PatternRec
Guest
Can't find any fault with that. It sounds quite nice. Good for you.
I can understand that. The "why and how" would only make your perception of God more wonderful. So I don't know if it would be simply elementary to your faith if it causes you to be in awe of what God did and how he did it.
This could be a little troublesome though. Finding the correct interpretation would not only enhance your faith but it would give you a better and necessarily correct view on God. I say that based on the book of Job as an example. Job's friends all had the wrong view of God. None of them viewed God as sovereign and in control of all things. For that wrong understanding, they were deemed to have sinned. They couldn't even atone for that sin and Job was instructed to do it for them. Interestingly enough, they weren't even corrected. Point being, your theology, which is a direct result of one's interpretation, matters. In fact concerning Adam and Eve, rather than them being the first humans, as is often interpreted, they are most importantly, the first of the Line of Christ.
Anyway...
If only more Christians would do the same. But alas, often group think is far more powerful and comforting than doing actual study and discovering your friends, family, pastors are wrong. Many times, dead wrong. Suppose this is what Jesus meant when he says that you must hate parents, spouses, siblings and kids for my sake. They pose as a conflict of interest when it comes to accepting the "truth" of His word. Especially deceased loved ones of who's beliefs you knew. To admit they were wrong would mean having to admit that they are in Hell.
I don't think you thought this through. I have to break it down for sake of argument.
1. "Just know..." how can anyone "know" without first having faith? So the imperative has no value except for you and those like-minded.
2. "... it's real..." If it were, either you could prove it or someone else could follow some prescribed methodology to discover that that is indeed the case. You started off great with "I believe..." and should have stayed there. Even if you are confident in the reality of God, you're still in a public forum where many people may have alternate ideas of God that are just as real to them as it is to you.
3. "...available to everyone..." This is of course untrue. History itself speaks to this. Paul was prevented from going into eastern Europe and beyond to spread the gospel. So they wouldn't know for hundreds of years. The people living around the rest world for hundreds of years after Jesus's death and resurrection had no idea and never heard. The Catholic church had changed the gospel message into something other than and people for many hundreds could not read the Bible for themselves. Today, a great many billions have never heard the gospel.
What's more, just to add insult to injury to the statement of availability, God himself will prevent people from believing so that they can be damned.
2nd Thess 2:
11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had
pleasure in unrighteousness.
Anyone who believes in freewill should change their mind after reading this. Free will must be free to the very end of one's life. Preventing them from believing is a usurpation of their will.
There are many more verses like this throughout the bible.
I just wanted to show that only for some, the gospel is available to be believed. Not everyone as you may have accidentally put.
