Checkpoint wrote:
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Replying to post 172 by paarsurrey1]
"What is the correct way to interpret the Bible?". Doesn't one think that the Christians are far from doing justice to it, please?
You are one hundred percent correct. For a person who places all authority in the the bible alone, there is no logical conclusion to any religious argument that goes beyond "because the bible says..." As I'm sure everyone here knows, this is circular reasoning since the argument(s) can only be accepted by someone who has already come to the same conclusions. This is why you will find pastors and evangelists who will entice a person to "accept Jesus Christ as personal Lord and savior" using passionate tones in a pleading posture. This appeal to emotion is a smokescreen; a logical fallacy intended to compel the lost to gloss over the first fallacious argument long enough to "get saved"! After that it's hugs and pamphlets, bible studies, Sunday school, and sermons that will explain everything a Christian needs to know, as long as the verses being presented mesh with that church's peculiar confession of faith or unique interpretations of select bible passages!
To properly interpret the bible, it has to be viewed in it's proper context. I'm not going to spoon-feed anyone in an attempt to convert to my way of thinking. I'm offering an invitation to ask the hard questions and face the undesirable answers that may arise.
First, how did the bible come to be arranged in that particular order with that table of contents? By what authority were these writings deemed inspired while others were not?
How did Christianity spread from Pentecost until the *4th century before the canon of the bible was declared?
Once the bible was declared complete, there were still very few of them in circulation due to the enormous cost to produce one. How did the majority of Christians learn what it contained when one would have cost appr. 5 years wages and was kept chained up for this reason?
Once the printing press arrived on the scene, bibles could be reproduced cheap enough for many to posses one. How did this actually change anything since literacy wouldn't become common until well into the twentieth century?
Why don't Sunday schools teach Church history?
Why does your pastor seem to skip over certain chapters, books, and/or verses without ever preaching on them (John 6, Matt. 25:31-46, James 2:24 are common).
Bonus question: How many entire nations have converted and become unified in doctrine and practice under the banner of the (your denomination) church?
These are the questions that must be answered first. Until one gets to the bottom of these questions, anyone can make the bible say anything they want it to say. If anyone disagrees with your interpretations, just find more verses to take out of context that will show what the bible "clearly" says. Creationists still can't agree on what the first Chapter of Genesis means, yet people are supposed to take us seriously when we tell them the bible is the inerrant word of God? That's why Our Lord is mocked freely in this age, because we keep ignoring his dire warning that a house divided against itself cannot stand.
*I had accidentally typed 3rd century before editing.
