that you have to do it even though you might love seeing it grow.

lets give a more serious example. humans make up rules that make it very hard for you to pay 1000$ or less to create a second home in your own backyard for someone who might need it even though it could be a genius way of sharing your home in a christian manner whilst still maintaining some sort of protection from the possibility of strangers doing evil to you.

 

[Goodbook]

Genesis...

I always thought having a rock for a pillow was strange.

 

[Noxot]

unless that rock was a symbol for Christ just as all things are figures that are pointing to our spiritual life and are for our edification and all that jazz

 

[Goodbook]

Could be but..my own pillow is soft and not hard like a rock. But then it does say that the israelites were a stiffnecked and gainsaying people.

I think it comes from having rocks as pillows.

 

[Noxot]

well this psalm sings true:

Ps 87:1-7 (YLT)
By sons of Korah. --A Psalm, a song. His foundation is in holy mountains. Jehovah is loving the gates of Zion Above all the tabernacles of Jacob. Honourable things are spoken in Thee, O city of God. Selah. I mention Rahab and Babel to those knowing Me, Lo, Philistia, and Tyre, with Cush! This one was born there. And of Zion it is said: Each one was born in her, And He, the Most High, doth establish her. Jehovah doth recount in the describing of the peoples, `This one was born there.' Selah. Singers also as players on instruments, All my fountains are in Thee!

 

[SarahsKnight]

Genesis 29: 17-18
Hmmm.... Lust at first sight? In the whole chapter, I saw no loving these women for who they are, but what they look like. The father of these women even tricked Jacob, son of Rebekah, into marriage of the first born.
Then shortly after, God saw Leah was hated and so He blessed her and cursed Rachel. Makes me wonder if more went on than what the Bible says.

Yeah, it's kind of hard to take seriously that Jacob was really in love with Rachel at first sight when he ends up with four wives at once eventually, anyway. I also wonder if Leah was even actually all that plain in appearance (all it says is that her eyes were weak) if Jacob doesn't even recognize her to be Leah instead of Rachael until the next morning; he seriously never lifted the veil from her face the entire time? Was that the custom of Laban's family or something?

 

[Swan7]

Yeah, it's kind of hard to take seriously that Jacob was really in love with Rachel at first sight when he ends up with four wives at once eventually, anyway. I also wonder if Leah was even actually all that plain in appearance (all it says is that her eyes were weak) if Jacob doesn't even recognize her to be Leah instead of Rachael until the next morning; he seriously never lifted the veil from her face the entire time? Was that the custom of Laban's family or something?

Not the family, but culture yes. I do believe Jacob was tricked into a marriage with Leah, probably because Leah's father feared she might not ever marry or something... I'm just trying to fill in some blanks. :/

 

[SarahsKnight]

Tuesday: History

Judges 12 through 16.

 

[Swan7]

Haven't read all of judges yet but I couldn't help but notice a similarity to Mary and Joseph when the Angel of God appeared to the wife telling her she will have a son.