God's Word: Fact or Fiction

***DISCLAIMER: I encourage anyone who reads my blog to fact check anything I write. First of all, I don't want to lead anyone astray. Secondly, I would appreciate knowing if I was in error so I can correct my ways. Thirdly, I am a scientist who became a Christian; I am not trained in biblical studies. The stuff I come up with is the stuff I have picked up from my church, reading the Bible, and doing random bits of research in the last year since I converted. ***
This topic has been on my mind for a couple of weeks now. My husband feels that the Bible is a guide book for us to live by and that as long as we try to live good lives we will get to heaven. He further believes that there are some parts of it that are true and some parts of it that are fiction. We recently had a discussion on this latter belief. Unfortunately I am not very good at discussing things. I have an easier time writing out why I agree or disagree with him. So the topic of this particular post is an argument for believing in the entirety of the Bible.
I will address three points brought up in mine and my husband's discussion. They are as follows:

1. We are told throughout the scriptures that they are God's inspired Word: written by men, inspired by God.
2. Many people are concerned about the Bible being corrupted (I was one such person).
3. There are clearly illustrative stories in the Bible. Jesus frequently makes use of such (parables), and for good reason. (I believe that this is going to have to be a post of it's own).

First I just want to give a little background on the Bible in general. For a newbie in Christ there were several connections that I had to make when it came to God's Word, the Bible, the Old Testament (OT), the New Testament (NT), scriptures, and Jesus. Some of these connections I am still grasping. Basically I will use God's Word interchangeably with the Bible. The Bible is made up of the OT and the NT. Scriptures make up the Bible. Jesus is also referred to as the Word (John 1:1-5). When Jesus refers to scriptures, he is referring to OT (that is probably obvious to people who were raised in the church, but not so obvious to someone who has never actually studied the Bible--or maybe just me :) ). A reference in a gospel to scriptures is going to refer to the OT, but a reference in the epistles (all the books of the NT that are not the 4 gospels or Acts) to scripture may mean OT, books of the gospels, Acts (this is a history of the start of the church and is extremely important), and the epistles that early churches authenticated as scripture (and by early I mean churches in the first and second century). Some of this is so easy to grasp, that people overlook it and I think clarity of these words is important to my effort to make my argument (not that I offered much in
the way of clarity, but at least it is all laid out :D).
Point 1: Written by Men, Inspired by God.
When my husband and I were having this discussion I forgot that I had bought a Bible study guide (Self-Study Bible Course, by Derek Prince) a while back--which I have barely started. The first topic in the study guide is on God's Word. The first memory verse it gives you is 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;" Obviously my point here is "ALL Scripture is inspired by God." Ok, dictionary.com defines inspired as an adjective:
1. aroused, animated, or imbued with the spirit to do something, by or as if by supernatural or divine influence: an inspired poet.

So yes, God inspired men to write the Scriptures. Peter basicaly tells us in 2 Peter 1:20-21 that humans can not interpret prophecy into Scripture, on a human moved by the Holy Spirit have spoken from God. The OT can be divided into sections. The first five books are the Law, then there are the histories, the poetical books, the major prophets, and the minor prophets. When you read a book of a prophet you are told over and over that the prophet is being told what to say (or write) to the people by God. I am not going to list actual verses because they are too numerous, but look in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel for examples. The interesting thing about stuff the prophets told of is that their prophecies came true! (Again I can't cite these verses because they are too numerous, basically read one of the gospels, particularly the book of John). This brings us to
Point 2: Incorruptible (if God laid out a plan of salvation dontcha think he would protect it?).
A lot of people worry about the fact that men have messed with the Bible. But that is one of the interesting things about the Bible. A lot of people have messed with it, yet we still have the "originals." It is just a matter of figuring out who is right and who is wrong.
Here are a couple of interesting points that I have learned over the last year (*WARNING* if you belong to a particular denomination/religion this may upset you):
The Bible has been corrupted into other books that claim to be holy texts. However, the plan of salvation is laid out for us in the NT.
Israel broke God's covenant with them over, and over, and over (Judges is a good example of that). I am no better than the ancient Israelites;  I try, and try, and try to do what is right in the sight of the Lord. But that is the beauty of the NT--the gospel is the fulfillment of God's covenant (the old covenant, AKA the OT) with Israel and the beginning of the new covenant (i.e., NT. examples: Matthew 5:17--Jesus came to fulfill not abolish the Law or Prophets; Jeremiah 31; Jeremiah 32:40; Ezekiel 16:60--the establishment of an everlasting covenant; Hebrews 9; etc). So the Gospel, which is defined as "glad tidings" (dictionary.com #6) is that (for those who choose to believe in the Son) Israel is free from trying to gain salvation from following the Law (thanks to the Grace of God) and the rest of the world (gentiles) may also become God's people and receive God's Grace. All of us now have the opportunity to obey God's Word and join our Creator in heaven (provided we follow God's plan of salvation that is outlined for us in the NT).
With that said, why would it be necessary to add anything to the Bible? (For those of you who don't know this, the Quran and the book of Mormons are based--or perhaps "include" would be a better choice of words--on the OT/NT Bible--but please note, I have not read either of these so I can not say what is different and what is the same, I would like to be able to study these one day to strengthen my arguments, but I do not have that kind of time at this period in my life). It is also important to note that very few religious texts claim to be revelations of God. At least in the case of the Bible we have history to show us that prophecy did come true. As far as I can tell, none of the other texts that claim to be divine revelations can boast such a claim.
Now, I could continue this discussion, but it is very late (for me). So I am going to stop here, on a weak note, and pick this up again on Thursday (Lord willing!). Sorry to leave you guys hanging. May God bless you and keep you safe!

