Trying Again

[Guide To The Bible]

You''ve been right round the merry-go-round. Your Pastor wanted you to understand the Bible better and I thought I'd give you some information as an over view of what the Christian faith and the Bible is about, that you can read at your leisure:

The Bible is God’s way of imparting all the information mankind needs, in order for us to know everything God wants us to know about Himself, ourselves and this reality we find ourselves in. It connects Heaven to Earth, God to Mankind and is literally the supernatural existing in the natural world. God inspired over forty different authors, over a fifteen hundred year time span to write about history, law, poetry and prophecy and a bit like a jigsaw puzzle it can help us to build a picture of the true nature of this reality from the beginning of time to the end. Jesus is the central figure of the Bible and can be found on just about every page in some way. From the very beginning He was prophesied to come into this world and is prophesied to come again. The Bible is our guide to our lives and the future.

Today, Jesus is recognised around the world as having started what is now the largest religion on Earth. His ministry of showing love for God and everyone, including our enemies (which was a new idea at the time), has proven to be very successful. However, although Jesus is widely recognised as a very loving person, it wasn’t the main subject he tried to teach everyone. In fact, during His ministry, He only spoke and taught about love on six occasions, as recorded in the historical records written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. This, therefore, represents less than one percent of His total ministerial teaching. Love wasn’t the only reason He came to Earth. If it was, then Jesus would have instead taught us more about love, but clearly He had more important things to tell us in the time he was with us. So what was Jesus trying to say?

Jesus talked about Heaven and Hell quite a bit. The word Heaven is spoken by Jesus 123 times and Hell 46 times. Clearly, Jesus wanted us to know that these two places are real and we’ll all end up in one or the other after this life. That said, around nearly a fifth of everything Jesus said related to money and possessions. He spoke even more about this subject than Heaven and Hell combined. This was because Jesus understood how money itself can become a god. Money was just as important then as it is now and He knew that the world would end up turning to money more and more as the basis for its way of life.

However, above all and by a big margin Jesus taught more about the coming Kingdom and His return than any other subject. Over half of everything Jesus is recorded as saying related to this coming event. The phrase ‘Kingdom of God’ appears fifty-three times in the New Testament Gospels and ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ appears thirty-two times in the Gospel of Matthew alone. Jesus also made a specific point about this coming Kingdom at the very beginning of his ministry:

Mark 1:14-15

14 Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the Good News of God, and saying, 15 “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the Good News”.

And this is what it boils down to, a person’s belief in the Good News, which is to believe Jesus is our Lord and Saviour in order for us to enter Heaven:

Romans 10:9

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

After all, just about everyone who will end up in Hell will be individuals who had loved others. Love itself does not get anyone into Heaven, instead it’s our belief in Jesus. However, if you wish to receive the Holy Spirit and deepen your relationship with Jesus and God the Father, thus ‘sealing’ your place in Heaven, you should also repent and be baptised:

Act 2:38

Peter replied, “Repent, and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Therefore, the three things we are commanded to do in order to receive the Holy Spirit are:

1. Believe in Jesus as our risen saviour.

2. Repent of our sins.

3. Get baptised.

After all, the first thing Jesus did in His ministry was to get baptised and then at the end of his mission He gave the ‘Great Commission’:

Matthew 28:19-20

19 “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age”.

Therefore, Christians should do as He commanded by repenting of their sins and getting baptised in water, in the prayerful expectation of receiving the Holy Spirit:

John 3:5

Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water, and the Spirit”.

