As I stated in my last post, I love the fact that Halloween turns people to thoughts of something beyond our realm of understanding. It is the most opportune time to talk about God, yet one of the biggest hindrances to our doing so is the fact that we don't know enough about life outside this one to comment appropriately. Oh people try, but without much success. Within Christianity we think we have a lot of knowledge of scripture, but probably 99% of Christians can't even adequately explain what happened on the cross.
The people of the world are highly educated in the sciences and language, but how educated are we on the words of our God? Do you know any more of those words beyond a first grade level? From my interaction with even PhD level theologians, they are only at a third grade level. Unless we can appropriately explain the meaning of the white spaces in God's word, we are no more than little children.
Ahh, do those words ring a bell with any of you? Little children does mean the same as a small child, but in 1st century Judaism it was also an idiom for people who were new in the faith. Those who were just beginning to understand the meaning of the words of Jesus.
I am an acquaintance of a young man on social media who is an Atheist. Until meeting him I knew relatively little about Atheism, other than they believe there is no such thing as a god. Although I do not agree with him on this issue, reading some of his posts in regard to this subject has been a true eye-opener. The people in his Atheist group on social media are very educated and their perspective on Christianity and Christians has changed my entire thought process. No, I haven't changed my religion, but I can suddenly see how others may view Christians and let me tell you, it is not pretty.
These people do not bash us, at least not in the way you might think, but they see us mostly as people who are swayed by emotions rather than facts. Through their eyes I have seen how egotistical and arrogant Christians can be along with how well we don't check out our facts before putting them out for all the world to see. I have been able to view Christianity from it's ugly side. A view of how much Christians persecute and harass those with different beliefs.
One picture truly caught my eye. It was the picture of a young woman holding a large Bible against her chest and waving a gun in the air with the words, "I am a Christian and you aren't taking my guns!" At the side of that was another picture, that of a woman dressed in a black burkha, holding the Koran to her chest and waving a machine gun in the air with the words, "No god, but Allah!" The caption below these two pictures was, "Is there any difference?"
I want those words to sink in. What image are we, as Christians, portraying to the world? Can they not see any difference in us and the radical Muslims? After seeing that picture I began once again to scroll through facebook and noticed many posts, by Christians, as they shared quotes or memes. I was appalled at the "in your face," elitist attitudes these conveyed. After several weeks of seeing these passed around I made a comment on my page about how offensive some Christian posts are and it appears I lost quite a few "friends" over it. Oh well.
Jesus never acted arrogant or elitist. For many of us, we have been taught that he snubbed his nose at the Pharisees and was arrogant with them, but folks we are soooooo wrong! Jesus, himself, said that when we know the truth it will set us free! He was correct! When we begin to learn the truths of the Scripture from the Hebraic point of view the pieces of the puzzle absolutely fall into place. The words come together to form the most beautiful and magnificent picture EVER!
The world says education is the key and it absolutely is. If we do not truly know and understand God's word, how can we ever hope to explain phenomena on this planet? The highly educated people in this world can tear apart our explanations in about 10 seconds and we are left with our mouths agape. We have the great fortune of being post Christ. If we learn the Bible from a Hebraic point of view and couple it with the knowledge that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah.......WOW!
The more I learn in this journey I have come to realize that the phenomena we can observe from time to time CANNOT compare to the reality of what IS there! Hearing "ghost stories" and tales of "haunted" places convince me over and over that there is so much more to my God than I could ever dream! Know the truth, learn the truth from God's own people, the Jews, and see if He will not throw open the windows of heaven and pour out blessings without measure on you! Shalom!
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