Bible Study

[fuzzygobo]

Here's the best tip I can give you. Reading the Bible straight through,
from Genesis to Revelation, takes a lot of discipline. If you read a chapter a day, every day, it would take a year. And there's a lot to digest.
There are different translations of the Bible. The King James versions as a lot of "thou"s and "thee"s. I favor the
New International Version. There are also study guides to help break things down, put things in cultural perspective, and how Biblical events are relevant today.
Do you know what it takes to call yourself a Christian? It's about opening up your hearts don't letting God in. He wants to be in every part of your life. He wants you to come to Him when you have a problem. And he'll bless you in ways you never thought possible.
Going to church is important. Not just getting you there on Sunday mornings, but to be with others that can answer questions, and can guide you along your way. A lot of churches have Bible study groups, each week they break down a very small part of a chapter, and flesh it out to give a better understanding. It is good practice to read on your own, but like I said, for a beginner it's easy to get bogged down.
God doesn't send people to #€||.. He tries to do everything.to keep you from going there. God doesn't turn away from people, people turn away from God.
How to get to Heaven?It's not just about doing good things, or thinking we're all good people. It's only through His grace, and confessing we can't make it without Him.
For starters, if you want to read on your own, start with Psalms and Proverbs. There is a lot of wisdom in both books. And take your time. There's no rush.
Hope this helps.
I've been doing this for almost twenty years, and I'm still learning. But it will serve you well for the rest of your life.

 

[fuzzygobo]

Correction: Open up your heart and LET God in.

 

[mariolover]

Correction: Open up your heart and LET God in.

How do people know that Christianity is the one true religion? I'm still trying to decide what I believe in. Like I said, I used to reject and deny Christianity completely. I still believed in god, but I was the "spiritual, but not religious" type. I didn't believe in **** because I thought that if god was super loving, he wouldn't allow people to go there. I understand what you're saying, Christians believe that god doesn't "send" anyone to ****. People send themselves, and god is the judge. I still wouldn't call myself a Christian, but I definitely don't completely reject it like I used to. I am a spiritual seeker that's at least open to the idea. I want to understand how Christians make the conclusion that their way is the only way. I want to be able to decide whether Christianity is right for me or not. I really want to know truth, whatever it is. I've considered converting to buddhism and the Bahá'í religion like I said before. And I don't even know whether Christianity is real or not. How do Christians make the conclusion that their way is the only way?

 

[mariolover]

I'm tired of searching and I just want 100% proof that Christianity is the only way. Christians have told me that they believe it's the only way dozens of times, but that's not enough to convince me. There are so many Christians that are so judgmental and hateful that I don't want to become one of them because I'm a naturally kind person. I don't want to be the kind of Christian that tries to force others to believe in their religion. Someone told me recently to just take a leap of faith and just do it, but that's so hard for me. I ask myself questions like "What if I decide to believe and then I end up turning my back on Christianity later?" There have been Christians that have left Christianity.

 

[Old Thunder]

Sometimes I think that we need religion, whether it’s real or made up, because it can provide a lot of hope for people and change their lives for the better.

But then you look at history and see how much religion did not only to hinder the world but also destroy lives. The duality of it is one of its most crucial aspects.

“He gave his life for us, he fell upon the cross
To die for all of those who never mourned his loss
It wasn’t meant for us to feel the pain again
Tell me why, tell me why...”
~Iron Maiden, “For The Greater Good Of God”

There is no right or wrong answer to the religion question. You’ve got to follow what you believe, and what you think makes sense.

 

[fuzzygobo]

I'm not the evangelical type to say "Believe my way or burn for eternity. I can't make that choice for anyone but me. All I can do is tell you He changed my life, how he has given me a measure of peace I couldn't find anywhere else, and remembering the emptiness I had before I came to Him.

Why do I feel His way is the way? Because no other God, be it Allah, Buddha, Shinto, or worshipping crystals, nobody else made the sacrifice of His son to pay for our sins.

