What I mean is that through reading the Bible our lives are transformed on a personal level through God's grace and the lessons imparted in the text. I had a great theologian as a prof at Perkins,the late William "Billy" Abraham. He used to say we know the Bible is the word of God because it bestorus grace upon the reader. HU? I think what he meant was we are in touch with the power of God through the text when we read it in faith, Not because we believe the big miracles but because we take into our hearts what it teaches about a relationship with God.
Here are three examples of truths we can learn from the Bible that will change our lives.
*Christ gives us peace that pases all understandng "the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philipians 4:7
*feeling of God's presence in a palpable way:
"Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you." Psalm 139.Sensing the presence of God in a real way is about the most precious experience we can have. It makes life worth living. It changes your life for the better.
*God is with us always even unto the end of the age Matthew 28:20
*He gives us power over spiritual forces: "behold I give you power even over all the power of the enemy." Luke 10:19
There is no geological evidence of Noah's flood. The logistics of the ark demonstrate the clearly mythical nature of the story. The facts of the fossil record demonstrate the absurdity of litteral imterproiation of Gensis. But the truth of God is demonstrated these small ways which are universal to religion.The Bible is an excellent guide to such a spiritual way of life.
27 comments:
I don't really believe in Evolution, but it doesn't conflict with Genesis. It's like what you wrote on your DOXA site: The early books of the Bible were written in a mythological way (the timeless time, the serpent, etc...). The Bible isn't a science or a sex textbook (even if the fundie right-wingers believe that it is. They seem obsessed with sex, especially homosexuals).
Trying to read the Bible as actual history is to impose a modern category on the ancient text. Forcing the Bible to be what we think it should be is no way to honor the Bible.
I agree both make good points. We have be aware od the literary conentions used
I think it is confirmation bias to say "We know the Bible is the word of God because it bestows grace upon the reader". The Bible bestows a sense of grace upon the reader, only if they believe it is the word of God. Otherwise it is just a book.
That is like saying Ben Casey us a good Doctor only if you let him treat you. otherwise he's just another guy.
Patton is a good general only if you let him command the troops.
It's not a matter of reading with a positive attitude gibes a good feeling. It's life changing. The studies prove it. The vast majority of people who have mystical experience have changed lives.
Is it life changing because it is from God? Or because you think it is from God?
If the latter, there is no need for God to actually exist.
Pix
Just before I got saved my brother was writhing on the floor screaming. I said ok God if you are there make him stop. he stopped. Did he stop just because I thought he stopped? That would be absurd.
Why would people think God made their lives better in the first place of he didn't
at some point?
Coincidence. A sample of one doesn't prove causality. I know you won't accept that. You are too invested in the idea that God intervened.
People believe God will make their lives better. So they focus on positive events and say "see it's because of God". It's confirmation bias. There are many people whose lives get demonstrably worse and who still cling to God. Do they blame God for the bad stuff? No. They blame themselves or bad luck.
If someone is "born again", and thinks there is a big loving dude watching over them, that is going to trigger all the love chemicals in their brain. They tell themselves it's coming from God but really it's just because of their belief.
You are talking in unsubstantiated generalizations. You also assume there's no real change in the lives of believers. But you don't know, you assuming so because you don't know the power of God,
Did you hear me tell the story about my father who was hooked up to the diagnstic equipent by the EMS guys? we prayed and the readings went to normal immediately and the EMS guys were going "this usn't supposed to happen," The atheist among them was real upset.
Those readings changed and his heart attack was reversed because God is real and he answer's prayer, That is not something positive attitude could produce.
And you are universalising based up singular incidents of vague correlation.
I haven't heard you tell that story but I have heard similar stories.
I've also heard stories of people praying fervently and sincerely with no impact whatsoever.
There is no measurable correlation between prayer and outcome.
Belief and positive attitude can and do achieve all manor of things. Experiments with the placebo effect and positive attitude in cancer patients have shown this.
Experiments with prayer? Not so much.
Every Christian who dies of cancer refutes your argument Joe.
If you were right, you would be able to show the statistics of Christians regularly beating cancer, while non-Christians do not.
Pix
And you are universalising based up singular incidents of vague correlation.
I haven't heard you tell that story but I have heard similar stories.
I've also heard stories of people praying fervently and sincerely with no impact whatsoever.
That was not intended as "the reason" to believe. It's an example of answered prayer. I know God doesn't always answer I could also give a rendition of all the one's he hasn't answered it would be much much bigger than the one's he has answered. But you can't just sweep it under the rug and pretend it didn't happen. Such as that happens frequently in my life. I've gotten many answers,
There is no measurable correlation between prayer and outcome.
That is right, God is not a light switch, He is a mind, he is not obligated to give me anything I ask for. He has his own ideas about things. You have to take it case by case you can't base anything on the aggregates.
Belief and positive attitude can and do achieve all manor of things.
Tell me how positive attitude stopped a heart attack that was in process and reversed the effects then and there.
Experiments with the placebo effect and positive attitude in cancer patients have shown this.
Experiments with prayer? Not so much.
