(1) Correct. You do not understand. Is the reason due to not understanding the theme or the purpose of the Bible? If you want to know what the author's focus is, read the title. He is showing us "How To Study The Bible." But one cannot, and will not understand it without somebody who does understand to explain it. In a nutshell, that's the point of this note.
this is not complicated. it is not rocket science. you dont have to be a Greek philosopher to understand the bible. it was written for a primitive society (by today's standards) and they were NOT Greek philosophers.
(2) Wrong. You just said above you did not understand. Now you're saying you do understand when you do not. I read that what the author is saying is that God is not happy with the way religionists have misinterpreted and misapplied God's idea of what a sacrifice is and ought to be. Essentially, the author hints that humans have reinvented and incorporated paganistic ritual sacrifices they think will improve their worship to God, but in fact God is rejecting their wrong approach. That's all.
well, the way I read it, you can’t sacrifice an animal or your neighbor, you have to sacrifice yourself. die to self as opposed to designating “the wife” for example as the religious person in your family.
It is a little bit of a stretch, because you can’t really say “well, I offer my slave in sacrifice”, so perhaps his argument about sacrificing “other” is not so persuasive these days, when we don’t own each other.
But my take on his comments is that you have to sacrifice yourself to please God.