Jonathan_Gale
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Since I had my first encounter with the Holy Spirit who led me dive into the Scripture, I always thought that the Word of God is the highest authority, Sola Scriptura is a basic principle, whenever I made an argument, I always backed it up with a direct quote or a reference of the Scripture as "proof text". That is what Yeshua and Paul did when they made an argument. But after a lots of debates and discussions with you guys and my other peers in real life, I've come to realize that "proof text" is ineffective when you are preoccupied with your own school of thought. When a verse is presented, no matter how simple and how relevant it is, different people could reach completely different conclusions, and then they go down in their own rabbit holes, at that point, no matter what you say, there's no way to persuade them, because in that hole, all they can see is the entrance of that hole, they're trapped in their own mind with a tunnel vision.
I think we can all agree that the Scripture as the word of God has incredible depth beyond our comprehension, sometimes you think you've learned it all, but the translation, including KJV, may be inaccurate, you have to check out certain words in the original Hebrew or Greek for the real meaning. That's another topic for another day, though, here I just wanna pound on the importance of individual PROSPECTIVE - through which you read the Scripture. The Spirit of God is the spirit of TRUTH, whatever you read, it's all true history events, and you must regard it as real historic events, no matter how weird, how outlandish it seems, that means taking the literal meaning first in its proper context. In a lot of occasions there're references or symbolic language based on previous books, especially the Torah - first five books. Revelation, for example, is nearly 100% consisted of references from previous books, mostly OT prophecy books. It's like the series finale of a tv show. If you've studied those books, Revelation would be much easier to understand.
Back to the analogy mentioned above, literal meaning in the proper context, combined with historic background, is like the right surface spot, any depth you dig must start from this spot, otherwise, no matter how deep you dig, all you can find is dirt and trash. Here, I won't copy-paste a wall of text of Scriptures like many of you do, I'll just focus on one, which is none other than the very first line of the entire bible -
Gen. 1:1. At the beginning God created heaven and earth.
Your perspective of Gen. 1:1 will determine your perspective of all 66 books. If you dismiss this as a myth, then all the Bible is a myth; if you regard it as real history - as opposed to the Big Bang, then all the Bible is real history, history is His story. The first line of the entire bible reveals God's identity - the Creator of the universe. This is His primary identity - above anything else. He created everything from nothing with his perfect design, we as mankind inherited that creativity, which distinguishes us from animals. If you have ever DIYed anything from scratch, you would be able to relate to him as a creator. When you read from the Creator's perspective, you would be standing at entrance of that rabbit hole, instead of looking up from the bottom.
When you read that God called his creation “good” and then some creation “evil”, we usually think of it as a moral issue; however, if you read it from a creator’s perspective, you would realize that “good” and “evil” are more about functionality than morality. God calls it “good” when it works exactly as it was designed to work, He calls it “evil” when it goes haywire and deviates from His original design. Why is everything “good” in His creation? Because the earth we live in is a perfect system that sustains life. No other planets sustains life, they are all just floating rocks in space, only earth does. God created man in his image and entrusted man with this earth He created.
There're a lot of rules commonly viewed as laws, but from the Creator's perspective, He wrote all those rules as an instruction manual, not to restrict us, but to guide us. We’re supposed to discover we’re made for, live the way we were designed to live and fulfill our purpose. It’s like a stove is built to cook food, not to heat the house, burn trash or for any other use. God hates sin because sin is open rebellion against His instruction by challenging His authority as the designer of that stove and tempting you to try other uses, either for "fun" or "convience" or whatever. And when we do try other uses, what happens? You play with fire, you get burned, and then we blame God for our burn as if God was punishing us with that fire, but what God does is pulling us away from that fire and helping us put out the fire. He never meant to burn us. We address Him as the Father because that's what a loving, responsible father does in that situation, He bears the character of a father.
Therefore, always keep this perspective in mind, HOW you read is more important than WHAT you read. Back to Gen. 1:1, yes, it may be incomprehensible at the first glance, but not any more in this day of age. What do I mean by that? Two words: Simulation Theory. The world we're living in is a simulation, you just replace the word "created" with "simulated" in Gen. 1:1, then everything will make sense. God and His angels are looking down at us like a bunch of researchers looking down at a sandbox. In Gen. 1:1, the sandbox was set up; in Gen. 1:2, He was present and ready; in Gen. 1:3, He flipped a switch, and the sandbox was activated; it's that simple. It might not be the truth, but it's the closest you can get. What we need is to accept that we're living in that sandbox instead of running the sandbox.
