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Remember, we said that these were the Laws given to Moses, but that sin was in the world before the law. Sort of makes you wonder, why now. Didn't they already know that these things were contrary to God's will. |
| Do we think that God thought if He wrote the laws down, maybe people would better remember what He said. Well, I don't think He thought that. |
| If we read on past the list, we see other things, rules of conduct as to how certain things should be done. There is mention that altars neither of gold or silver are to be made for Him, but rather than precious metals, the earth itself. It is said, if stone is used, it's not to be tooled. |
| One thing about the Commandments, the more we look at them the more it seems, that, over a lifetime they would be extremely difficult, if not impossible to keep. Meaning, never violating a one. With that in mind, let us ,jump from the Old Testament to The New. |
| For the moment, we won't go into the the evidence of who He was or His authority to speak. Let's just see what Jesus had to say about the law. |
| He said He had not come to abolish the law. He confirmed the law. Jesus said that the law says, Thou shall not commit adultery, but He said, He who looks upon another with lust has already committed adultery. |
| Remember us saying that God perceives the heart. He went on to say, the law says, Thou shall not kill, but he who is angry with his brother without cause has already killed. Again I am paraphrasing. Well, one thing for sure, if we thought the law was hard to keep before, we can now see just how near impossible it really is. |
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why would God give us a list of laws if it seemed from the very beginning, we, by our nature, would be unable to keep them. Surely there is a reason? I think if we hang in here together, we will find our reason, or at least one which in light of the total scripture, seems more than reasonable. Before we reach that point we should look at a few things. |
| Remember, I said we need a map, in our case, the Bible. Well, we not only need a map, we need to be able to read and understand what the map says, otherwise, it just becomes so many names and lines of various colors. So it is with the scriptures, we need to be able to read and understand. |
| Again I say, not just to read it The Bible as words alone, but pray before reading that, the Spirit will give you the knowledge that God wishes you to have. I know, there are many versions of the Bible on the market place. I will tell you why I read the The King James Version. |
| Let me clear something up for those who don't know. King James had nothing to do with the translation of this Bible into English. He was at the time, the reigning King and authorized it's publication. To my knowledge, that is his only connection to this Bible. |
| The reason I continue to use it is, it has been time tested. This Bible was used to bring Christianity to many parts of the world over hundreds of years. It's also beautifully written. I have no problem with a version that's only changes are to convert old English to new. However, I think if you give it a shot and just do your own translating to modern terms, such as you instead of thou, if you can do that, you will come to learn the beauty of the writings as they are. |
| Let's talk for a moment about the use of verses in scripture. Some would argue that the Bible says that all scripture is good for teaching, preaching, reproaching and so on. Therefore, it does not matter who is being spoken to since all is good for these things. Yes, there is such a verse (2 Tim 3:16) however, what this verse does not say is the manner of preaching or teaching. |
| While there are verses in scripture that stand alone, the main thing we need to consider is how does the way we are viewing this verse line up with the whole of the scripture, since they all work in harmony and do not conflict in intent nor statement. This is really important and deserves our time. |
| Don't become discouraged if things make you ponder the meaning, but remember this, there is a difference between confusion and considering. God is not the author of confusion. Confusion causes us to lose our sense of direction, our focus and perhaps our will to continue.If this occurs, pause, step back and consider and pray for direction. While we pray and consider what it is God is saying to us, bear in mind that we are neither adding nor taking away from what the scripture says. |
| I think I can illustrate what we're talking about. The four Gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are all basically telling us the same story. They are doing so from different perspectives. When we read them we will find something, which on the surface seems to vary. |
| Some might be quick to point this out as contradictions. Not so. Take any room in your house or go outside and find a central focus point. Then walk around this point, staying a few feet from it. Stop four times, like the face of a clock, view the center from three, six, nine and twelve. |
| Each time, you will see the same object, each time the scene around the object will change; The object itself will be viewed from another angle. The object has not changed, the reason it's there has not changed, only the view of that object has, allowed us to see the same thing from four perspectives. |
| Remember us speaking of a verse which said, Study to make yourself approved, a workman unashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (2TIM 2:15) I recall how when the Spirit of God filled the temple, it overflowed the temple expanding over all the country side. (1 King 8:11) So it is with scripture, all which it contains is so abundant that I don't think all the books of the world could hold it's content. |
| I know, overwhelming at times, isn't it, that's okay, don't worry. Do you know what God expects of you. Your very best, that's all. He only asks, do the best you can and keep going. Lean on Him, He is glad to have you. Do what you can, step by step, I promise you, You will not walk alone. No, better yet, He will tell you and He will not let you down. Let me point out what we're talking about with a simple example. |
| The view of the crucifixion of Christ. We will find both Matthew and Mark say that Christ was mocked by people in the crowd, the Priest and the two thieves also crucified. (Math 24:4) (Mark15:32) John mentions the two thieves only in passing. (John 19:18) Luke, however, elaborates on the conversation between the two thieves and Christ. |
