It is important that we do not create a God that is not the true God. That is what the Muslims do. Yet the Christian community cannot agree about God or how God works in our life.
How do you decide what is correct and what is not when you hear these conflicting ideas of what God is like? Each belief is based on a separate interpretation of scripture, so to just read scripture doesn’t always work.
As an example of something that can be done, here is what I did. I went to history books to find the history of each conflicting statement. I found that history books must be carefully selected because different views of a historical happening can be reported so only one side is presented. I found that historians trained by Harvard or Yale were most dependable, and I had to be careful to read all sides. That gave me the background of the people who came up with an interpretation. Then I read the reports of each year’s church council meetings. For the first 800 years it was the Catholic Church that was the Christian leaders and they keep good records of the yearly councils.
In this way I could check where each differing interpretation came from and why they interpreted as they did. Then I went to scripture and made sure that there were two scriptures saying the same thing, and also, I kept in mind that the new testament is a fulfillment of the old testament, so I checked each interpretation in both testaments.
1 Corinthians 13: 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
How do you decide what is correct and what is not when you hear these conflicting ideas of what God is like? Each belief is based on a separate interpretation of scripture, so to just read scripture doesn’t always work.
As an example of something that can be done, here is what I did. I went to history books to find the history of each conflicting statement. I found that history books must be carefully selected because different views of a historical happening can be reported so only one side is presented. I found that historians trained by Harvard or Yale were most dependable, and I had to be careful to read all sides. That gave me the background of the people who came up with an interpretation. Then I read the reports of each year’s church council meetings. For the first 800 years it was the Catholic Church that was the Christian leaders and they keep good records of the yearly councils.
In this way I could check where each differing interpretation came from and why they interpreted as they did. Then I went to scripture and made sure that there were two scriptures saying the same thing, and also, I kept in mind that the new testament is a fulfillment of the old testament, so I checked each interpretation in both testaments.
1 Corinthians 13: 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
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