Gospel Books

[Iggy]

dont think of it from your perspective, think of it as someone just learning.
then take your obvious questions...

is God 1 or 3
book of revilation
God created the world in 7 days... 7 days or 1day =1,000 yrs
the gospels give different hours of the crucifixion
where did kane get his wife?
if insest is wrong, how was the earth populated?
all the symbols
all the gnostic books...

[bluesman]

Iggy wrote

way that confuses everyone!!! half the stuff doesnt make sense! or you have to guess at what it means, or argue with others at what something means!

It doesn't confuse everyone, all of it makes sense, and you don't just wild guess at the meaning of Gods word.

Is the whole bible easy to understand, to make sense of, the answer is no.

One thing you have to understand is that God didn't want to make it too easy.
God wants a balance where some will believe and some find it hard to believe.

God designed it that there was evidence that pointed away from God and a balance that point to his existence

If I may give some advice the Bible is a very full book and to think you will
understand it all quickly is wrong. You can spend a lifetime trying to understand it, but thats the beauty of it

Michael
Bluesman

[FFC]

He probably did but God decided to tell the story His way.


a way that confuses everyone!!! half the stuff doesnt make sense! or you have to guess at what it means, or argue with others at what something means!

I hear ya. Just take one issue at a time. Don't let it overwhelm you. Even when you do think you have something figured out there will always be someone else that has a different opinion. I hope in all your searching that you don't forget that your relationship with Jesus is most important. Don't get hung up on details.

[bluesman]

Just to make my early comments clearer.

Why would God want to have a balance of evidence for his existence and evidence against?

Its has for one thing to do with freewill of choice to follow him or not.
If there was 100% proof of God then would most not decided to follow God just so they had eternal life in heaven.
God wants us to follow him in faith and reward those who do.
Thomas believe because he touched Jesus's wounds. Jesus says blessed are them that believe without seeing.

Do you want to follow Jesus because he teaches good moral and values to live by ? or just because you want the reward to live forever?
If you follow Jesus and he doesn't exist at least you will have lived a good moral life.
I know that God does exist and I will get both rewards. Feeling good about the life I lived and eternal life in heaven.

Michael Thomas
Bluesman

[Iggy]

ok, more questions about the book of Luke.

The first one is a parable told by jesus.
Luke 13: 6-9
"A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it. But when he did not find any. so he told the man who took care of the vineyard "for 3 years now, i've been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven't found any! Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?"
"Sir" the man replied "leave it alone for one more year, and i'll dig around it and fertilize it! If it bears fruit next year, fine. If not, i'll cut it down"

whats that mean?

the next one is something Jesus said
Luke 14:26-27
If anyone comes to me and doesnt hate his father and mother, his wife and his children, his brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple!

why does jesus want us to hate people?

[Canuckster1127]

ok, more questions about the book of Luke.

The first one is a parable told by jesus.
Luke 13: 6-9
"A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it. But when he did not find any. so he told the man who took care of the vineyard "for 3 years now, i've been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven't found any! Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?"
"Sir" the man replied "leave it alone for one more year, and i'll dig around it and fertilize it! If it bears fruit next year, fine. If not, i'll cut it down"

whats that mean?

the next one is something Jesus said
Luke 14:26-27
If anyone comes to me and doesnt hate his father and mother, his wife and his children, his brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple!

why does jesus want us to hate people?

Iggy,

Good Questions!

The first parable is generally understood to be representative of a person who has all the input of God being put into their life but yet they are not bearing fruit in their lives. There are indications in Scripture that even when someone is saved, there is still an expectation that there will be obedience and growth that will take place and if it doesn't there are judgements that God will exercise with regard to that person. It doesn't necessarily mean they are not saved. It does mean however that a lack of fruit or evidence of that salvation is no small matter.

The second passage uses a literary device known as hyperbole. Jesus is not commanding us to hate. It wouldn't make any sense at all for Him to do that, would it? This is the same Jesus who commanded us to love our enemies. What Jesus is doing here is drawing a comparison. He is saying, that if your love for Him is not the strongest, most important thing in your life, so strong in fact that in comparison everything else seems like hate compared to it, then you cannot be His disciple. Jesus cannot accept anything less than first place.

Another example of this type of hyperbole is where Jesus commands in Matt 18:8-9 that if your eye or hand or foot causes you to sin it is better to cut off your hand or foot or pluck out your eye than to sin and in that context, cause little children to stumble or fall away from him. Is Jesus commanding physical mutilation? No. He's using hyperbole or overstatement to get a point across strongly.

Again, good questions. These are difficult things to understand when you first see them. You have to keep in mind that when Jesus first spoke them there were people listening who had their own culture and their own idioms and ways of understanding things. No doubt, Jesus' tone and emphasis when he was speaking had a great deal of impact in communicating to them in a way that they understood exactly what he was saying. We sometimes have to do a little extra work to come to the same understanding because we have our own culture and context of understanding and the words are translated.

It is not impossible by any means and most of this work has been done. We just need to ask the questions and go to good sources to get the answers.

Blessings,

Bart

[FFC]

the next one is something Jesus said
Luke 14:26-27
If anyone comes to me and doesnt hate his father and mother, his wife and his children, his brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple!

why does jesus want us to hate people?

Iggy, I'll take this one cause it's easier. Jesus is not telling us we should hate our family in the sense that we think of hate. That would be a pretty big contradiction considering all the other commands to love people...even our enemies. He is talking about the strong contrast between our devotion to our families as opposed to what our attitudes should be towards God. The amplified bible expands it to mean "our sense of indifference to, or relative disregard for them in comparison to to our attitudes toward God.

Notice we are even told to "hate" ourselves. A disciple of God is to put Him above everything and everyone.

Does that help or just make it more confusing?