The New Testament The New Testament The New Testament There is a deeply entrenched tradition amongst a very high percentage of Christians that think that there is something unspiritual about simple, rational thought in matters of faith. I want to look at that in this video, and to show how this belief has kept many of us from being able to hear and appreciate much of what Jesus came to tell us. But first, I'm going to look at how the traditional scorn for rational thought may have arisen from some valid concerns. Much that God says does seem to contradict human reasoning. For example, when God led Gideon to actually reduce the size of his army before routing the Midianites, It contradicted normal reasoning about armies and warfare which is that the larger the army, the greater are the chances of winning the war. But what God was leading Gideon to do was not necessarily irrational. He showed Gideon, and he's shown the rest of us that military might should not always be measured by quantity. Sometimes quality is more important. A small, dedicated, brave, and very clever team of soldiers can often accomplish more than a huge army of unthinking pawns. When Jesus fed thousands of people with just a few loaves of bread and a few fish, he was possibly showing that a willingness by one person to give up everything can inspire others to make sacrifices as well. But he was also showing that God's supernatural power is available at times to help meet our needs after we have done all that we can do in our own strength. Now, in both of these illustrations, normal human reasoning could easily have missed a greater truth. But I see nothing in either of them, or in any of the many other things that God does to help us when we have come to the end of our resources, I see nothing in any of them to suggest that human efforts to solve problems are wrong in themselves. Jesus tells us to love God with all of our mind. He does not tell us to turn our minds off, even though we do need to be open to the possibility that God has more to tell us, more than what we have so far considered with our human minds. Now, I want to look at this with regard to how we read our Bibles, and in particular with how we read the teachings of Jesus. As many of you may know by now, the most consistent message of this YouTube channel is that we need to listen to and try to obey the teachings of Jesus. Many people write to me asking for advice, and I frequently urge them to read the four Gospels, the teachings of Jesus, with a view to finding there, in black and white, or better still in red and white what it is that Jesus told his disciples to do and what we still have not done I had people write back to me sometimes only hours after I given them that advice and they say OK, I'm finished. I've read the four Gospels. Now what? But if I asked them to list some of the things that Jesus was telling them to do as they were reading those four books, many of them are totally speechless. The few who do give an answer often say something like this. Well, Jesus wants me to be a good person, and help others. He wants me to be kind, to forgive people, not to judge others. He wants me to have faith. He loves me, and God loves me, and he died for my sins. And, well, that's about all I can remember. Now, it's not as though Jesus did not teach those things, but still you get the impression that it's more of a guess, don't you? A guess by someone who's not really properly read the book. Even the vocabulary being used sounds much like overused churchy cliches that don't really translate into meaningful changes in their lives. Almost anyone who has heard anything about Jesus in Christianity could say or guess something along those lines. But in the context, I'm talking to someone who has just finished reading the instruction manual itself. In fact, four versions of the instruction manual. At least, that is what they say they have read. Have you ever heard that term used before? You know, the Bible is our instruction manual? Have you heard it? It's often described that way, and I like that description. Another thing people often say is, when all else fails, read the instructions. But then, when you actually read it, which I have to say is pretty rare, they don't read it like they would if it was an instruction manual. They're not looking for what it's saying and then thinking, Oh, yeah, right, got that. I'm going to have to change and start doing that from now on and see whether it works. Instead, our eyes move across page after page of the Gospels until we reach the end and then we announce, Okay, done. I finished. Now what? When that happens, we're reading it with our minds turned off. Kind of assuming that in the process of moving our eyes across the page, some kind of magic is going to rub off and creep inside our soul, totally bypassing our brains. Our minds would supposedly need to be turned off because they might upset everything. Now, this all comes from that assumption that our human understanding is evil in itself. totally unreliable in terms of reading the Bible. I've heard people actually describe it like that. They say that when some kind of religious experience hits you, then and only then will you be able to discover a magical way to read the Bible that your unregenerate mind would have never been able to appreciate. And when you get that experience you be able to see the hidden secrets that no one else can see But until then you should just not try to read it Just listen to