Spiritual Ponderings

Another one of the confusing religious words was brought to my attention recently and was unpacked much more clearly for me. This is the word repentance . As usual, the first ideas that come to mind whenever most of us hear religious terms is almost always based on the false assumptions and traditions built up over centuries of religion, not on true Biblical perspective. Yes, they are often defended and taught using Biblical verses to prop up their traditional use at times, but that does not mean that the Bible supports the way that we perceive them. I have been learning that more and more over the past few years as I have explored one thing after another and found that nearly every word and concept and teaching has been distorted to some degree or another. Even the translators of every version of the Bible introduced a great deal of their own bias and opinions into the text that has seriously obscured the intensity and clarity of the original languages. The normal idea that man...

I was recently listening to a quotation that alerted me to a hidden danger that I had never thought about before. But this is a danger that I now realize has become a cause for much of the arguing and bigotry on the part of many religious people all over the world. It is the idea that the Word of God somehow is to be given greater priority than God Himself. Now I am also aware of the counterpart danger that has led to the reinforcement of this philosophy and teaching. That is, the danger of depending on emotional whims, feelings or excitement to have more importance in one's spiritual journey without accountability to the Word of God. As I think of it now, this seeming tension between which one should be given precedence is not unlike the struggle that goes on over which side of the brain should be respected or trained the most, the left, logical side or the right more emotional side. As I have been learning over recent years, the right side of the brain is actually the cont...