38.        Conservatism and the Bible.

Conservatism of Bible approach and understanding  in the final analysis is
the only acceptable to God and profitable for man {“all scripture is given by
inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction in
righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect….Etc from II Timothy 3:
16,17); and it is questionable if any scholar or other searcher after Bible truth,
even to teach, who makes a liberal approach to the Bible, or in this day and
time of “God told me”, and approach of new revelations that ignores that in
the Bible of 66 books the “faith was once for all delivered to the saints”
(Jude).  Now, if you want to spiritually profit from your Bible study of the Word
of God—which is divine in origin, absolute in authority, sufficient in message,
and high fidelity in content {it communicates from God to you via the Spirit of
God and the writing apostle and prophet}, if you are still in spite of the current
Great Apostasy called the Falling Away…if you can still “endure sound
doctrine” (II Timothy 4:4,5}, if you are susceptible to “reproof” in spite of your
family, community, church, etc, and even more important than that to
“correction”; and if you even care about seeking “first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness”, then at each step in this progression toward more
maturity you will also be more conservative on the Bible.  Just look at the
famous Jesus Seminar with their fifth gospel of Thomas, their denial of most
of the Gospel of John, and the questioning of whether Jesus is and was the
Son of God; and you will see the detrimental results of scholarship without
conservatism on the Bible as the Word of God.  You must be reminded that all
such stumbling either in the name of scholarship, or liberalism, tolerance
simply show evidence of a lack of the Holy Spirit in the inward life of the
searcher as well as in the approach to Bible understanding, since “the word is
spiritually discerned.”

39.        Catholic Bible and Doctrine.

Albeit the Catholic Douay Rheims edition of the Bible or any other catholic
version or translation of the Bible or just plain any version like the Amplified,
the New King James Version, Philips, the sad reality is that possession of the
copy alone does not sanctify or make a conservative or man of God out of
you as answered above in number 38.  Even as the prime excuse for citizens
today who ignore God and the communications that God has provided in the
Bible “once for all” is that there are too many interpretations, versions, and
denominations—obviously a cop out for lack of effort in the seeking “first the
kingdom of God and His righteousness”, even so on the opposite end of the
spectrum is that those who search the Word of God in any version or
translation will find that speaks to them in ways they never thought possible;
however it must be approached sincerely and with prayer for the help of the
original author, the Holy Spirit.  Like one translator in China said in working on
the book of Romans, “This book speaks to me.  The One who wrote this book
is the One who made me.”
Actually you are more fortunate than most of us if you own a Douay edition of
the Old Testament, unless you have the New International version of some
other special versions of the Old Testament in that you have some books of
the Old Testament not found in the King James or New King James; and
perhaps if you would spend more time on research in the Bible than excuses
for living the way you want to live anyway, then you might help the rest of us
find where the quote is located in the Old Testament of the New Testament
book of James.  As far as I know it is only the quote of the while NT, James 4:
5--"the spirit that dwelleth is us lusteth to envy", and is the real source of "wars
and fightings" often blamed on religion--that we do not have a reference for in
the OT listed in most of our Bibles.  Pastor James only tells us that it is from
OT Scripture.

