How can I understand the Bible?
Gay Christians and the Bible
As born again blood-bought gay Christians, the Spirit of God dwells in our hearts by faith. We love, believe, read, study and obey the Holy Bible because we love God and desire to please Him. We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and He guides us into all truth.
1. Inspiration - We believe that the Bible is given by inspiration of God, 2 Timothy 3:16. We're not saying the Bible is inspiring like a great novel or like the biography of a great person. Sure the Bible is inspiring but that's not what we mean here. Inspiration deals with the source of the Bible. The Bible claims to be given by, breathed out by God so that everything it says, the very words themselves, are trustworthy and true, 2 Peter 1:20-21.
2. Authority - Because the words of the Bible are from God, through human authors, the words of the Bible carry God's authority. Scripture is profitable because it is breathed out by God. We need to view scripture the way God views it. We need to believe that the words of scripture are from God and are true because belief is required for the Bible to work effectually in us, 1 Thessalonians 2:13.
3. Trustworthy - The ultimate issue for all of us is, can we trust the Bible? Genuine Christians believe the Bible is trustworthy. Cultural christians only believe the parts of the Bible which agree with their human reason. Since God is true, it naturally follows that God's words are true and we should believe all of them, Psalm 12:6-7, 119:128, 140, Proverbs 30:5.
How can we understand the Bible?
The Bible means what it says and says what it means. When we read the Bible, we take the plain common sense understanding of scripture whenever possible. We understand that the Bible is rich with language idioms and figures of speech which serve to make God's word all the more interesting. Context or a direct statement of scripture in the Bible tells us when something is allegorical, for example.
"Which things are an allegory (some versions read "symbolic"): for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar (Hagar)..." - Galatians 4:24, KJV
Theologian Charles Hodge wrote: "The words of Scripture are to be taken in their plain historical sense. That is, they must be taken in the sense attached to them in the age and by the people to whom they were addressed.”
That is just another way of saying that we must always consider the historical meaning of the words of the Bible as we apply it to our lives in the twenty first century. How did the people to whom it was originally given understand it in light of their knowledge base, of their culture, of their laws, of their religion, of their interaction with God?
- We believe that God and the human authors of scripture were honest and intended their words to be understood.
- For correct understanding, Bible verses must always be read in context. Context includes:
- biblical context
cultural context
doctrinal context
historical context
linguistic context
literary context
religious context - The fact that the clobber passages do not condemn loving same sex relationships is an important contextual clue that the prohibition aimed to prohibit something other than loving same sex relationships.
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This page updated 1-23-2013
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