The Bible - My Views

I am writing this post to summarise some conclusions I have come to in my own personal walk lately and in response to a comment left on one of my posts about my opinion of a controversial bible verse.

The initial source of my conflict came from contradictions within the Bible that really bugged me. For example in Genesis God creates the world, and everything He creates is good, that is until He creates man. And He says that it is NOT good for man to be alone. So He created a wife for the man. Also in other passages of scripture it refers to how a chord of two strands is stronger than one of only one chord, implying that a married couple are stronger and better suited to handle life than a single person alone. However come the new testament and we find Paul declaring that it is better to remain unmarried.

My personal view on this is as follows: At the time of Christ there was a religious movement that advocated celibacy. There have been waves of this throughout history and it goes in cycles. For a time marriage is advocated and even having multiple wives and having lots of offspring is seen as good, and then the tide turns and sex is seen as being sinful and celibacy is seen as being the only way to a pure life. The celibate times in history have led to some horrendous attrocities. For example the witch hunting in the dark ages where women were singled out as evil and killed by the celibate priests who condemned the women's sexuality as being sinful. No wonder God said it was bad for man to be alone and celibate back at the creation of the world. Sex is part of who we are and it should be embraced, not rejected, and marriage is the safest place for sex to be exercised.

So, how has something ended up in the Bible that is in direct contradiction to what God Himself has said? Well lets take a quick look at the Bible. The old testament is the history of the Jewish people. It was passed down through the generations with each generation being taught to recite it word for word until it was put into written form so the final form is very similar to the original. Therefore the stories that are portrayed can be considered accurate. It is full of direct words from God from the prophets. Now the validity of the prophets could be questioned, are they really speaking God's word or is it just something they're making up. Well for me, what proves their validity is that first of all what they forsee happens, also they are in agreement with one another. I discount the mormon or islamic texts where only one man wrote the whole lot, because there is no way of proving he didnt just make it all up. However in the Jewish scriptures there is multiple sources who are in agreement and also what they prophecied about came to be.

We then look at the new testament. The first 5 books are written in the same manner as the old testament, they are just records of what was done and what was said by Christ and the early church. They are just a historical record and can be considered fairly accurate, especially since 4 sources are in agreement on the stories they tell. However we then have the letters to the churches. They are written mostly by Paul and are his personal opinions and advice to the early churches. Whereas everything up till this point is just history and records, this is someone's own personal opinion and is pretty much a sermon. Now every Christian should be aware that sermons should always be taken with a pinch of salt and referenced to what the rest of the Bible says to ensure that the human error element and personal opinions of the minister isn't warping the message being delivered. In the same way I think the new testament letters to the churches should be read with a pinch of salt and refering to the old testament to ensure that what is said does not contradict with what has gone before.

Another point that should be made at this point is that there are many gospels of different apostles and letters to the churches that never made it into the Bible during it's formation. Can the people who made the decisions as to what should be included be trusted to have made the right decisions? Over the next few years I intend to look out and read the other books that never made it into the Bible to find out what they said and why they weren't included.

So personally when I approach the Bible, I am willing to accept the old testament as being God's word, and the gospels of Christ, however when it comes to the letters to the churches I take them with a pinch of salt. If they are in agreement with the rest of the Bible then I will embrace what they say, but when they deviate from what I read elsewhere in scripture then I will chose to reject what they say. I dont think anyone should mindlessly accept everything that any book says, regardless of the religious importance of the book. Think about what you believe and why you believe it. Question everything. When your faith can stand up under that scrutiny then you know it is worth hanging onto and you will be able to share your faith much more convincingly with others.