What I believe the Bible requires of us to become a Christian

Here I am posting yet another controversial topic. Yet this was something I was searching for before becoming a Christian. This was my problem with denominations. How do you become a Christian? Is it once saved, always saved (a topic of which I was considering discussing as well)? Or do you have to be baptized? What kind of baptism? Did I need to say anything special? So many people said sooooo many things. But I didn't know who was right. I thought surely the Bible tells us what is required, but I didn't know where to look. I firmly believe if you try to study the Bible on your own you will miss out on a lot. However, if you do decide to study the Bible on your own before making a decision about what you think is required, I encourage you to follow a Bible reading plan that is laid out in chronological order. I personally think that God didn't lay the plan of salvation out on one page all together because he wants people who are willing to work for it. I think that is one of the things Matthew 7:7-8 (. . . seek, and you will find. . .) is telling us. Seek the answers and you will find them.

Well that was definitely what I was doing when I walked in to my church last year on March 15. I was seeking the Truth, and I was blessed to find it, praise God. I will be honest, I don't remember exactly what the morning sermon was about (except that I just looked it up on our website, and it was about Love). But I do remember agreeing with everything that was said. Afterwards, our preacher came to talk to me, and asked me what I was looking for. I told him I wanted to be baptized! (I was pretty sure that was an important component of becoming a Christian because of multiple scriptures including Matthew 28:19--commissioning the 12 to make disciples of the nation; especially Mark 16:16--"he who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved"--Jesus' own words; Acts 2:38--"Repent, and each of you be baptized"; and many others). He invited me over for a Bible study and lunch, which I eagerly agreed to despite my natural shyness. So we went over straight from church and we studied a variety of things, what actually sticks out was the countless (ok, not literally countless, but there is a lot) verses that tell us not to add to or take away from God's word. It all made perfect sense to me. I mean it is all right there in the Bible. My preacher suggested we study once more before I get baptized and I reluctantly agreed. I was looking forward to the evening sermon though.
That night I do remember the topic (without looking at it :)). It was titled "What is a Christian." My preacher had decided to preach this sermon instead of his original sermon. Everything he preached was basically what we would have studied. Afterwards, my preacher asked if I wanted to be baptized still and I said, "Yes!" I was baptized. I distinctly remembered afterwards my preacher asking me if I felt like the Ethiopian eunuch, ready to go on my way rejoicing (Acts 8:39). Unfortunately all I could do was nod. I was kind of in a mild state of shock and was processing the events that had occurred. My preacher and his wife were probably disappointed by my reaction, but little did they know my heart was soaring on the inside, I was so happy!
So now I am going to go over what I was taught that night (with the help of the slide show that he used--which I am looking at through the churches website--www.princestreet.org--the PM slide show on 3/15/2009--in case you would like to look too, you can also listen to his sermon).
We go over the plan of salvation after every service, during the invitation. I am sure the children can recite the supporting verses, I unfortunately have yet to memorize them, but me blogging about them will definitely help me learn them better.
The first step for a person to become a Christian is to hear the gospel--Romans 10:17--faith comes from what is heard. ... Hopefully when you hear these words they land in your heart, like a seed landing in nice nutrient rich dirt with plenty of moisture content, so that they can take root and grow into wonderful healthy plants(Matthew 13:3-23--the parable of the sower).
The second step is to believe that Jesus is the Son of God--John 8:24--Jesus flat out says that if you do not believe he is the Son of God you will die in your sins, there is no debating this. Also see Acts 8:37 (Phillip tells the eunuch he must believe) and 1 John 3:23 (we have been commanded to believe).
The third step is to repent of your sins--Acts 17:30--Paul tells us that God commands everyone to repent. This also is supported by Acts 2:38 (repent and be baptized), Mark 1:15 (repent and believe the gospel) and others.
The fourth step is to confess Jesus as Lord--Romans 10:9-10--if you believe with your heart and confess with your mouth you will be saved. Again see Acts 8:37, this is what the eunuch does.
The fifth step is to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins--Acts 2:38, Mark 16:16, and the others I listed earlier.
And finally, live faithfully until you die--Revelation 2:10--Jesus tells the church of Smyrna to be faithful unto death and He will give them the crown of life. This is opposed to the second death as described in Revelation 20:6,14.
I believe all of these steps are of equal importance. I believe that once we follow these steps we will be "in Christ."
I started to write more, but I have decided it goes in a new blog. It is your lucky day! Two posts at once :P