Although Jesus spoke little about love, He demonstrated His love by dying an excruciating death on our behalf (actions speak louder than words), but as many non-believers may point out, He was only one of countless thousands who were also crucified. However, he was the only person in history to come back to life after having died such an irrevocable death. All the historical records point to this fact and there are no historical documents that show His dead body was ever found or hidden away afterwards. Again and again His followers claimed He had come back to life, until their dying day, even when tortured to death. This is the proof we have, just as Jesus said it would be; the sign of Jonah, His resurrection:

Matthew 12:39-40

39 Jesus answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For as Jonah was three days, and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

Therefore, using logic, reason, critical thinking, science and removing any emotions, or preconceived ideas, the evidence of the historical records all point to this as an event in history unique to science and human experience. Resurrection is the only rational, albeit highly unusual answer, but that’s science for you. For example it seems unbelievable that because gravity, space and time are intrinsically linked, that at the speed of light the mass of an object becomes infinitely heavy and time stands still and also how time slows down as gravity increases. Besides, anyone would have to be beyond foolish not to believe, considering how much Jesus spoke of Heaven and Hell, as being real places. So, either Jesus’ dead body was resurrected, or where on Earth did it go?

Jesus argued for the truth till it cost Him His life. He didn’t turn from His convictions about what the truth of this reality really is. He also died in order to pay the price for all our sins so that man and God could be reconciled and anyone who believes this may know God too. Jesus did all this because He loves us.

As mentioned, Jesus taught about his return and the coming Kingdom more than anything else and the Old Testament warns us about this too. Over eighty times it says about the day on which Jesus would return, often referred to as the great and terrible day of the Lord. The Bible contains a wealth of information about the future. It predicted Jesus first coming nearly two thousand years ago, to the exact month and year, and it also gives us many signs and prophesies for those awaiting His second coming to recognise too. The Bible also lays out a complete history of the world from creation to the end of time and with prayerful study all this knowledge can be revealed in detail, allowing us today to know exactly when, where, who and what to expect; thus preparing us for everything that God wants us to be ready for and by being aware of God’s plan we can work to it accordingly.

However, the Devil has tried hard to keep this plan from man. He knows that the more we know about the truth of this reality and its future, the more effective as Christians we will be. Satan has done much to try and hide from mankind the key pieces of information about God’s plan but as always God manages to make a way so that we can piece together the information given to us in the Bible. Jesus taught us that the Old Testament was to be believed in its entirety and quoted from much of it Himself:

John 10:35

“The Scriptures cannot be discredited”.

The New Testament testifies to the Old and they are in complete harmony, showing that Jesus was the fulfilment of the prophesied Old Testament Hebrew Messiah, which means anointed and in Greek anointed is Christos or Christ. So simply by believing what you read, rather than reading what you believe and letting the Bible interpret the Bible, then the secret plan God has for mankind’s future can be revealed.

 

[Gnostic_Christian]

For what it's worth, we're all hypocrites! Paul admitted so himself! We all would like to do the right thing, but seldom do we actually do it.

Like all polarity, it varies by degree. "It's 33 degrees hot" and "it's 33 degrees cold" are both correct. I'm not as big of a hypocrite as I once was. Some make progress; others get worse. Now I do the right thing often. Not always but often.

Again, I am sorry for your pain in the Church, but don't throw out the Catholic Church because some of the people in the Church acted out against you like that.

It's not only personal to me. What about the pedophilia and the across the board acceptance/denial of that? What about the material GREED? Do you know the Vatican has riches beyond the imagination? Multi TRILLIONS in gold, diamonds (links to slave labor), artifacts etc while millions STARVE. No. The Roman Catholic church is evil and corrupt to its core. There are many good Catholics BUT they are ignorant and naive if they think the pope et al are some kinds of saints.

I hope it has a profound effect on you that Jesus claimed to be God. None of the others you tried to follow claims that.

No. Krishna said he IS the one true God. The One Supreme "Father" Creator etc. It says he appears periodically. That is in the Baghavad-gita. I left the Krishna's because I didn't trust their blind following of "gurus" who don't deserve any special treatment by any stretch. The only real guru worthy of that honorific title was the founder Srila Prabhupada. I, as many long-time hard core devotees with much more knowledge and experience than myself, believe he was murdered by a few of his closest followers in a plot to corrupt, co-opt and take down the Krishna conscience movement and make it a watered down ineffectual navel gazing new age mind control trap. Judging from my experience, I think they succeeded.