That is a process that takes a long time to measure. so that would be over several months before you could make that claim. This happened while the medicos were looking at their diagnostic equipment and saw the readings change as we prayed. That is not possible for positive attitude to do that.
Anonymous said...
Every Christian who dies of cancer refutes your argument Joe.
BS! I did not say God is a magic light switch and must always give me what I want every time I flick the switch. God answers prayer he sometimes heals but not all the time. If you counted healing you would find he heals a lot.
If you were right, you would be able to show the statistics of Christians regularly beating cancer, while non-Christians do not.
If I was right where did I make the claim God always does what we want him to? You are trying to gloss over the miracle by drawing in other issues.
btw there have been 7000 healings at Lourdes alone.
Study: The Miracles: A Doctor says "Yes"
by Richard H. Casdorph.(Logos International, 1976)
Richard H. Casdroph collected medical evidence, x-rays, angeograms, and other data from 10 cases associated with the Kathryn Kulhman ministry. Now it will of course strike skeptics as laughable to document miracles of a faith healer. Ordinarily I myself tend to be highly skeptical of any televangelists. I am sitll skpeptical of Kulhman because of her highly theatrical manner. But I always had the impression that there was actual documentation of her miralces, and I guess that impression was created by the Casdorph book.
The Casdroph book goes into great deatail on every case. Since these were not the acutal patients of Casdroph himself, there are 3 tiers of medical data and opinion; Casdroph himself and his evaluation of the data, several doctors whith whom he consluted on every case, and they very from case to case, and the original doctros of the patents themselves. The patients gave their permission and were happy to provide the medical data on their healings since they were all people who had written to the Kulhman ministry with words of their healings. Not all of them were healed immediately in the meeting. Some were healed latter when they got hom.Naturally no one had a x-ray machine standing by at the faith meeting to crank out results like a x-rox copy, so all of them took some period of time to see the results. Not all of them were toally healed immediately. But all the cases were either terminal or incurrable and all of them, within a year, returned to full health and pain free existences.
Dr. Richard Steiner, of the American Board of Pathology, head of department of Pathology Long Beach Community Hosptial reviwed several of the slides. William Olson, American Board of Internal Medicine and head of Isatope Department at Long Beach Community Hospital, and several radiologists form that Hospital also consulted on the rest of the cases.
1)Reticulum cell Sarcoma, right pelvic bone.
2)Chronic Rheumatoid Arthritis with Severe Disability
3)Malignat Brain Tumor (Glioma) of the left Temoperal lobe
4)Multiple Sclorosis
5)Arterioscloratic Heart Disease
6)Carcinoma of the Kidney (Hypernephroma)
7) Mixted Rhumatoid Arthritis with Osteoarthritis
8)Probable Brain Tumor vs Infarction of the Brain
9)Massive GI Hemorrhage with GI shock (instantly healed)
10)Ostioprosis of the Etire Spine
All of these people were totally healed of incurrable or terminal states. The one commonality they all have is that they were at some point prayed for by the same person, Kulhman. Let's look at a few examples:
"btw there have been 7000 healings at Lourdes alone."
Then that shows the power of Lourdes not the power of God.
"Tell me how positive attitude stopped a heart attack that was in process and reversed the effects then and there."
What effects? Depending upon the severity, people can have heart attacks without even knowing it.
Did your father require follow up treatment or was he totally healed?
If the apparent answer to prayer is as statistically random as chance, what reason is there to count it as evidence to nudge the balance toward God?
"btw there have been 7000 healings at Lourdes alone."
Then that shows the power of Lourdes not the power of God.
that's extremely fool8ish, e It wasn't the doctors that healed the patents but the hospital. It was connoted to the Catholic miracles of the vision of the woman and all that, Catholics have faith that is very grounded in physical places and people. it's still faith in God.
Bones will go to any lengths to deny the miracles, He must at all cost. observe:
"'Tell me how positive attitude stopped a heart attack that was in process and reversed the effects then and there.'"
What effects? Depending upon the severity, people can have heart attacks without even knowing it.
that is not at all the same thing it has nothing to with the issue that heart attack cannot be reversed. Thisis a diversion.
Did your father require follow up treatment or was he totally healed?
there was no trace.
If the apparent answer to prayer is as statistically random as chance, what reason is there to count it as evidence to nudge the balance toward God?"
that makes no sense at all, the odds against a heart attack reversing while it's going on are astronomical. You really will say aything to detract from thmiracle.
"that's extremely fool8ish, e It wasn't the doctors that healed the patents but the hospital. It was connoted to the Catholic miracles of the vision of the woman and all that, Catholics have faith that is very grounded in physical places and people. it's still faith in God."
Faith. That points to the power of belief. There are many people allegedly cured by Sathya Sai Baba a Hindu Holy man. Did that also come from God? If so which one? Can you show any miracle healings independent of any belief held by the person healed?
What do you mean when you say that "the heart attack was reversed"? What exactly was reversed?
The readings on a diagnostic machine returning to normal is not the same as "reversing" a heart attack.
Cuttlebones said...