others more enlightened church leaders and trust them to tell you what it says or what it really meant to say I'm sorry, but in my experience, the exact opposite is true. Those who say they have received a religious experience have simply turned their minds off to anything that they don't want to see in the teachings of Jesus. They have lost their minds. They have replaced clear, simple, rational thought with some flowery delusion about their own spiritual superiority and their own personal exemption from all that Jesus actually said. Those of us who read the teachings of Jesus as an instruction manual are seen as carnal, worldly Christians trapped by the letter of the law. All of the most condescending descriptions are given to any of us who just open the four Gospels and let them speak for themselves, as they were written. We are told that it's dangerous, almost evil, to listen to those teachings of Jesus without some trained theologian or other religious leader there to tell us what Jesus really meant to say. over and over, you'll hear them saying, what Jesus actually meant by saying this was such and such as though Jesus himself was too dumb to have been able to say it right without their help. It doesn't hurt to ask yourself, and ask them too if you like, why it is that they think you can listen to them and get a clear understanding of what Jesus was saying, but you can't listen to Jesus. In other words, if your mind is so unreliable when you read the Bible, won't it also be unreliable when listening to them? I don't think they have an answer for that one. One of the most common illustrations of how much this attitude pervades our thinking is when people say to me or to one another, well, God hasn't called me to do such and such just yet. It's almost always in relation to something that God has said through Jesus to his followers in the Bible. Here he is, the Word of God himself, incarnate, in human flesh, speaking to his creation in written words words recorded by four different people, meticulously preserved over 2,000 years translated into almost every language on earth by hundreds, if not thousands, of vocal translators around the world. God, the Creator, has deemed to reveal himself through his only begotten Son conceived of a virgin, who let himself be tortured to death as an expression of his love. And then we have the audacity to say, God hasn't told me to obey what is written right there in this book. That book's for someone else. I need something special, something more personal, with a bit of emotion and supernatural pizzazz maybe even an angel from heaven before I accept it as being for me And we still do we do in the meantime with regard to how we live our lives While we waiting for God to come begging us to just obey what Jesus has already told us to do what do we do? Do we say, well, God hasn't told me to go to school, so I'm not going to go to school? Do we say, God hasn't told me to get a job, so I'm not going to get a job? Do we say, God hasn't told me to buy a car, so I won't buy one? or God hasn't told me to get married, so I won't get married. No! We do all of those things and more day after day, year in and year out. You see, our default setting is to do everything that Jesus at least seriously cautioned against in the absence of an angel from heaven appearing to tell us that we have been specially chosen by God to actually obey Jesus. In fact, most of us try to say that God has told us to do all those things and more simply because we want to do those things, or because circumstances made it easier to do those things. The life and the teachings of Jesus are wasted on such people. The Bible might just as well be thrown out, torn to shreds, burned up because in the end, they're going to do what they want to do anyway. So, it's no wonder that mindless reading of the teachings of Jesus is almost universal today. Everyone's sitting around waiting to be called, long after Jesus has already called us. He's done it many times over, and in great detail. If only we would read his teachings while still mentally awake. Turn your brains on, people! Listen to him! You don't need to be called. He already has called you. But he's waiting for you to acknowledge that call, and respond in obedience. The Bible says, many are called, but few are chosen. Now, why would he only choose a few of us, even though he's called all of us? Because only a few of us respond to the call. God doesn't want anyone to perish, but a lot of you will. Why? Because you ignored the call that he's already made, through Jesus, through the Holy Spirit speaking in the four Gospels, which the Holy Spirit went to a lot of trouble to get four men to write and many others to translate for you. If you want to be part of God's anti-Marmie, you're going to have to wake up and listen. Like Gideon's little band of soldiers, God's looking for people who are capable of hearing what may not be comfortable to hear. It'll be a very tiny band that he uses, but it will be people who have read the instruction book People who have learned to follow the directions. Stormtroopers who don't argue with their commanding officer. Hardened troops who don't give up when the going gets tough. Are you ready to obey him today? Or are you going to sit on the fence just one more day, procrastinating? Please wake up, get off the fence and join the battle. I look forward to hearing from you today. Forward march. Thank you.
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