You might like to know that AA has Catholic roots..

Yes, it does. Bill Wilson's wife Lois' family were Swedenborgian followers. Many people don't know that. Bill's spiritual roots are there and also the predecessor of AA, the Oxford movement.

God lets us drop to rock-bottom in order to let us be lifted up again...

Truth. It takes a stripping away of false pride and ego to really want to seek God. It did for me anyway.

If any religion says they are the only way, they aren't. The Catholic Church says Christ is the only way.

What's the difference?

There's a big difference between the Biblical Israel, the Hebrews, and the modern state of Israel...

Yes, they've lost all sense of humanity.

 

[Root of Jesse]

Like all polarity, it varies by degree. "It's 33 degrees hot" and "it's 33 degrees cold" are both correct. I'm not as big of a hypocrite as I once was. Some make progress; others get worse. Now I do the right thing often. Not always but often.

Same here, by hypocrite nonetheless.

It's not only personal to me. What about the pedophilia and the across the board acceptance/denial of that? What about the material GREED? Do you know the Vatican has riches beyond the imagination? Multi TRILLIONS in gold, diamonds (links to slave labor), artifacts etc while millions STARVE. No. The Roman Catholic church is evil and corrupt to its core. There are many good Catholics BUT they are ignorant and naive if they think the pope et al are some kinds of saints.

There is actually zero tolerance right now for pedophilia (which isn't really what the problem was). That's not to say they're not there, but when they're found out, they're rooted out. And the statistics of priests involved in such a thing is below the norm of any organization that has authority over children.
Regarding greed, I don't know any greedy bishops or priests. I know that the Church has material wealth, though not monetary wealth. That material wealth has been GIVEN to the Church as in when someone dies, they give their things to the Church. My mother has done that with the majority of her earthly goods to her Baptist Church. By the way, that entity, her Church is wealthy beyond imagination. But it's only less than 100 years old. The Catholic Church has accumulated things that are not salable. And diamonds and gold aren't what they have very much of. I want to ask you, let's just talk about all the artifacts the Vatican owns that are in the Vatican museum. You wouldn't ask any organization, the Louvre or another museum, to sell what they have for the benefit of the state, why would you think we should sell those in the Vatican? We hold and maintain those things at great cost for the public trust. They're not salable. Actually, the Church operates largely at a deficit.
The Catholic Church is not evil and corrupt, at all. There are evil and corrupt people in the Church, and we can certainly do better, but the Church feeds more people, clothes more people, houses more people, comforts more people and educates more people than any other organization, and has for 2000 years.

No. Krishna said he IS the one true God. The One Supreme "Father" Creator etc. It says he appears periodically. That is in the Baghavad-gita. I left the Krishna's because I didn't trust their blind following of "gurus" who don't deserve any special treatment by any stretch. The only real guru worthy of that honorific title was the founder Srila Prabhupada. I, as many long-time hard core devotees with much more knowledge and experience than myself, believe he was murdered by a few of his closest followers in a plot to corrupt, co-opt and take down the Krishna conscience movement and make it a watered down ineffectual navel gazing new age mind control trap. Judging from my experience, I think they succeeded.


Yes, it does. Bill Wilson's wife Lois' family were Swedenborgian followers. Many people don't know that. Bill's spiritual roots are there and also the predecessor of AA, the Oxford movement.


Truth. It takes a stripping away of false pride and ego to really want to seek God. It did for me anyway.


What's the difference?

IF a church, or a pastor, says "I am the way", they're pointing at themselves. The Catholic Church points to Christ.

Yes, they've lost all sense of humanity.

That's politics.

 

[Gnostic_Christian]

Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, I humbly beg you to protect me from Satan's minions.

Your humble servant, Michael.

Praise Jesus.