Beware! This topic may upset you: Denominationalism and Why I disagree with it.

First I want to start off by saying that my goal for writing this blog is to make people think. I do not intend to offend anybody, but I am about to go over a very touchy subject amongst Christians in general. I was saving this particular topic for after I finished explaining my evolution from an atheist to a New Testament Christian. So yes, I am a Bible thumper. But I received an anonymous comment today on one of my early posts that stated the following:
"For many years the church of Christ has had a reputation for believing if you belong to any other church, you are going to Hell. As a Christian affiliated with another denomination, feeling very secure in my salvation it has always offended me. I sense you are less narrowminded than some of your brothers and sisters-and that's a good thing!"
I feel compelled to write this blog now, because I do not want this person to get the wrong idea about me. If I could I would ask this person to study with me I would (I am trying to figure out how to get my email link on here, but I'd rather write this at the moment). I feel like I should address each point individually.
Please understand, I am NOT making fun of this person. I just don't want anyone to get the wrong idea about me. I don't look forward to disabusing this person's ideas of me. I mean, I'd like to be thought of as being open-minded, but I feel after I address each of these points some of you will not think I am open-minded at all. Also, if any of you disagree with about the scriptual references on denominationalism please tell me where I am in error.
Let me first clarify: I attend an independent church of Christ. We support ourselves, and we consider ourselves to be undenominational. We encourage anyone to point out how we may err from the Bible. We understand that there was only one perfect person in all time, and that nobody could possibly be perfect, but we can do our humanly best to follow God's Word. (If any of my church family read this and disagree with my synopsis please let me know ASAP so I can correct myself :) ). If you would like please feel free to visit our website http://www.princestreet.org/. What I learned there was one of the things that attracted me to my church, and I feel so blessed to have found them. All right, back to my anonymous commenter.
Point 1
My commenter states, For many years the church of Christ has had a reputation for believing if you belong to any other church, you are going to Hell.
I understand how this reputation has occured. Please let me explain (to the best of my abilities). I have chosen my specific independent church because they do their very best to stick to what the Bible says. When I was trying to figure out what church I should attend I was very discouraged because I had no idea which denomination to choose. As far as I could tell NO denomination had it absolutely correct. Some believed in faith only, some believed in baptism, some did not take the Lord's supper, etc. It was very, very confusing. I was telling this to a friend of mine who grew up in a church of Christ (which I didn't know anything about). I asked her, "Doesn't anybody just go by the Bible, period?!?" She said, "You could always check out a church of Christ, that is what they do." I started doing research immediately! What do you know!?! According to Wikipedia (which is my go to for a quick reference) the churches of Christ try to go as closely to the Bible as possible, there are still divisions, and some have become institutionalized, but they try their hardest to be as close to the early churches that were started by the apostles. This was very logical to me, and therefore, very appealing. I didn't have to worry about who was right and who was wrong (in the denominational scheme of things). This is a long story that I may continue in another post. The point is, what attracted me to a church of Christ is that members of the church try their best to do what the 1st century churches tried to do. So here is the thing. We believe that the Bible holds the ultimate authority about how a church should be ran. Therefore we believe there are scripturally correct ways to run your church and scriptually incorrect ways. We try to avoid the scripturally incorrect ways, because that would mean that we were in error, and we would not be headed through the narrow gate on the narrow path that leads to heaven (please