 

[Blue Frackle]

The thing about gay people has always fascinated me - so why does God create them just to **** them to eternal suffering? Does the Bible actually say being gay is a sin and you will go to **** for it?

I have a sort of ego thing where I don't want to rely on anything but myself to get me through a tough time, but I must say there is a part of me that definitely believes there is something out there greater than us: yes, this world can be ****** up at times, but it also makes too much sense for everything to just be happenstance.

I used to be the kind of person that completely rejected and denied Christianity and was spiritual but not religious. I still believed in god, but I made up my own version of god that did not send everyone to **** because I believed he was too loving to do that. I believed that when people died they either went to heaven if they lived a good enough life, or got reincarnated if they didn't live good enough. Now I'm trying to figure out what I believe in. I wouldn't call myself a Christian, but I'm at least open to the idea and I don't completely reject it anymore. I am what you would call a "spiritual seeker". I am open to all religions and I've thought about converting to buddhism or the Bahá'í faith before, and now I'm thinking about converting to Christianity. I like to overthink everything, so it's hard for me to figure out, out of all of the different world religions, which one holds the real "truth".

This was a very good post... this is me entirely.

This thread rocks btw; thank you for brining life to it again. Politics and all that stuff... nah; this is the only stuff I care about, and potentially the only stuff that matters at the end of the day.

 

[fuzzygobo]

The thing about gay people has always fascinated me - so why does God create them just to **** them to eternal suffering? Does the Bible actually say being gay is a sin and you will go to **** for it?

I have a sort of ego thing where I don't want to rely on anything but myself to get me through a tough time, but I must say there is a part of me that definitely believes there is something out there greater than us: yes, this world can be ****** up at times, but it also makes too much sense for everything to just be happenstance.


This was a very good post... this is me entirely.

This thread rocks btw; thank you for brining life to it again. Politics and all that stuff... nah; this is the only stuff I care about, and potentially the only stuff that matters at the end of the day.

I found that out too (sometimes the hard way). Part of me wanted to do everything my own way, call my own shots. Sometimes that worked, sometimes it didn't. I've learned you can hit the gas as hard as you like, but let God steer.
As I get older, I see more of the beauty in the world. Flowers, trees, mountains, rivers, etc. A few hundred feet from my house is a lake, and this summer I've seen my share of spectacular sunsets. Who else could paint such a masterpiece?

 

[Old Thunder]

Although to counter that, the idea that something came from nothing, that the earth evolved by itself over billions of years, and that we are the result of that metamorphosis of life... that’s pretty beautiful in its own way.

 

[D'Snowth]

The thing about gay people has always fascinated me - so why does God create them just to **** them to eternal suffering?

I've asked the same thing about atheists before, but more from the angle that if God knows everything about everyone, and knows what actions and decisions we make long before they're even thoughts in our mind, then why would He bother to create anybody whom He knows will reject/renounce/simply not believe in Him and/or not accept Jesus? In a way, it seems to me to be equivilent to, say, an artist spending a great deal of time crafting a beautiful painting that he knows he's just going to destroy and throw away anyway. Why bother?

The way it's been explained to me is that we all have free will to make our own decisions, and that if we weren't, then God would not be a god, but rather, a dictator.

Still, there are some preachers out there who kind of make the concept of free will a gray area: they say that those who become Christians are pre-destined to do so by God . . . I get what they're trying to say, but to put it like that, really does make it sound like God's unconditional love for all people is, indeed, conditional, and that He picks and chooses who He loves, rather than loving all, like Christianity teaches.

Does the Bible actually say being gay is a sin and you will go to **** for it?

It does, actually. The Bible says that for a man to lay with another man as he would with a woman is an abomination, and although Jesus died for our sins, that doesn't entirely give us a free pass to wilfully engage in sinful acts (which they would consider homosexuality to be). Of course, we all have to answer for our actions when we reach death, so for all intents and purposes, whatever LGBT people do - even if they are Christians themselves - the only ones they have to answer to for that is God . . . but, some preachers will put it bluntly: if gay people don't stop being gay - even if they've accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior - they'll still go to **** for not being repentant of their gayness.