I think we can all agree that the Scripture as the word of God has incredible depth beyond our comprehension, sometimes you think you've learned it all, but the translation, including KJV, may be inaccurate, you have to check out certain words in the original Hebrew or Greek for the real meaning. That's another topic for another day, though, here I just wanna pound on the importance of individual PROSPECTIVE - through which you read the Scripture. The Spirit of God is the spirit of TRUTH, whatever you read, it's all true history events, and you must regard it as real historic events, no matter how weird, how outlandish it seems, that means taking the literal meaning first in its proper context. In a lot of occasions there're references or symbolic language based on previous books, especially the Torah - first five books. Revelation, for example, is nearly 100% consisted of references from previous books, mostly OT prophecy books. It's like the series finale of a tv show. If you've studied those books, Revelation would be much easier to understand.
Back to the analogy mentioned above, literal meaning in the proper context, combined with historic background, is like the right surface spot, any depth you dig must start from this spot, otherwise, no matter how deep you dig, all you can find is dirt and trash. Here, I won't copy-paste a wall of text of Scriptures like many of you do, I'll just focus on one, which is none other than the very first line of the entire bible -
Gen. 1:1. At the beginning God created heaven and earth.
Your perspective of Gen. 1:1 will determine your perspective of all 66 books. If you dismiss this as a myth, then all the Bible is a myth; if you regard it as real history - as opposed to the Big Bang, then all the Bible is real history, history is His story. The first line of the entire bible reveals God's identity - the Creator of the universe. This is His primary identity - above anything else. He created everything from nothing with his perfect design, we as mankind inherited that creativity, which distinguishes us from animals. If you have ever DIYed anything from scratch, you would be able to relate to him as a creator. When you read from the Creator's perspective, you would be standing at entrance of that rabbit hole, instead of looking up from the bottom.
When you read that God called his creation “good” and then some creation “evil”, we usually think of it as a moral issue; however, if you read it from a creator’s perspective, you would realize that “good” and “evil” are more about functionality than morality. God calls it “good” when it works exactly as it was designed to work, He calls it “evil” when it goes haywire and deviates from His original design. Why is everything “good” in His creation? Because the earth we live in is a perfect system that sustains life. No other planets sustains life, they are all just floating rocks in space, only earth does. God created man in his image and entrusted man with this earth He created.
There're a lot of rules commonly viewed as laws, but from the Creator's perspective, He wrote all those rules as an instruction manual, not to restrict us, but to guide us. We’re supposed to discover we’re made for, live the way we were designed to live and fulfill our purpose. It’s like a stove is built to cook food, not to heat the house, burn trash or for any other use. God hates sin because sin is open rebellion against His instruction by challenging His authority as the designer of that stove and tempting you to try other uses, either for "fun" or "convience" or whatever. And when we do try other uses, what happens? You play with fire, you get burned, and then we blame God for our burn as if God was punishing us with that fire, but what God does is pulling us away from that fire and helping us put out the fire. He never meant to burn us. We address Him as the Father because that's what a loving, responsible father does in that situation, He bears the character of a father.
Therefore, always keep this perspective in mind, HOW you read is more important than WHAT you read. Back to Gen. 1:1, yes, it may be incomprehensible at the first glance, but not any more in this day of age. What do I mean by that? Two words: Simulation Theory. The world we're living in is a simulation, you just replace the word "created" with "simulated" in Gen. 1:1, then everything will make sense. God and His angels are looking down at us like a bunch of researchers looking down at a sandbox. In Gen. 1:1, the sandbox was set up; in Gen. 1:2, He was present and ready; in Gen. 1:3, He flipped a switch, and the sandbox was activated; it's that simple. It might not be the truth, but it's the closest you can get. What we need is to accept that we're living in that sandbox instead of running the sandbox.
What is simulation theory? Is all of reality actually a simulation? | GotQuestions.org
What is simulation theory? Is all of reality actually a simulation? How can I know if anything is actually real?
www.gotquestions.org
