Knowing Jesus - The Key to Understanding

The key to understanding the bible is knowing the author. The better we know him, the better we can understand what His words are communicating. Our first goal, in studying the Word, is to get to know Jesus, the Living Word.

Joh 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

If our first order of business is to come to a deep understanding of Jesus, we will find that He is the life of the world (Jn 6:51), the light of the world (Jn 8:12), agape love (1Jn 4:8), never changing (Mal 3:6), all powerful(Jer 32:27), his mercy endures as long as mercy is needed. He is tender, rejoices in the truth, He is truth, He is the way. He is patient, kind and cannot be provoked (1Cor 12). In Him is no darkness at all (1Jn 1:5). He is the creator of all and there is not greater love than the love he has for the world (Jn 15:13). He demonstrated perfect submission to our Heavenly Father for us to follow His example. (Php 2:5-10) etc. etc.

I’ve not begun to scratch the surface, but with knowing Jesus as our foundation, we then should use extreme caution when words of translators appear to contradict or conflict with what God’s word tells us about Himself. Since we know that God’s word was written to tell us about Himself primarily (Jn 5:39) therefore when the translators words teach us about a dark end, a changing attitude, a breach of mercy, a point of provocation that can’t be forgiven, a creatures will that prevails over God’s will, we certainly need to look carefully to find out why there is a discrepancy. For instance, when God, who cannot lie, says through his apostle John, He sent His son to be the savior of the world (1Jn 4:14), and a doctrine comes along that says He is only going to save a few, and the rest He’s going to torture forever. Or when He tells us through Paul Ro 5:18 that by the offense of one all are condemned; even so by the righteousness of one all are justified. And we find conflicting information we need to discern where the error lies. God does not contradict himself. Either the many clear statements which claim Jesus to be the Saviour of the World are incorrect, or the doctrine giving eternality to judgment is incorrect. The two ideas are mutually exclusive. You can’t have it both ways without claiming agnosticism, (I don’t know ism).

Something’s gotta give! I believe a careful examination of the concept of eternity when applied to God’s judgments uncovers a strong bias in the most popular English translations in favor of the doctrine of eternal damnation, that isn’t even found in any of the original language manuscripts available today. I am aware that to search this out takes a fair amount of effort, but there are many who have already done massive amounst of research who can help those who are interested know where to look, greatly reducing the amount of effort required. We also have powerful bible study tools that past generations did not have making the search for truth attainable to the average student of the Word. I am more than willing to help anyone who wants to search this out for themselves. I will even give away Bible software with which you can look at the original language words and their definitions with the click of a mouse.

Love in Christ – Jack D