The issue is that all the words straight from the Bible get interpreted by clergy and ourselves, viewed through the lenses of the times we live in, experiences we’ve had, assumptions we make, prejudices we hold, etc.
Who still talks about usery today? You have churches or denominations today that run their own credit unions!
https://www.openbible.info/topics/usury
That was a huge deal a long time ago.
What about those unequally yolked marriages. Think real hard if that concept today is applied the same way it was interpreted by MOST US churches in 1960.
When you have no traditions, when you have no real doctrine, when you have no laying of hands (apostolic succession), when the clergy do not know the classic languages, have not traveled and laid foot on the actual soil where the events of Jesus occurred, when these clergy are educated in online courses that take a mere matter of months to complete, you have no more than the blind leading the blind. They may sound convincing and employ good rhetoric, what comes out of their mouth sounds “religious,” gets a crowd going, but the problem is the crowd is going in the wrong direction.
In the US, nation of homo marriage, female pastors, pet heaven, automatic forgiveness of sins (just hold the hand a bit higher in the air to feel that spirit if you sinned really bad), open communion, rapture, holy underwear, but of course alcohol became a huge sin in some of the churches (remnants of the temperance movement), Voodoo rituals in a church, and a patron saint for drug dealers. Anything is possible, and it’s all biblical according to the people that follow it. You have 60 main stream denominations that in practice and teachings vary widely even in what they say is right or wrong, and they all claim to take it straight from the Bible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jes%C3%BAs_Malverde You can’t make this stuff up!
You have clergy that are clueless, Bibles that have been translated and rewritten many times, and folks going to church for a “feeling” and if they don’t get what they want they go somewhere else.
My entire diatribes can be summarized with 2 points: (1) Be careful, someone that smiles a lot and tells you things you want to hear or which may make you “feel good” may not be a good shepherd. (2) In the US with all our divisions not only are Christians divided and weak (attacking each other and not standing united on common ground issues), some of the craziness you see in some of these churches is discrediting or making Christianity into a joke and long term will cause damage.
The issue is that all the words straight from the Bible get interpreted by clergy and ourselves, viewed through the lenses of the times we live in, experiences we’ve had, assumptions we make, prejudices we hold, etc.
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Nicely done. I’ve been trying without success for a week to get your point across to those on this thread who think their own interpretation of Holy Writ is infallible, but they adamantly disagree with me and strongly imply that I am under the spell of the Evil One!