| The fact that John, from his perspective, mentioned nothing of what was said, does not mean it was not said. The fact that Matthew and Mark both say that the thieves also rebuked him, does not mean that before death came, what Luke said about one of the thieves repenting didn't happen. The only way this could have happened would be, if either Matthew or Mark had said the two thieves rebuked Christ until their or His Spirit had left them. They did not say this. |
| Luke paints for us the whole picture concerning the thieves. There is something very important here. Do you see how not looking at scripture in light of all the scriptures could lead us to, not understand or misunderstand. This is one of the reasons we must sometimes look closely even if someone is quoting Chapter and Verse to us. |
| I know this might seem a little lengthy at times, but let's hang in here together, the importance of the subject merits the time we take. Well, for that matter, all the scripture does. |
| Right now, we're talking about how we look at and read our map. Remember us asking earlier about all scripture being good for teaching, preaching, etc. Remember me saying what this does not say is how it is to be taught. Let me make this statement. Now, please read this very carefully. Everything in the Bible is truly stated, but everything stated isn't true. |
| Everything is truly stated but everything stated isn't true. We read in Genesis 3 that Satan had isolated Eve and in verses 4 and 5 says; You will not surely die, God knows that when you eat of the tree, you will become as Gods. Again I'm paraphrasing. Is it true Satan said this. Yes, it's truly stated. Was what was said true. No, Satan was saying God had lied. This is not true. So, what Satan said was truly stated, what was said was not true. |
| Again in parts of the Book of Job. Job, because of the misfortunes that plagued him, was accused of things to which, in holding onto his faith, as God knew he would, Job would reply, The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Is it true Job said that. Yes, it is. Is what Job said true? |
| No, if we read all of the book of Job, we will see that the only thing God took away, was his own hedge and that, not fully. This was not Job's hedge, it was God's. God never took anything from Job. While it's an over simplification to say, obviously, we would neither teach, nor preach that God lied or God was to blame for Job's misfortunes. So often, even today, we blame God for the problems and misfortunes for which the Devil or we ourselves are the cause. |
| I hope the examples have made clear the need to understand we must view a verse of scripture in light of all scripture and not try to isolate a verse to serve a purpose which God might not have intended. Without knowing who is speaking to who and the circumstances surrounding what is being said, we can easily try to apply a verse in a way and manner not intended. This is not to say that a verse can't be applied to more than one circumstance, but only that we need to understand how to use it and not just say, it's in the Book. |
| We might sit back at this point and think, what if we're not well versed in scripture, or maybe never studied or even read the Bible. Well, today is the first day of the rest of our life. If we had never even read the Bible, do you know how much it would please God if we started today. I think we would be surprised to see, once we start, just how interesting the Bible will become and how God will lead us and how the Spirit will give us knowledge. |
| Let's talk about one approach. Set the goal to start with. We will read the scriptures cover to cover, not passing a single word. Sometimes, like Chronicles, we might want to skip a little, but just put it in mind, we're not doing it. We will feel better about it later. Most Christian books stores sell colored markers. We don't need to spend too much money, but we don't want the marker to bleed through the pages either. |
| The colors are optional, here's one idea, as you read, stop at the end of each chapter, now some of this we can do as we read. Pick out what we feel to be the main verse of that chapter and color it gold. Any verse you see which contains a blessing, color green, any verse of prophecy, color blue. Any verse concerning Christ or Christ speaking, color orange, any verse directing us to do certain things, color red. Well, you get the idea. Sometimes you can use more than one color, for instance a blessing that is also a main verse might be colored green and framed in gold, however we might decide to do it is fine. We're not just doing this to be coloring. |
| We will discover that this will cause us to reread and to think about what we've read. Later we can scan and quickly find selective scriptures. Personally, sometimes I just sit and read blessings. All of them being in green makes it easy and is it's own blessing. Another thing good to do is buy a set of tabs which are the names of the books of the Bible. This helps us quickly locate a Book. One hint about this, reinforce the tabs to prevent tearing a page. Use them to locate, but try not to pull on the tab when turning to that page, use it as a guide to locate only, this will lessen the chance of tearing off the tab or tearing the page. |
| Start at the beginning and work your way through. One way of breaking up your reading or of reading things which might at the moment be of particular interest is to read a chapter of the Old Testament in it's proper order then turn to another area of interest, say the Psalms or the Gospels and read there, in both cases use your colors. |
| No matter how we do it, with or without color coding, tabs or anything else, we need to commit ourselves to the task. No time limit, just our commitment to ourselves and to God. We will be blessed for our efforts. |
| You might be wondering if I'm ever going to start mentioning Jesus. You bet, and yes, He is my personal Savior. You might, as we say, already be saved. I am writing these pages as if we were not and are learning some things together. I want us to be sure when we get to Christ, we will already know who He is. When next we speak, we will talk about what is called the Trinity. |
God Loves You !
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