The Beginning
So I know I never really use this, in fact, I was going to make a new Live Journal account for this, but I decided why not just use the existing one since it is absent of use anyways.
I am turning this journal into a "personal thoughts on religious views" journal, if that makes any sense. I want to just kinda put into words my thought and feelings about my beliefs, and I want to being to critically analyze why I believe what I believe. You could almost call it my public testimony, but we will just leave it to the "Ptorvj" lol. If that is any easier...
I will write the little "quick reads of the books" but I really want to get into the theology of some. I highly encourage you guys to CHALLENGE MY STATEMENTS. If you also have any questions PLEASE ASK because I would be more then happy to answer them. Whether the question would be from my writings, or if it is a completely new area, please feel free to write one.
Before I begin, I am starting this particular theology-interpretation of the bible in the very beginning of the Old Testament. The trustworthiness of the Old Testament has always been questionable by some Christian or another. My answer to that is to look at Jesus. Obviously he knows whats up, his dad was watching this happen. If you watch Jesus, he quotes from the old testament all over the new testament. The new testament didn't even come around until Jesus was gone, so they never seemed to question it. In 2nd Timothy 3:16, Paul writes "All scripture is God Breathed". This doesn't mean possibly that God came and breathed on every bible printed, but it does have great importance. You read in Genesis 2:7 that God breathed life into Adam, the first man. This shows us that God was their when scripture was written. But anyways, onto my actual entry...
To begin it off, I want to look at "The Beginning" to kind of parallel to my beginning with my journal. Just like my beginning, The world didn't really have a beginning. The "Beginning" only began, when God made the beginning. I know it is hard to grasp, in fact it is nearly impossible to. But that is just how God made us. We will get into that some other journal entry....
God made the world, and everything in it, and he saw that it was good. He gave man free will, and thus began the fall of men. I will get into more detail with that stuff later, but for now, just know that man's fall went through a cycle. First Doubt(Gen. 3:1) Denial (3:4) Deception(3:6a) and Deliberate Disobedience(3:6b). After all this, God saw what had happened, and removed man from his perfect garden. A couple of thousand years pass by. We don't know for sure how long it has been since the beginning of time, but we know that enough time went by for the world to start looking ugly. Adam and Eve were the only ones to be in a sinless world. God told them to be fruitful and multiply(that is the exact context, but we all know what that means, lol) and after a few generations, things become worse and worse. Now God doesn't like what he is seeing, and so he decides to wipe them all out. He knows Noah, and tells him to make an Ark. He uses this to pretty much start over. Noah, his wife, his sons, and his sons wives along with two of every animal, and other animals to make sacrifices after the flood is through are allowed on the ark. This flood is the beginning of the Water Evaporation Whateveryouwannacallit system. This is probably what led to people not living to 900 years old anymore, but actually caused the sun's rays to be a little more harsh on the skin, through a mini greenhouse we now see in the sky. Back to the story:
Man start multiplying again, and this time before things get too bad, God finds Abram and makes a covenant with him. God chooses Abraham to be his people. Abraham leads to Isaac, Isaac has 2 sons, Jacob and Esau, and Esau gets chosen for the blessing, but Jacob "steals" it, which we will cover later, Jacob has 12 sons, from his wives Rachael and Leah, and their concubines.
Now let me pause real fast. Jacob is the Jacob who's name actually gets changed to Israel. And Israel has 12 sons, which form the 12 tribes of Israel. He is also the father of Joseph, the boy with the flamboyantly rainbow-colored jacket. He gets sold into slavery, and God blesses him, and he eventually becomes a great leader in Egypt. He eventually rules over his family, and They all do bow down to him. Great story, but anyways....
The twelve tribes eventually start bickering and fighting and yadda yadda, this is where you get into the battles and whatnot maybe a little around judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings definitely. The tribes just have so many situations, and can't really get along with one another, and so on and so forth. I will go into more later, but I will cover some of this stuff as time goes on. Fast-forwarding a little, The Romans come in, and take over pretty much life. This is when Jesus comes along.
Jesus, everyone has heard about him, so I guess I don't have to explain much(for now) but he gets sacrificed on the cross to forgive us of our sins. It is our only way to reach God. After Jesus was gone, a guy named Saul, who was a big Christian-Killer, ends up having a divine intervention from God, and ends up turning a lot of the world at that time around. His letters are now making up much of the new testament, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Philemon, Ephesians, Colossions, etc. Just loads of books that were actually letters he wrote. Anyways, this book ends with Revelation, and that is a story that will be told MUCH later, because of, well honestly, its just a difficult book and I want to get comfy writing about the other things.
After writing this though, I realize I didn't even really explain my religion, just kind of had a little history review. I guess I just wanted to make sure some people got the gist of the bible.
