Just few thoughts that came to mind while reading about the "Bible
only" Christians, superiority complexes of being a Christian,
etc.......
When we approach to learn about God, first and foremost - we must
accept our utter ignorance of the knowledge of God. What we know of
the Creator is pitiably small, what we do not know is vast. What
little we know of Him, was revealed to us only by His immense grace
and mercy.
With this attitude, if we begin to connect to our Master, we will
gain much.
When we begin to condemn other faiths, we need to stop and think, and
examine our own perceptions of God. Our perceptions, our assumptions,
our interpretations - all are based directly on our upbringing, our
culture, our (limited) power of reasoning etc..in short - our biases.
God alone is the Ultimate Truth - but what we know of that Truth is
but a small drop of the vast ocean. From that little that we know, we
interpret God as per our understanding. I remember an old article by
John Kunnathu uncle on similar lines. In our interpretations of God,
we find qualifications for Him - like Father, King, Master, Lord - we
find usages like Fire, Light, etc to "symbolise" the Holy Spirit. But God
Himself (usage of "He" for God itself is a pointer to our
biases) is beyond all these. Since human language is really incapable of
describing God, we use words that we feel resemble God as close as we can
imagine.
Jesus is the best we know of the our Creator. Through Jesus, we try
to understand the ways of God.
When we use the Bible to learn about God, we need to remember that
the Bible is full of such "biases". Biases based on the author's
upbringing, biases based on the author's intended audiences, biases
based on the prevailing culture then - and many many such biases.
Hence, we need to always be willing to critically examine the bible
verses. The Bible is not "Infallible". It shows glimpses of the
Truth, but it was not "written by God" - not for a moment denying
that many parts of it was "inspired" by the Holy Ghost. I say "many
parts" since some parts of the bible - especially in the Old
Testament are outright "un Christ like". If ever there is a revision
of the Bible in the church, these parts would probably be removed.
(here is another thing to ponder about the Bible - the Bible is made
for the Church, and the Church has authority over the Bible - so when
the Church decided to include the "Apocrypha" books as part of the
Bible - she had every right to do so, for Bible is but a collection of
stories, sayings and letters, if taken alone, and has no life apart
from the church).
Thus, when we stand with conviction to condemn all others but us,
when we (mis) interpret Jesus's words to fit our thought processes,
it would be helpful to ponder for a moment that what we know is not
the entire truth, it may not even be the real truth, but just few
assumptions about the truth based on our biases.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianOrthodox/message/7192
only" Christians, superiority complexes of being a Christian,
etc.......
When we approach to learn about God, first and foremost - we must
accept our utter ignorance of the knowledge of God. What we know of
the Creator is pitiably small, what we do not know is vast. What
little we know of Him, was revealed to us only by His immense grace
and mercy.
With this attitude, if we begin to connect to our Master, we will
gain much.
When we begin to condemn other faiths, we need to stop and think, and
examine our own perceptions of God. Our perceptions, our assumptions,
our interpretations - all are based directly on our upbringing, our
culture, our (limited) power of reasoning etc..in short - our biases.
God alone is the Ultimate Truth - but what we know of that Truth is
but a small drop of the vast ocean. From that little that we know, we
interpret God as per our understanding. I remember an old article by
John Kunnathu uncle on similar lines. In our interpretations of God,
we find qualifications for Him - like Father, King, Master, Lord - we
find usages like Fire, Light, etc to "symbolise" the Holy Spirit. But God
Himself (usage of "He" for God itself is a pointer to our
biases) is beyond all these. Since human language is really incapable of
describing God, we use words that we feel resemble God as close as we can
imagine.
Jesus is the best we know of the our Creator. Through Jesus, we try
to understand the ways of God.
When we use the Bible to learn about God, we need to remember that
the Bible is full of such "biases". Biases based on the author's
upbringing, biases based on the author's intended audiences, biases
based on the prevailing culture then - and many many such biases.
Hence, we need to always be willing to critically examine the bible
verses. The Bible is not "Infallible". It shows glimpses of the
Truth, but it was not "written by God" - not for a moment denying
that many parts of it was "inspired" by the Holy Ghost. I say "many
parts" since some parts of the bible - especially in the Old
Testament are outright "un Christ like". If ever there is a revision
of the Bible in the church, these parts would probably be removed.
(here is another thing to ponder about the Bible - the Bible is made
for the Church, and the Church has authority over the Bible - so when
the Church decided to include the "Apocrypha" books as part of the
Bible - she had every right to do so, for Bible is but a collection of
stories, sayings and letters, if taken alone, and has no life apart
from the church).
Thus, when we stand with conviction to condemn all others but us,
when we (mis) interpret Jesus's words to fit our thought processes,
it would be helpful to ponder for a moment that what we know is not
the entire truth, it may not even be the real truth, but just few
assumptions about the truth based on our biases.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianOrthodox/message/7192
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