"that's extremely fool8ish, e It wasn't the doctors that healed the patents but the hospital. It was connoted to the Catholic miracles of the vision of the woman and all that, Catholics have faith that is very grounded in physical places and people. it's still faith in God."
Faith. That points to the power of belief. There are many people allegedly cured by Sathya Sai Baba a Hindu Holy man. Did that also come from God? If so which one? Can you show any miracle healings independent of any belief held by the person healed?
10:26 PM
If you have t trust God then you can't laud yourself as the big brave thinker.so you just bashing faith based upon your prejudices and refusing to look at the facts. The facts are there are lots of miracles. Faith is not do stupide when it pays off.
Cuttlebones said...
What do you mean when you say that "the heart attack was reversed"? What exactly was reversed?
The readings on a diagnostic machine returning to normal is not the same as "reversing" a heart attack.
Yes but is. the vital signed would not go back to normal. obviously process of heart attack wasreverwed damage repared.He also sat up was suddenly feeling good.
10:39 PM
I can trust God and still be a big brave thinker as long as I apply equal rigor in my approach to the God claim as to all other claims. God doesn't get special treatment.
The "facts" as far as we can see are that people had some disease and then they didn't. Did it heal, were they misdiagnosed? Who knows?
You're assuming that because they prayed then the reason must be God. Correlation isn't causation. How many people have been healed in a way that may be termed "miraculous" without any appeal to some almighty? Do we have any figures for that?
A heart attack is caused by some kind of blockage in the blood flow to the heart muscle.
If that blockage dissolves or gets shunted out, then vital signs would go back to normal.
The "facts" as far as we can see are that people had some disease and then they didn't. Did it heal, were they misdiagnosed? Who knows?
You are hiding from the truth. who knows we know. you dogmatically assert that we don't know the fact of any healing and we do. heart attacks do not reverse themelsevs this we know, you hide from the truth,
You're assuming that because they prayed then the reason must be God. Correlation isn't causation. How many people have been healed in a way that may be termed "miraculous" without any appeal to some almighty? Do we have any figures for that?
you hide from the obvious. You ignore the case where the illness vanishes when in fact illnesses do not vanish, you assert that's it's a trick you just will not accept the evidence no matter how clear.
A heart attack is caused by some kind of blockage in the blood flow to the heart muscle.
If that blockage dissolves or gets shunted out, then vital signs would go back to normal.
blockages do not behave that way you try to make miracles seem mundaine but you make yourself ridiculous.
I'm not hiding from the truth. I'm just not willing to extend that truth to encompass something for which we cannot establish, beyond reasonable doubt, as a cause.
I'm not ignoring the cases where illnesses appear to vanish. I'm just not ready to institute a "god of the gaps" to fill that void of explanation. You seem more than willing to take god as the go to explanation, based upon tenuous connection.
Why would I entertain the possibility of a God, who jumps in to help an old guy in Texas, but ignores millions of starving children?
Blockages do behave that way. Not often and usually not without residual damage. You just don't want to let go of the specialness imputed to you by God's alleged intercession.
I'm not hiding from the truth. I'm just not willing to extend that truth to encompass something for which we cannot establish, beyond reasonable doubt, as a cause.
You are not willing to accept the possibility of God. The cases of which I speak are well documented. There is no known naturalistic case. you assert there can't be anything else.
I'm not ignoring the cases where illnesses appear to vanish. I'm just not ready to institute a "god of the gaps" to fill that void of explanation. You seem more than willing to take god as the go to explanation, based upon tenuous connection.
I've seen nothing you said to justify that statement. Thinking of God as the solution to a miracle isn't a god of the gaps. There is a distinction between no explanation, god of the gaps, and when the naturalistic explanation doesn't suffice. That is where God is a logical inference.
Why would I entertain the possibility of a God, who jumps in to help an old guy in Texas, but ignores millions of starving children?
He doesn't ignore them. Those are mostly christians doing food for the hungry. what's wrpng with am old guy in Texas? i am one.
Blockages do behave that way. Not often and usually not without residual damage. You just don't want to let go of the specialness imputed to you by God's alleged intercession.
No they don't that. The EMS guys know more about it than you, they said was so a typical it challenged the standards of what happens in a heart attack,.
You are not willing to accept the possibility of God. The cases of which I speak are well documented. There is no known naturalistic case. you assert there can't be anything else.
"No known naturalistic cause" therefore, God.
I've seen nothing you said to justify that statement. Thinking of God as the solution to a miracle isn't a god of the gaps. There is a distinction between no explanation, god of the gaps, and when the naturalistic explanation doesn't suffice. That is where God is a logical inference. "Unknown" is a logical inference. If you believe in a God, then you see the hand of God.
He doesn't ignore them. Those are mostly Christians doing food for the hungry. what's wrpng with am old guy in Texas? i am one.
Are you telling me that Christians doing food for the hungry is God's intervention? The children aren't important enough for God's direct action?
Nothing is wrong with an old guy in Texas?
It just makes me question God's priorities. Of course you could make the case that God loves the little children so much that he's whisking them up to heaven through the express lane but making your Dad wait a little longer.
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