see Mathew 7:13-14!). We are warned repeatedly throughout the New Testament to watch out for men replacing God's Word with their own ideas (1 Corinthians 1:18-25--men are fools, God is not; 1 Corinthians 2:4-5--faith based on God's power, not men's wisdom; and especially 1 Corinthians 4:6--Nothing beyond what is written; 2 Peter 2:1--false prophets; and many more). Another point on this subject, in Matthew 15 Jesus is discussing with the Pharisees and scribes the problem of tradition. Jesus points out that Isaiah prophesied that the people worship God in vain because they are teaching as doctrines the precepts of men. Jesus is telling these men that they will all be going to hell because their hearts are not in the right place when they worship God. They are too focused on the traditions of the elders, and have made them like laws (doctrines by men). This is what I, and many fellow New Testament Christians, worry about for the many, many people out there who are practicing in a denomination.
Point 2
My commentor states, As a Christian affiliated with another denomination, feeling very secure in my salvation it has always offended me.
Why do you feel offended by this if you are very secure in your faith? If you are secure in your faith you shouldn't let these opinions bother you because you know you are going to heaven. These people who believe you are going to hell are just wrong, unfortunately for them. I, myself, am not offended by muslims believing that I am going to hell. I am not offended by anybody thinking I'll be going to hell. I hope they would tell me so I could correct my ways and hopefully make it to heaven.
But let me ask you this: have you really studied the Bible? Or are you just going by what you were taught (traditions of your family?) If you have then please email me, because I want to go to heaven too! I want to know I am right with God. But let me also ask you this: on judgment day, if Jesus asks you, "Why did you choose to follow that denomination?" what will you tell him? Can you defend your answer? I don't know what Jesus will say to anyone; that is impossible for me to know. I can only know what the Bible tells me. But if Jesus asks me why I worship with the people I worshiped with, I will be able to tell him, "Because Lord, they tried harder than any other church I looked at to follow your Word and not man's ideas." I am not completely confident in my salvation. But I am going to do my best to not go to hell. I honestly do not want anyone to go to hell. I want us all to go to heaven. The Bible says that God wants us all to go to heaven. But God can not allow sin in his presence. Because of this, God made a way for us to join him and he explained that way to us in the Word. But he did not make it that easy to find (which Jesus also explains in Mathew--the reason for parables). Why would God want somebody who didn't honestly strive for and seek Him and do their utmost to please Him? If you have any doubts that your church is teaching in error please keep the following scriptures in mind: Romans 14:23 (if you doubt you sin).
And finally,
Point 3
My commenter stated, I sense you are less narrowminded than some of your brothers and sisters-and that's a good thing!
I cannot say if this is true or false, but I believe that by your definition of I am just as narrowminded as my brothers and sisters in Christ. I believe that if a person does not follow, to the best of their ability, what the Bible says, then they will go to hell. I know this is going to upset many of my friends and family. I do not want you to go to hell and I am not judging your actions. As I have mentioned in previous posts, we have no way to know what God will do except for what we can read in the Bible. I know I am not perfect, I sin all the time, I can't help it. I do know that if I repent I'll be forgiven, but I worry that I might not have repented of everything I need to repent of by the time I am judged. I believe that the Bible tells us that our hearts will be judged (please correct me if I am in error!). I can not judge you because I do NOT know what is in your heart. I can judge your actions based on what the Bible says, but I truly can NOT say this person or that person will be going to hell and none of my brethren can either. I am sorry that you have been offended in the past. I hope that this post does not offend you, but that it does help you to think about your beliefs and be able to defend them!

