How to understand the Bible and God on a practical level?

[Adjac]

if God's word is objective, then how we interpret it is subjective? the argument is that since our interpretation of the world is unique to us. that would make our interpretation subjective. So by the time say gospels or God's teachings get to us perhaps we are all hearing objective truths, but it automatically becomes a subjective experience once interpreted. something to support this is that there are many denominations in the Christian church particularly meaning that there are disagreements on how scripture is interpreted. but once again, if that's the case how do we ever get to God's objectivity. and if those things are objective then should we not all agree on the same perspective of something. Especially when it's from God?

 

[( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)]

I believe the way we can understand the Bible and God on a practical level is by obeying the principles and commandments we do understand, and then letting the rest of the pieces fall where they're meant. Sadly, too many people refuse to let the Lord show them where their theology is incorrect. This takes humility and the chance that they might be wrong. Unfortunately, people pay tens of thousands of dollars at colleges and seminaries to get fed lines that are nowhere near based in truth. That alone seems like a factor why people would be stuck in traditions of men right there.

However, here's a verse that's helpful. Personally, I'd rather let the Bible come to life to me by living it out. That way, I don't have to depend on what someone else says about something (when they have never lived it out to begin with)

"Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own." -John 7:17

 

[chevyontheriver]

if God's word is objective, then how we interpret it is subjective? the argument is that since our interpretation of the world is unique to us. that would make our interpretation subjective. So by the time say gospels or God's teachings get to us perhaps we are all hearing objective truths, but it automatically becomes a subjective experience once interpreted. something to support this is that there are many denominations in the Christian church particularly meaning that there are disagreements on how scripture is interpreted. but once again, if that's the case how do we ever get to God's objectivity. and if those things are objective then should we not all agree on the same perspective of something. Especially when it's from God?

The Bible is a book of the community, intended to be interpreted by the community. Our individual interpretations need to be in light of the community, and how that community founded by Jesus has interpreted the Bible over the generations.

 

[yeshy]

So just for universal clarity here, I sought the definition for subjective and objective (via Google):

Subjective refers to personal perspectives, feelings, or opinions entering the decision making process. Objective refers to the elimination of subjective perspectives and a process that is purely based on hard facts.

So as stated in Jeremiah 17:9 (KJV)..:

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"

Now the word used for heart in this particular scripture/verse is lêb used figuratively very widely for the feelings, the will and even the intellect (taken as per the Strongs Concordance interpretation).

Now if we take the scriptures to the raw nature of which it exists, we believe we have received the Holy Spirit, the comforter (John 14?), and yes God works through us. It's also as equally important to acknowledge the existence of God as it is that he gave his son as a payment that we might have a relationship with our maker.

Faith in itself is a concept that by nature requires a slight bit of ambiguity (acceptance of the unknown with the known). One thing I have taken from my short time living in acknowledgement of him is that people can take our joy if we share what was intended only for the closeness a relationship, something that is also exercised by Jesus' concept of his friendship circles, being that of the 72 disciples (some, if not all of whom departed from him in John 6), the 12 disciples, and then his inner-circle; Peter, James and John. He is the King of Funny, the creator behind joy, and inventor of relationship. It's in his nature to grab your attention in a way that means something to you. His ways are higher than our ways.

In James 1:23 we are told:

"For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
For he beholds himself, and goes his way, and straightaway forgets what manner of man he was."

James (the half-brother of Jesus, speaking unto born-again Jews) is capturing the idea that one does not view himself in a manner of reflection that is unclear, and only knows by what state he appears based on the comparison between his own subjective ideologies of what looks good and the version of him that he sees in the mirror. Here, James uses the Word of God to stand figuratively as our Spiritual Mirror or Reflection.

Does it align with the Word?
Have you sought after wisdom that only the Holy Spirit can reveal unto you?
Will the answer to this contribute to his kingdom, or the strongholds of the enemy?

Everything is perspective, but it is also said that those who find their lives and hold onto it will lose it like sand in their hand, but to those who hate their life for my sake, they will find it.

P.S. Perhaps I paraphrase here and there, but let it be known that my word only holds true if it stands by his word, and you should never take my or the opinion of anyone else to be concretely accurate, lest you be deceived by your faith in people. Seek the answer for yourself, take not my answer or anyone who replies to be the whole truth. The Spirit brings revelation, call out unto him and not only request but ask for his mind. Let not your own desires, emotions and experiences confine him.

Love God, love people.

Amen brother.

 

[Adjac]

So just for universal clarity here, I sought the definition for subjective and objective (via Google):

Subjective refers to personal perspectives, feelings, or opinions entering the decision making process. Objective refers to the elimination of subjective perspectives and a process that is purely based on hard facts.