40.  God.

Wow, this is the key subject about which humanity made in the image of God
must think, for without respect for God there is nothing of religion, of eternity,
of salvation, and of what God meant for any person to be when He created us
in His image.  Do I assume too much of belief in God as compared to your
own?  Yes, as one person said "God is the fundamental postulate of all
rational thinking; and quite frankly even as I would resent anyone who tried to
ignore or deny the existence of my wife, I also resent similar attitudes to my
God, the God of the Bible and the LORD of Creation.  You see this is not
purely academic as my personal relationship to God is both personal and
based on two objective and historical realities that can not be reasonable
denied:  (1) thanks to history and the creation and preservation of God we
have a book of 66 books which claims over and over in its pages to be the
Word of God {for example Paul's statement in II Timothy 3:16 of "All scripture
is given by inspiration of God, and the oft repeated phrases of "thus spake
the Word of God" or "the Word of God came saying"}--an objective and
pragmatic reality which must be accepted or denied as there is no middle
ground like with any other scientific fact or phenomenon; (2) the historical
Jesus and the Lord Jesus Christ of history actually lived, taught, and died on
this earth, and like with the Bible since Jesus often claimed to be the Son of
God {this is the reason from man's perspective and limited control that Israel
killed Him}, and I think you can follow the inevitable logic that a Son of God
demands a God the Father.
Granted a more purely academic approach to faith in God can be made as
for example Mosma does in his book "The Evidence of God in An Expanding
Universe" where over 40 scientists in education, government, and business
testify to evidences they see for the existence of God in their scientific
disciplines like physics, anatomy, medicine, and so on and on.  And if that is
your interest you can find no shortage of such classical books in the fields of
Christian Evidences and Apologetics such as my hero, the Nobel prize
winning physicists R.A. Millikan; but it is doubtful that such purely intellectual
evidence can lead you all the way to faith in God, although it can easily
eliminate your intellectual hang-ups {if they are really intellectual instead of the
sin of unbelief} to faith in God.  If you must go that time consuming route to
faith in God, so be it; and if I can help in the suggestion of more books or the
finding of Mosma or Millikan, please let me know at
SunGrist_Bible@netscape.com.  
I suppose there is a little jealousy in unbelief in that God through Christ has
chosen to manifest Themselves to us and not to the world at large.



"Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, 'Lord, how is it that You will manifest
Yourself to us, and not to the world?'  Jesus answered and said to him, 'If
anyone loves Me {you see love goes beyond belief in existence and is
personal to us who have experienced this selective manifestation to us and
not to the rest of the world, and although we sympathize with your jealousy we
also resent your denial of the God and Christ of our collective manifestations--
don't you have confidence in any of us}, he will keep My word {you see you
may have a major problem if you don't believe in the Bible as the Word of
God, for how can you keep what you don't believe in}; and My Father {yes, this
is God the Father, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ} will love him {you see it
is also personal to God the Father that you keep his word in order that
according to His word and His character, even His demands, He will then love
you}, and We will come to him {yes, this is something modern and
contemporary not the historical coming of God on Mount Sinai nor the coming
of Jesus on earth to Palestine 1 A.D.}, and make Our home with him.  {And
yes, it  takes a lot of faith to believe this; but don't ask us to deny what we
have received in this unique manifestation of God and Christ making a home
in our internal heart and spirit and soul; nor should you expect us to respect
your denial of our God and Christ.}."  (John 14:22,23)

You know lack of faith in a God of design and creation and who showed
Himself through not only the works of nature, but also in the conscience of
man, in the Bible and in Christ, is so foolish that it is like a heathen in Africa or
South America finding a PCB {printed circuit board} from a Satellite that fell
out of the sky and not assuming that this PCB had a designer--that all the
components of capacitors, resistors, transistors, and circuits generated
themselves up there in space.

Now, I apologize if your faith has already gone beyond this point; and what
you are really after is what does the Bible teach about this God.  That is even
a bigger question than the existence of God, because the Bible Itself is "a
gradual revelation of God {by the way progressive and other thousands of
years and through over 40 Apostles and Prophets} coming to an eternal
climax in Christ.  If that is discouraging as you look at many chapters in 66
books, and compare how little you have read and studied the Bible, then you
can be encouraged by the fact that Revelation is over and complete in this
book, and as Jude wrote "the faith has once and for all been delivered to the
first century saints."
I would suggest that a place to start besides the reading of your Bible, of
course, is with the chapter on God in "Some Sounds of Sound Faith".  You
can read some shorts about God on the Product Page, or you can order it in
either soft or hard copy.  If finances are a problem, then email SunGrist_Bible
at SunGrist_Bible@netscape.com, and we will in turn email you a free soft
copy. Of course we always have somebody standing by to answer any other
personal questions of faith, at jerrymac@live.com.
Bible Questions and Answers Page 11
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