In Him
Matt
I am turning this journal into a "personal thoughts on religious views" journal, if that makes any sense. I want to just kinda put into words my thought and feelings about my beliefs, and I want to being to critically analyze why I believe what I believe. You could almost call it my public testimony, but we will just leave it to the "Ptorvj" lol. If that is any easier...
I will write the little "quick reads of the books" but I really want to get into the theology of some. I highly encourage you guys to CHALLENGE MY STATEMENTS. If you also have any questions PLEASE ASK because I would be more then happy to answer them. Whether the question would be from my writings, or if it is a completely new area, please feel free to write one.
Before I begin, I am starting this particular theology-interpretation of the bible in the very beginning of the Old Testament. The trustworthiness of the Old Testament has always been questionable by some Christian or another. My answer to that is to look at Jesus. Obviously he knows whats up, his dad was watching this happen. If you watch Jesus, he quotes from the old testament all over the new testament. The new testament didn't even come around until Jesus was gone, so they never seemed to question it. In 2nd Timothy 3:16, Paul writes "All scripture is God Breathed". This doesn't mean possibly that God came and breathed on every bible printed, but it does have great importance. You read in Genesis 2:7 that God breathed life into Adam, the first man. This shows us that God was their when scripture was written. But anyways, onto my actual entry...
To begin it off, I want to look at "The Beginning" to kind of parallel to my beginning with my journal. Just like my beginning, The world didn't really have a beginning. The "Beginning" only began, when God made the beginning. I know it is hard to grasp, in fact it is nearly impossible to. But that is just how God made us. We will get into that some other journal entry....
God made the world, and everything in it, and he saw that it was good. He gave man free will, and thus began the fall of men. I will get into more detail with that stuff later, but for now, just know that man's fall went through a cycle. First Doubt(Gen. 3:1) Denial (3:4) Deception(3:6a) and Deliberate Disobedience(3:6b). After all this, God saw what had happened, and removed man from his perfect garden. A couple of thousand years pass by. We don't know for sure how long it has been since the beginning of time, but we know that enough time went by for the world to start looking ugly. Adam and Eve were the only ones to be in a sinless world. God told them to be fruitful and multiply(that is the exact context, but we all know what that means, lol) and after a few generations, things become worse and worse. Now God doesn't like what he is seeing, and so he decides to wipe them all out. He knows Noah, and tells him to make an Ark. He uses this to pretty much start over. Noah, his wife, his sons, and his sons wives along with two of every animal, and other animals to make sacrifices after the flood is through are allowed on the ark. This flood is the beginning of the Water Evaporation Whateveryouwannacallit system. This is probably what led to people not living to 900 years old anymore, but actually caused the sun's rays to be a little more harsh on the skin, through a mini greenhouse we now see in the sky. Back to the story:
Man start multiplying again, and this time before things get too bad, God finds Abram and makes a covenant with him. God chooses Abraham to be his people. Abraham leads to Isaac, Isaac has 2 sons, Jacob and Esau, and Esau gets chosen for the blessing, but Jacob "steals" it, which we will cover later, Jacob has 12 sons, from his wives Rachael and Leah, and their concubines.
Now let me pause real fast. Jacob is the Jacob who's name actually gets changed to Israel. And Israel has 12 sons, which form the 12 tribes of Israel. He is also the father of Joseph, the boy with the flamboyantly rainbow-colored jacket. He gets sold into slavery, and God blesses him, and he eventually becomes a great leader in Egypt. He eventually rules over his family, and They all do bow down to him. Great story, but anyways....
The twelve tribes eventually start bickering and fighting and yadda yadda, this is where you get into the battles and whatnot maybe a little around judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings definitely. The tribes just have so many situations, and can't really get along with one another, and so on and so forth. I will go into more later, but I will cover some of this stuff as time goes on. Fast-forwarding a little, The Romans come in, and take over pretty much life. This is when Jesus comes along.
Jesus, everyone has heard about him, so I guess I don't have to explain much(for now) but he gets sacrificed on the cross to forgive us of our sins. It is our only way to reach God. After Jesus was gone, a guy named Saul, who was a big Christian-Killer, ends up having a divine intervention from God, and ends up turning a lot of the world at that time around. His letters are now making up much of the new testament, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Philemon, Ephesians, Colossions, etc. Just loads of books that were actually letters he wrote. Anyways, this book ends with Revelation, and that is a story that will be told MUCH later, because of, well honestly, its just a difficult book and I want to get comfy writing about the other things.
After writing this though, I realize I didn't even really explain my religion, just kind of had a little history review. I guess I just wanted to make sure some people got the gist of the bible.
In Him
Matt