So as stated in Jeremiah 17:9 (KJV)..:

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"

Now the word used for heart in this particular scripture/verse is lêb used figuratively very widely for the feelings, the will and even the intellect (taken as per the Strongs Concordance interpretation).

Now if we take the scriptures to the raw nature of which it exists, we believe we have received the Holy Spirit, the comforter (John 14?), and yes God works through us. It's also as equally important to acknowledge the existence of God as it is that he gave his son as a payment that we might have a relationship with our maker.

Faith in itself is a concept that by nature requires a slight bit of ambiguity (acceptance of the unknown with the known). One thing I have taken from my short time living in acknowledgement of him is that people can take our joy if we share what was intended only for the closeness a relationship, something that is also exercised by Jesus' concept of his friendship circles, being that of the 72 disciples (some, if not all of whom departed from him in John 6), the 12 disciples, and then his inner-circle; Peter, James and John. He is the King of Funny, the creator behind joy, and inventor of relationship. It's in his nature to grab your attention in a way that means something to you. His ways are higher than our ways.

In James 1:23 we are told:

"For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
For he beholds himself, and goes his way, and straightaway forgets what manner of man he was."

James (the half-brother of Jesus, speaking unto born-again Jews) is capturing the idea that one does not view himself in a manner of reflection that is unclear, and only knows by what state he appears based on the comparison between his own subjective ideologies of what looks good and the version of him that he sees in the mirror. Here, James uses the Word of God to stand figuratively as our Spiritual Mirror or Reflection.

Does it align with the Word?
Have you sought after wisdom that only the Holy Spirit can reveal unto you?
Will the answer to this contribute to his kingdom, or the strongholds of the enemy?

Everything is perspective, but it is also said that those who find their lives and hold onto it will lose it like sand in their hand, but to those who hate their life for my sake, they will find it.

P.S. Perhaps I paraphrase here and there, but let it be known that my word only holds true if it stands by his word, and you should never take my or the opinion of anyone else to be concretely accurate, lest you be deceived by your faith in people. Seek the answer for yourself, take not my answer or anyone who replies to be the whole truth. The Spirit brings revelation, call out unto him and not only request but ask for his mind. Let not your own desires, emotions and experiences confine him.

Love God, love people.

Amen brother.

so with all that, can we get to the objective truth that is of God?

 

[yeshy]

so with all that, can we get to the objective truth that is of God?

The Word of God. The truth, the mirror of which I touched on the matter of. The objective truth is that he is who he says he is, that he did submit himself in human form, that he did give his son, and did send his Spirit to make a dwelling within us. His Word bypasses that of our concept, when you see him in one place, he's moving to another. You are called to pick up your cross daily for this sake.

If he is perfection and he is our Lord then we serve him humbly and we are confident in him, faithful are we to he that is completing a good work in us till the day of his coming (Philippians 1:6). Lay down your lives follow me he calls, many are called, few are chosen for narrow is the path that leads to life and there are few that find it.

If you are unable to overcome the troubles of this world then seek relationship more than character development, don't fall into the trap of religion. The love by which he came to you is the love he asks as recompense, to you that have been loved much, love much.

 

[yeshy]

Perhaps also we find the answers we seek by being intentional with our interactions, the one is three and the three are one. Father, Son, Holy Ghost. To this day I seek to know them better and give glory to our God. Half the questioned opacity in Christianity is how foundationally simple it is to enter into his proximity. He does meet you where you at, you are known, the hairs on your head are numbered.

 

[chevyontheriver]

so with all that, can we get to the objective truth that is of God?

Roundabout, yes.

First, most of Scripture is not systematic. Most of theology is not even systematic. Bits are. Paul gets systematic from time to time. The Cappadocian Fathers managed to be systematic much of the time. But most of Scripture is story or parable or narrative. It doesn't reduce to a simple textbook. That drives some people crazy because they want mathematical precision from a subjective and non-systematical text.

The Bible is true. Just not systematic. To look at it as it should be looked at is to look at it through the eyes of the human authors to see what the divine writer had in mind. That means looking to the people who were closest to the human authors, and that would be the Church Fathers. Not only are they closest, they are of the community of interpretation that formed the Bible, as preaching and teaching successors of those who first preached and taught and then formed the Bible as an aid to their preaching and teaching.

To get Scripture right one must follow the community that is the home of the Bible. We tend to think too much of the Bible as a thing that fell from the sky, and as a puzzle everyone gets a shot at solving. It is in fact the Church's book, and it belongs in that context.

 

[Amittai]

I came to realise this had been my fundamental question and it still is. I agree strongly with all the answers so far. Areas I myself am most concerned with are Holy Spirit power for caring, and the fruitfulness of the gifts.

