Wednesday, August 3, 2011

There is no original RELIGION.

Christians, "the church" - are all human. There is no original religion. I think people have to realize that religion itself is man-created and man-delivered. It is not perfect, in fact far from it - it's actually a pretty big mess if you take a wide open look at it! Christianity was not the first religion, or the last. There are so many views, so many separations - even within Christianity itself. Even if the original biblical texts are divinely inspired (and again we're taking another MAN's word for it) it has been argued over, translated & re-translated, and interpreted in so many ways  by so many people.

We rely too much on the church to lead and teach us their generally twisted, usually misinterpreted doctrine, and then get angry when those leaders act less than "Christ-like"... be it hypocritical, judgmental, focusing more on other people's wrongs than their own, etc.

Maybe it's time we dig a little deeper - lead instead of follow. Study the bible for ourselves - and I mean really study, not just read one version (as there are so many), but compare versions to the original texts. Try to gain our own understanding of what the bible originally said, meant, intended, etc in it's original context & time. You don't have to understand Greek or Hebrew to do this... there are interlinear bibles out there (free online resources) that directly translate the text for you. If you are looking at a controversial scripture, study the word being translated one way or the other in depth. Locate the original meaning for yourself.

And most importantly pray to God to teach you through the word. Pray to find a true understanding of God's will, his plan, his love. Ask God to show you what is right... and remember he is a God of love. His example was set through the body of Christ.

4 comments:

  1. I mostly agree with your sentiments Sarah. Sometimes teachers/commentaries can be wrong but often they can provide very important cultural and historical contexts to the scriptures. It is very easy to misinterpret and misunderstand the bible if we do not understand those things.

    Kansas Bob
    Fighting Captcha since 2005

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  2. Bob, I agree teachers & commentaries are important. The problem is that there are so many versions being taught! Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostal... they all believe a little differently.

    Pastor said something a couple weeks ago that really put it into perspective. Christians disagree on roughly 10% of the bible. We agree roughly on the other 90%. But we spend 90% of our time disagreeing with each other, and only 10% of our time agreeing!

    Frankly, it is all this disagreement and pointing fingers at whose right or wrong that makes it all so frustrating.

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  3. I moved to the south 6 years ago... and all I've found is division & segregation. I know that's a BIG part of the south, always has been... but for Pete's sake this is the freaking 21st century. Maybe it's time to discover diversity and agree to disagree. We need to be unified in the one thing that we all have in common: our belief in God; instead of focusing on what we don't agree on and what everyone else is doing wrong.

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  4. Excellent thoughts Sarah. Hopefully your generation will have more success than mine - although things are much better than when I was young.

    Kansas Bob
    Fighting Captcha since 2005

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