“The reason Jesus gave for a man marrying a woman is the historical account of Adam and Eve…Was Jesus wrong? Is there a Biblical historical basis for a man marrying a woman? I lean toward believing the scholars who believe that Genesis was historical and really happened.”

This statement was made in one of the comments the other day here.  There were a few other statements made about literal interpretations of Genesis.  As far as creation is concerned, there are at least four different views about its historicity and probably more.  Some view the creation account in Genesis as informing us about God’s literal six-twenty four hour day’s creation, a real Garden of Eden and a man and a woman named Adam and Eve.  Another group of people see it as literal in the sense of the garden and Adam and Eve but that the days are not literal twenty four hour days and instead might be representing ages or eras.  Another group does not believe much of any of this is literal at all and just points to God as creator and how He intended the relationship with His creation to be and that somewhere we failed.  And finally, some view Genesis as well as a lot of the bible as myth and really has no bearing on anything much.

Which of these, or some other view, do you believe?

Are you tolerant of any of the other views?

What do you think might be the consequences of holding to any of the other views?

Would any of you care to answer the questions in the quote at the beginning of this article?

ADDITIONAL ADDED QUESTION…Does any of this matter as far as our mission goes?

I invite all to participate and hope we can discuss this irenically.  Please stay on topic because I will be asking some more about Genesis in future posts.

Love you all

It seems to me that maybe I have been a little bold lately in some of my posts.  Commenting about controversial issues and even getting a little harsh is some responses.  Some of this stems from a passion for Gods truth while some may just come from that confrontational part of me that I just wrote about and am truly trying to tame.  But it is not tamed and there are good reasons for some of what I ask.  I really am still learning myself.  And one of the ways to learn what we believe is to bounce those beliefs off those that others hold.  So the questions for today may spark more controversy.  I hope not and I really do not want any heated arguments or words of offense.  But I do want to know what you think.

We also touched on this topic a while back in some of the comments.  That post was not about this exactly and really had another focus.  So if you replied there about this topic you can fell free to comment again here.

The bible is pretty clear about Gods views on drunkenness.  Most people do not see such clear lines about alcohol consumption though.

What do you think the bible says about consuming alcohol?

What do you personally think about consuming alcohol and why?

Please keep it civil but tell us what you think.

Love you all

Flipping through channels the other day I saw that the movie, Overboard, was on.  Again.  It seems like it plays on some channel at least once a month.  I have seen it once in its entirety and different bits and pieces on a number of occasions.  It is a fun movie.

If you haven’t seen it I will give a synopsis of it so that I can make my point. 

Goldie Hawn plays the part of a very irritating and arrogant rich woman.  Kurt Russell plays a rather simple, but conniving, carpenter.  She hires him and then treats him like she does everybody and cheats him out of his payment.  Through a series of comedic mishaps she gets amnesia and does not remember anything about who she is. 

Kurt’s character finds a way to convince her that she is his wife and the mother of his rather wild children.  He does this to simply get his money’s worth from her in service to his family.  It may not feel right to her but the new family is able to finally convince her she is who they are telling her she is.  There is a lot more to it but this gets me far enough to move on.  It is a fun family movie if you haven’t seen it.

Now let’s move to bible interpretation. 

There is a lot of different ideas out there about how to interpret the bible and a lot of different people telling us what it says.  There are some people with a slew of different degrees and many years of education that say one thing and then there are others with just as much education saying the exact opposite. 

Some say we could never lose our place in heaven and others say we can toss our tickets out if we choose.  Some say everyone can be saved and others say only a few are chosen.  Is eternal damnation or annihilation what the lost have to look forward to?  Should we be speaking in tongues, or not?  Is Satan really out to destroy me or is that just a symbolic representation of the sin in this world?

There are just so many issues out there that no one seems to be able to agree on.  When I look at the various ways true, scholarly men of God use the Word to back up their beliefs I am sometimes thrown into a state of confusion.  They can’t all be right.

It looks to me like the problem is, that no matter how hard we try, we bring our own set of preconceived notions to the table every time we open up the bible.  We see thru lenses that are tainted with who we are, where we come from, what we have been taught, and what we want.  Some seem to be able to keep this to a minimum while others are heavily influenced by these things. 

That’s why I am wondering if maybe amnesia could be a blessing.  I wonder what would come out of the study of the Word of God if John MacArthur, Jack Hayford, Greg Boyd, and Father John Corapi all got amnesia and were given the bible to study with nothing else to filter it through.

But who am I to say all of this?  I’ve got my own set of glasses.

Love you all