Wednesday, July 20, 2016

The only Savior

I think the story of ancient genocide by the Hebrews is possibly true, as other ancient peoples did similar things.

If it is true, I also do not believe that God, the real and living God, ordered them, and desired them, to commit such acts.

The Bible is divinely inspired, but it is not a Qur'an, a book divinely written in detail and 100% accurate and perfect. (Neither is the Qur'an, though some claim it is.)

The Bible is a group of writings produced by religious, God-believing people over a long period of time, that our Holy Church 'canonised' for our use.

The God portrayed in its pages is sometimes the real, living God 'breaking through' our ancestral people's literature, and sometimes (in the Old Testament) the stories are 100% historical. Other times they are myths. But even myths can convey God's truth.

Except for the 4 Holy Gospels themselves, the Bible is still man's attempt to cooperate with God's Holy Spirit in writing about the interactions of God and men. It's progressive and it evolves, the God in its pages becomes more like the real, living God and less like the 'best guesses' that people come up with, as time goes on.

Notice that it is only the book of the Gospels that we venerate in Church by kissing it. The Holy Gospels reveal to us the real, living God, not the one we have arrived at gradually by our own efforts.

Jesus says, 'If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.'

Whatever in the rest of the Bible we can see Jesus saying and doing, is probably true. As for the rest, it is useful and true only because the Church says it is, in conformity with what Christ in the Church of today or any age wills for us.

The God of the Old Testament is God trying to break through our stubbornness, rebellion and self-defenses.

The God of the Gospels does break through, and here before us, among us, and even within us, He stands.

Jesus Christ, the only God-man, the only Savior.

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