Obedient Steps of Faith – BT7:  Faith does NOT just come from reading bible verses

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All of us will end up putting our trusting-relying-faith in some THING (this is non-biblical) or some PERSON (this is biblical).  The Jews still trust in Moses and his Law of works for righteousness.  The Gentiles trust and depend on gods, philosophy, other people, their own good deeds, or their possessions.  Bible-students like the Jewish scribes & Pharisees that didn’t really eido mentally ‘see’ to perceive/know God (a), rejected even God’s Son their own Messiah (b), and cursed themselves because “they did absolutely-in-fact-NOT experientially, relationally ginosko know the season of their visitation” (c), repeating what they did to all their own prophets (d).  These bible-students put their trusting-relying-faith in gramma writings collected into graphe scriptures, which Jesus implied they were erroneously “supposing/opinionating that in/by/with them they would take-hold-to-have zoe genuine-life everlasting,” but they missed the whole point of the OT as Jesus continues: “kai and/but these [scriptures] are-they that are routinely/habitually bearing-witness/testifying all-around-about Me, and yet you presently/ongoingly refuse to come to Me that you might take-hold-to-have zoe genuine-life” (e).  They were looking for zoe genuine-life in all the wrong places!

<Notes> a) a term for prophetic vision:  John 7:28, 8:19, 55, 15:21, b) Matthew 21:38, 42; Mark 8:31, 9:31, 12:10; Luke 7:30, 9:22, 10:16, 12:48, 17:25, 20:17, 24:20; Acts 4:11, Romans 11:15; 1 Peter 2:4, 7; Hebrews 12:25; 1 Thessalonians 2:15, c) Luke 19:44, d) Matthew 21:35, 23:37; Luke 11:47, 49, 13:34; Acts 7:52; Romans 11:13; 1 Thessalonians 2:15, e) John 5:37-40.

If you place your trusting-relying-faith in the accuracy of what has survived time as our bible, then your faith is misplaced – see Bible Info.  For example, instead of using long tables to roll out all the manuscript scrolls out on for comparative study as the early Jewish scribes & Pharisees did – see New Covenant Ways – BT17 and – BT18, nowadays they don’t want to expose the scrolls to degrading air or light.  Instead scholars piece together manuscripts under UV-safe air-tight glass and use digital, high-resolution satellite cameras and computer analysis to aid the lengthy process of determining copying-scribe insertions in margins, erasures, corrections, and even previous underlying text because materials were often washed of the older writings.  They labor intensely using computers to put the fragments together to form their best guess of the original text. It’s very complicated and time consuming!

There are “around 400,000 textual variants of the NT, a staggering number when coupled with the fact that there are only 138,000 words in the Greek NT, meaning there are almost 3 variants per word.  However, “less than 4000 (2.8% of the NT) have a good chance of being authentic and changing the meaning of the text,” writes Tim Barnett 5/24/2016. And many of those 4000 variants change Christian doctrine radically!  Furthermore, if you read the scholarly papers, there is much ongoing debate just about everything in this process of “textual criticism.”

That’s what these scholars do for a living:  “craving debate, arguing over words, and controversies about the manuscripts that breed quarrels” – exactly what the NT repeatedly says not to be involved in (a) because Jesus didn’t (b), and to avoid the scribes and Law-teachers like the plague who stir up divisions (c), a terrible leaven to beware of that we know is spread throughout the loaf (d).  That’s what the scholarly approach to Christianity has indeed done!  They make lots of money doing this also, and there is so much illegal buying/selling of ancient manuscripts!  <Notes> a) Titus 3:2, 9; Romans 13:13, 14:1; 1 Corinthians 1:11; 2 Corinthians 12:20; 1 Timothy 2:8, 3:3, 6:4; 2 Timothy 2:14, 23-24; James 4:1-2, b) Matthew 12:19-20 citing Isaiah 42:2, c) Romans 16:17; 1 Timothy 4:7, 6:4, 6:20; 2 Timothy 2:16, 23, 3:5; Titus 3:10; Jude 1:19, d) Matthew 16:6, 11-12; Mark 8:15; Luke 12:1.

When you stop buying into Christian propaganda and really look at the manuscript evidence and Church history of the OT and NT Canon, what’s supposed to be in the bible, it’s easy to have your trusting-relying-faith seriously shaken – if you have wrongly placed it in bible accuracy!  A lot of people go to seminary and after learning all this, lose their trusting-relying-faith, so these schools have the nickname “cemetery” for a reason! Many people have abandoned their trusting-relying-faith, because it is based on traditions of men that rely on manuscript accuracy!  That’s all they had to stand on!  And when they actually see 400,000 textual variants and 4000 cases that “change the meaning significantly and meaningfully,” they are blown away!  And that’s just in the NT, which albeit was copied much more loosely than the Jews did of their OT.  I was one of those Christians, taught by the Church of Christ from 1980-1983 to be really good at bible study – see Bible Info.  Can’t you tell?

What you really need to ask yourself is this:  “Did God really want us to work this hard just to know Him and His will, by make this gnosis informational-knowledge accessible and understandable only to ‘the wise and understanding ones’ or is there a much easier way?  See Bible Info – BT2, New Covenant Ways – BT16, and Least Among You – BT8 for the answer!  Many manuscript scholars often sit on their findings for many, many years before the public ever gets to see their translations!  What are they afraid of?  I think most of it has to do with securing publishing rights, more grant money, and selling books!

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Spiritual Education, Faith does NOT come from just reading bible verses, Bible-students often are looking for life in the scriptures instead of coming to the Messiah, Bible-students put their faith in the thing of the bible instead of seeking a relationship with Jesus, Bible-students have historically despised prophecy, Prophets are never found focusing on bible-study, It takes crazy faith to believe the bible is accurate because experts know better, scholars are still debating significant portions of manuscripts and the canon, It’s easier to have faith in an experiential relationship with Jesus thru the Spirit, The way of the scholar to know God and His will show partiality against the uneducated, New Covenant Way is direct relationship epignosis knowledge