What is the point of blogging. Like everything, there is no one reason. For me, I want to share what I see. (Thus my title) For a while I have been surrounded by people who study and search for God in His Word and in life itself. I have learned that in order to receive what God gives me, I have to let go of preconceived notions and ideas I’ve been taught before. When I say “let go”, I don’t mean that I had everything wrong to begin with. In fact, as I continue on this journey, knowledge and wisdom comes from the foundation of what I’ve already learned. It is very seldom that I, A. Learn something I’ve never heard of before, or B. Realize that I was completely wrong about an idea or doctrine or interpretation. My thinking on prior ideas, spiritual or otherwise, fall into different categories. In order to make more sense of my rambling here, I’m going talk specifically about what is going through my mind when it comes to learning and studying Scripture, but I have found that this same learning process is true in all of life.
- Sometimes, but very seldom, I completely dismiss previous ideas. Example: I really don’t think there will be a rapture like it has been described in the Baptist way of thinking. This post is not the place for explaining why I think that, but to simply say I don’t. I do believe in the second coming of Christ, and all that God’s Word says is going to happen, but the step by step account, as described in the Left Behind books, comes from viewing the Scriptures abstractly which is not the way the Hebrew writers wrote or even thought. I’m not saying there are not universal truths that can be given in any particular passage, but to piece together passages for the sake of confirming one’s ideas or doctrine is a very dangerous practice. At best one can miss the point of what was being communicated in the passage, and at worst one can completely distort God’s word into saying something God did not and would not say.
- Sometimes more meaning comes from a passage that I didn’t see before. My earlier post about Cain and Able is an example. I had always saw the mark of Cain as a curse, but I now see that is was actually a mark of protection. This causes me to wonder at the mercy and fairness of God and has had a profound implact on how I extend justice and forgiveness to others. You can read that post here.
- On thing I have continued to be amazed at is how so many writers throughout Scripture repeat the same ideas over and over. Now this is different from piecing together parts to make the Bible say what you want. I’m talking about How Moses, David, Soloman, the Prophets, Jesus, Paul, and more repeat the ideas that basically say: If you forget God, you will lose site of Him and it will bring hardship; God is not interested in what you do as much as He is interested in why you do it; Love is one feature in all our lives that we must live upon. God is love and we are made in His image, so Love is central to everthing how we live and what we do and think.
Anyway, I, like everyone else, have good days and bad days and this past week has been one of the worse. Nothing really bad happened, but inside I felt horrible, tired, sluggish etc. As a result, nothing was posted last week. It’s like my brain was so thick that I couldn’t make it work right. Getting up and going to work, or rather just plain living became a difficult chore. Thinking through ideas to put out there was nearly impossible. I go through these moments from time to time. I hate it for many reasons, but they never last very long. Hopefully, I’m back on track again with something to share. If you get a notion, leave me a comment when something strikes you based on my post. That helps. It lets me know someone is interested.
Jim