Objective doesn't exactly eliminate subjective but subjects it rightly. We have to compare myriad views from others and that will form a kind of intersubjectivity out of which one infers a kind of possible or probable interobjectivity, on one point or another. This is like the moment on a dark night when one is trying to find what is under one's feet. In truth we are having to do this about everything all the time, as we match beliefs with any contingencies we come across, and as we double check our beliefs for any event.

(Truth and facts being "out there" and "inside" our own minds simultaneously, is called by Arthur Young projectivity.)

Just like all areas of knowledge of various kinds, countless people have contributed to this, including those who met Our Lord, so the more we find out about their insights the more grasp of the truth we'll have a chance of getting.

Internal consistency across the whole of Scriptures is a feature so if you could have joined a group that would continually study chunks of books from all parts of the Bible alongside each other, before we were forbidden, so much the better.

We're more likely to get further if we are not unhealthily beholden to unworthy authority and if we aren't hanging onto sin, and if we keep asking for the Holy Spirit's help, and if we listen especially to those who have good fruits in their lives.

On a few points we may need to provisionally accept slightly (and only slightly) differing viewpoints at the same time, because truths can be so big our minds can't encompass them.

It's important to draw on older sources.

For Newman, religious belief (like much else incidentally) should be based, in its rational component, on "assent to degrees of inference". That's continual work for each of us.

Scripture has its meanings given by God. Hence when I am invited to assent to a "doctrinal statement" such as "Scripture is the infallible guide to our living" I always hope I am permitted to understand this as "Scripture and its meaning, taken together, are etc". You can't have the meaning without the Scripture. This (it strikes me) is a relatively sound way to not be too literalist (when not called for) yet firm.

Some Scriptures are meant to have several God-given meanings at once, none of which supersedes the others.

I'm not giving the whole picture here.

 

[Amittai]

... Internal consistency across the whole of Scriptures is a feature so if you could have joined a group that would continually study chunks of books from all parts of the Bible alongside each other, before we were forbidden, so much the better. ...

I would hasten to add Bibles with cross references (in the middle channel, margin or below) (distinct from footnotes with alternative readings) are needed by each participant.

 

[QvQ]

The Bible, to me, and by individual verse, has many aspects and interpretations that are not contradictions but nuances in deeper understanding. It is a jewel rather than a stone which reflects the light in different shades of meaning.

 

[John Helpher]

but once again, if that's the case how do we ever get to God's objectivity. and if those things are objective then should we not all agree on the same perspective of something. Especially when it's from God?

Jesus told us to love our neighbor. Then, someone asked, "who is my neighbor"? The text says this man was trying to justify himself, which probably means something similar to what you're referring to, where people make the teachings more complicated than they are.

In response, he told a story about a Samaritan man (usually hated by the Jews) who found a man beaten and wounded on the side of the road. The Samaritan helped the man, tended to his wounds, and delivered him to a safe place for recovery.

The answer to the question was that any person who can be our neighbor, and the way we show love is through recognizing whatever the need is, and then tending to that need. People often have trouble interpreting Jesus' teachings because they think of him as a religious figure far above themselves, but a sincere person will recognize the practicality of Jesus' teachings and try to practice them.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Jesus told us to love our neighbor. Then, someone asked, "who is my neighbor"? The text says this man was trying to justify himself, which probably means something similar to what you're referring to, where people make the teachings more complicated than they are.

In response, he told a story about a Samaritan man (usually hated by the Jews) who found a man beaten and wounded on the side of the road. The Samaritan helped the man, tended to his wounds, and delivered him to a safe place for recovery.

The answer to the question was that any person who can be our neighbor, and the way we show love is through recognizing whatever the need is, and then tending to that need. People often have trouble interpreting Jesus' teachings because they think of him as a religious figure far above themselves, but a sincere person will recognize the practicality of Jesus' teachings and try to practice them.

Actually, it is not merely that "any" person can be our neighbor, but that every person is our neighbor, including those we naturally despise. The difficulty comes in treating every person as ourself. Obviously, that is impossible in a practical sense, but attainable to a degree through God, who has prepared good works that we may walk in them (Ephesians 2:10).

 

[John Helpher]

Actually, it is not merely that "any" person can be our neighbor, but that every person is our neighbor, including those we naturally despise.

To be safe, lets say both expressions of the teaching are important.

 

[bbbbbbb]

To be safe, lets say both expressions of the teaching are important.

I can certainly agree with you on that.

 

[Paul James]

so with all that, can we get to the objective truth that is of God?

"Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Peter 1:20-21).

If the literal text was written by holy men who were moved and inspired by the Holy Spirit, then the Bible is interpreting itself through what it clearly says. There is no "subtext" or "spiritual interpretation". In every part of the Bible God says what He means and means what He says. Therefore it is a matter of learning and obedience - learning through what the Bible says for us, and obeying what it says to us, by working out through reading and studying of the Scripture, which is which.