Observations on Humanity's Arrogance

I've been thinking about this for awhile, but I guess what prompted me to write about it today is Sunday's Bible class. We were discussing 1 Peter 1:17, which, to paraphrase, says that if we call God our Father we should act as our Father would have us act. This led us to a couple of other discussions. But one thing that struck me is the fact that we don't have to understand God to believe him. In fact, we are absolutely incapable of understanding God outside of what He has shared with us in the Bible. The Word in the Bible is the only thing we can be sure of, we can speculate and theorize all we want, but we can not prove anything. Which boils down to, you have to have faith. Now if you have faith in the Bible, that one thing is true, for instance, that Jesus was raised from the dead, then how can you possibly say that parts that don't agree with "science" are not true? Jesus rising from the dead definitely doesn't agree with science. So let's think about science for a minute (don't forget, science is how I make my livelihood, and I happen to love science).
Science as defined by dictionary.com:
-noun

1. a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences.
2. systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.
3. any of the branches of natural or physical science.
4. systematized knowledge in general.
5. knowledge, as of facts or principles; knowledge gained by systematic study.
6. a particular branch of knowledge.
7. skill, esp. reflecting a precise application of facts or principles; proficiency.

Origin:
1300–50; ME < MF < L scientia knowledge, equiv. to scient- (s. of sciēns), prp. of scīre to know + -ia
So, basically, science is knowledge gained through observations and experimentation of the world around us. One way I think about science is that it is a vast accumulation of observations that has been collected over the last few millennia. It started off very slowly as philosophical observations about the way things worked. But humans built on each idea, proving or disproving it, adding to the collection a little bit at a time. Galileo was what some consider the first modern scientist. He proved that the universe did not rotate around the earth. This made some religious factions very mad, because they believed that God made the heaven's to circle earth. The Bible doesn't say that of course, but that is what humans wanted to believe. That the earth (we) was the center of the universe. I do not see a problem with proving an easily observable fact (given the right tools). However, a drawback to science is that men start to speculate and theorize on a variety of other things; things that we can not prove, because they can not be observed. These things include the big bang theory, evolution, the age of the earth, how the mind works, global warming, etc. These are things that we can not observe or measure with our own eyes or instruments that can see them for us. We can make a variety of assumptions to help us "prove" our theories. But assumptions are man-made. So here is my problem, there are plenty of so-called experts out there that are leading countless average everyday Janes and Joes down the wrong path because they think they know things that humans have no way of actually knowing as absolute truth. There is only one Being that really knows the how, when, whys, of the list I mentioned above, and that Being is our Creator. It is ridiculously arrogant of humanity to put it's trust in man-made theories and kick our Creator to the curb.

Don't get me wrong. I understand what the skeptic is thinking while reading this. You are thinking, "Why should I believe the Bible?" and my argument for that is listed under Biblical Authority (which I have learned more stuff I could add to it, but not tonight).
One more observation on humanity's arrogance. . . not related to science. How could ANYONE presume to know why God caused this or that natural disaster (yes I am referring to Pat Robertson's comment on Haiti and God's punishment, or should I just say the typical response from Pat Robertson in the face of a natural disaster?). NO ONE, except God, knows the hows or whys, of a natural disaster. Yes, that is a science we can observe. But that doesn't mean we can say God did it because you deserved it. If someone tells you God punished you (or this person or that people or etc) because of such and such by doing so and so, you can then be assured that they are not true believer's in Christ. I do not believe a true believer would presume to know God's will. A true believer should understand that the only things about God we can know are the things God has told us about Himself in the Bible.
I pray that you are all blessed and that God is with all of the people in Haiti, giving them strength and courage to face the challenges they have been given.

Conclusion to my Biblical Authority Entry

Sorry it took me so long!
Ok, so here is my concluding paragraph to last weeks blog:

As I mentioned previously, it was really Rabbi Harris' study that gave me the confidence (that I shouldn't have needed). Well at least gave me complete confidence :). I mean I like numbers. Numbers are concrete (provided they are based on the facts and not pulled out of the air). The people I talk to tend to also like numbers. I still need to do a little verification on the numbers I got out of his study. It is hard for me to be motivated to do that though since I already had faith that what the Bible says is true. But now I am thinking. . . I don't have time right now, but I think I am going to write one more entry about what I have learned about the fallibility of man versus the infallibility of God. Ok, this post actually took me two days to write. So, all my faithful readers (I think there is 3 of you now :)), please keep that in mind. But believe me, knowing you are out there and actually interested keeps me writing.