More On Appeasement

At times, throughout the ages, man has fallen prey to 'appeasement' theology. The picture painted in our minds is that there massive white bearded guy sitting on the throne of clouds waiting for us to offer up suitable sacrifices to make him happy.

Look around at the beautiful flowers, birds, greenery, blue sky. Do you think that this world was originally created by a scary narcissist? God is not like that.  The more I read in Genesis and Exodus, the more I understand about how loving and patient God truly is.

If you really want to know who God is, start in Genesis.  Yes I know a lot of people do that when they up and decide to get religious. Often they give up because they say it is too hard.  It is too hard because the religious airwaves have so much clutter flying around. I have been there done that!

I did everything I could to understand the Bible. I took a koine Greek class, I dabbled in Hebrew linguistics. I bought every research book that I thought would help me understand. Yes, some of those skills helped me somewhat just to sort through the variants between versions and doctrine proposed by different organizations.

It wasn't until I absolutely realized that God genuinely wants every person to come to a true knowledge of Him because He genuinely is the God of love. I still love to work the details of the Word but I do it because it is such a blessing, not because I feel I have to appease Him.

We need to understand what went on in Genesis. I had sort of pushed the Old Testament into a "for our learning" (Romans15:4) category and diminished its importance because we live in a different time. That is not what "for our learning" means. Genesis is pretty important to our understanding the big picture especially about the love and patience of God. Exodus and the rest of the Old Testament is too. It is 'for our learning' for real.

One day I bought a new Bible (no old notes) and started in Genesis reading a little at a time and marking places that intrigued me. Thinking about the different records and relating them to life proved fruitful. It also helps to talk to others who are on the same journey. By journey, I don't mean people who believe exactly the same things at the exclusion of others, but people who have the same goal of getting to know who God really is. No one has all the answers to the questions of the Bible, but all believing people have equal access to God. It is amazing sometimes what you can learn from someone who may not agree with you about baptism (dunked, sprinkled or dry-cleaned?) when holy spirit is working in them.

If the wording in the King James is difficult to understand, I look at other versions. I have a Bible that has 4 versions side by side on the page (called a Parallel Bible) to compare texts. Ultimately however, I literally ask God the why of things. The answer comes in a variety of ways and there might be a delay. You learn what you need and want to learn at the right time. There are lots of things I don't understand but that keeps me thinking. Biblical research is absolutely nothing without God and He IS very patient and loving.