I had a conversation last night with AC on people's attitudes towards the learning of the Bible. He feels frustrated that Christians have a 'spoon-fed' attitude and that they weren't grappling enough with the richness of the Bible. Especially when Christians only talk about the 'feel-good' passages, but gloss over the more difficult to understand parts.
If you've read some previous postings or if you know me personally, I'm not one to accept what one person says and nod my head agreeing unquestioningly. I'm all for absorbing opinions, and though I can seem somewhat confrontational and argumentative, I don't do it to appear clever (I think...) but because that's how I find helps myself grapple with issues and ideas. Trash out all the differing thoughts and opinions and by doing that, hopefully I can decide on where my stand is.
Thanks to Bro O and his uncanny knack to build up stereotypical Christian understanding I was 'spoon-fed' in my earlier years as a Christian, and to throw questions and differing Bible passages to completely deconstruct the basis of my understanding.
All those hours of Bible study and conversations stripped down the insulated bubble of Christian understanding that was created by Sunday morning sermons, Bible studies led by theologically untrained laymen, added by unguided, emotional and limited self-understanding personal Bible studies.And what am I left with after 10 years of being a Christian?
A lesser platform of Bible knowledge, thank God!
That I can take refuge in Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 that it really isn't about me, of how much I know.
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.
And being stripped of pride in what I know, I am given the opportunity to go about the business of rebuilding my biblical understanding.
AC's comments jogged my memory of how a couple of months ago, during homegroup's Bible study, when we were discussing the topic of predestination, I was challenged by something the Bible study leader, Kurt P was teaching. For the more initiated, it was on how because we are all dead in our sins, we cannot make any decisions pertaining our salvation in God, and it is God who makes us alive FIRST, that is, to be regenerated first, before faith can happen that leads down salvation.
My understanding was, doesn't faith comes first, before we are saved, and therefore, because we are saved, we are then made alive?
I'm slowly developing an understanding of this, but I must admit I'm still finding it difficult to wrap my head around it. Anyway, we spent an hour talking about that, and in the next week, still confused, I opened up the topic again. Kurt gave me an odd look and said, "Do you still disagree? I thought it was quite clear last week?"
I was quite surprised by his response. Did he honestly think I was going to take what he said in less than an hour and be unquestioning on his words, not challenging it, and absorb it to be the basis of my understanding of the God I serve?
To accept unquestioningly is nothing different from being brainwashed, is it?
No, I do not believe in my God because I have no capacity of thinking as much as some non-Christians have brainwashed themselves into believing.
No, I do not believe in my God because of feel-good factors. If anything, there is less a feel-good factor when one understands the cost and price involved when one chooses to lead their lives not by their standards, not by the world's standards but by God's standards.