Jesus didn’t come to start a new religion, though we’ve made one out of a few of His teaching(s) and a whole bunch or Paul’s interpretations. The trouble is that we’ve lost our way, or more importantly our foundation- the Kingdom. There has to be a fire within our bellies for the Kingdom- here on earth. Or, maybe the better Biblical metaphor would be “living waters” from our belly.
Fast and cute cliches aren’t going to cut it any more!
Our kids are not buying the literalness of Jonah camping out in a whale for 72 hours.
The unchurched world doesn’t want to follow a God who would have two bears kill forty some teenagers for making fun of someone: even if he is a prophet!
Second hand religion no longer cuts it. Everyone needs a guide as we see throughout the Bible; however, the guide is to do that GUIDE, point us in the right direction, not take us to the final destination. The proverbial “quest for the holy grail” is that- a journey! The journey doesn’t take place in a day or a decade. One can make monumental and even exponential steps along the way, but those are just graced gifts.
While we need a guide (one at a time, lets we become confused), close friends to share our fears with, and a community of believers where it is safe to be wrong, we still have to do some things on our very OWN! Thomas Ragland put it this way, “To seek the Kingdom means that you have to be original and authentic and open to inspiration and intuition and mystical experiences.”
Did you know it was going to be that difficult?
Did you think The Spirit of God was going to hand you the keys to the Kingdom without effort?
If you want to take this thought a bit further CLICK HERE (My Jesus, My God).
acutally i was referred to your website, and i live at alaska. god has been doing wonderful things here at fairbanks. i consider my church a wonderful place full of good christian people. i think texas has a lot of religious problems though. the bible is indeed gods word.
Maybe you could help us Texans then. Or, at least me. Which TRANSLATION IS the Word of God? Since they ALL differ and some in many ways, is it the KJV, NIV, REB, NLT, or one of the other hundreds.
I believe the Bible is the WORD (singular) of God, but not the WORDS (plural) of God. And since we have NO ORIGINALS, and of the 5,000 complete manuscripts that we do have, there are more than 800,000 deviations, “gods word” is well, “dependent upon which words MAN wrote isn’t it?”
Bottom line for me is that the Bible is SACRED but not INERRANT.
well- you know unlike the quran or the torah… the bible has been translated so that the people maybe informed of gods good news and the son jesus christ. i dont really notice a major difference in the various translations or concepts which were translated from hebrew, aramaic, and greek.