WHAT ARE CHRISTIANS AFRAID OF?
by John T. Webb
There is one aspect of life and faith of which Christians are deeply afraid. I know because I used to be.
My life was okay. I was comfortable with my faith. I knew the Lord and was sure of where I was going to end up--that's it: UP. As Robert Browning expressed it, I knew that "God's in His heaven and all's right with the world."
So what was there to fear? For "Elohim has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind" (2 Tim. 1:7). And yet there was this one thing that, if someone mentioned it, I would cringe from it. I could not bear the thought of it happening. It would disrupt my world, my ease, my routine.
My friends had this same phobia. Everyone said there was nothing to worry about. It couldn't happen. It shouldn't happen! And if it did happen, then something was intrinsically wrong with everything that we knew to be true. But truth is truth, isn't it? Jesus said "I am the truth." I really believed (and still do believe) that. If you are a Christian, you probably believe that.
Chances are, you probably have the same fear that I had! You don't want to have your life turned upside down, either.
Well, it happened! My fear was realized! But truth is still truth, and Elohim is still in His heaven. I have been changed! Yes, that was my fear -- change! Change in many of my beliefs. Change in the traditions that I observe. Eliminating many of the things in my life that I used to believe were true but found out that they are caused by ignorance, misunderstandings, mistranslations, oversight, misguidance, and downright lies!
So just what has changed? Well, much of what I had considered true has been replaced with what is actually true. Is truth subjective? It shouldn't be! Fact is fact. Opinion is subjective. Translation of a word from one language to another can be subjective depending on the translator's opinion, unless there is only one possible translation. Much of the reason for so many Christian denominations today is because of Bible translators' promulgating their own agendas.
Knowing the background of a teaching or a belief can help immeasurably in changing what you believe. Learning that background can only be achieved by study -- unless, of course, you have your own agenda and want to throw in your own interpretation; that is, just make something up!
Are you open to change if you can be shown that what you have been taught is in error? Much of current Christian doctrine is MODERN teaching from just the last 200 years. If we would learn the truth of what the writers of the Bible intended for us to know, we must go back of these modern concepts. We must go back of the past 1800 years of denominationalism and factionalism and error and come to a knowledge of how the writers of the Bible thought.
By birth and ancestry, they were Hebrew. Their speech was Hebrew. Their thought patterns were Hebrew. And unless we can at least begin to comprehend how they thought, then we are lost in our Western, Greek mentality with all of the pagan influences brought into the Church in the second, third, and fourth centuries.
"Study to show yourself approved to Elohim, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing (i.e., correctly interpreting) the word of truth."
Are YOU afraid of change? (Mal. 3:6a) Changing BACK to ELOHIM'S way?
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6/15/13
Last update 13 April 2020