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To my dismay and consternation,
1 found, as 1 continued reading the
Bible, even more surprises.
1
found,
in fact, that even religious leaders
did not understand what was in the
pages of the Bible!
You do not have to take my word
for these facts. You don't have to
believe what
1
say, just because
1
say
it. My personal opinion means noth–
ing.
The important thing for you to do
is to find out for yourself. Check up,
look into your Bible, and see
if
it is
everything
it
claims to be.
Where Should You Begin?
The Bible is a challenging book.
When
1
first began reading it,
1
didn' t know what surprises were in
store for me.
1
couldn't foresee what
a tremendous effect it would later
cometo have on my life!
You may be in the precise posi–
tion
1
found myself in, twenty years
or so ago. You may, at this very mo–
ment, have never read the Bible.
But let me tell you about sorne of
the shocks that occurred as 1 studied
and thought about the Bible. Right
away, 1 became confused and frus–
trated when I listened to what other
men and religious leaders had to say
about the Bible. 1 thought, at first,
that their opinions might be helpful.
But what 1 found was that reli–
gious leaders and other men were
themselves mixed up and confused
about the Bible! As incredible as it
seemed to me at tbe time, I found
that traíned and educated men
themselves could not even agree on
what the Bible said or taught! One
said one thíng, and another said the
exact opposite! lt was baffling, con–
fusing, mind-boggling. In the mídst
of this confusion, I made a decision
that was to have a profound in–
ftuence on my life.
T
decided that in view of the con–
troversy surrounding the Bible 1
wasn't going to take any man's word
for what the Bible taught. Rather, 1
decided to compare what each roan
taught wíth what others taught , and
PlAIN TRUTH March 1973
then - this is important - I decíded
that
1
would put them all to the test
and read
the Bible itself
to find out
the truth!
1
was flabbergasted at the result.
When
1
went to the Bíble and read
it for myself,
1
soon found that sorne
of the most cherished , time-honored
teachíngs that
1
had heard as a boy,
and had assumed to be true, were
nowhere to be found in the Bible!
Incredulous, with my mind
churning, I learned that many pop–
ular "Christian" teachings, which
1
had always accepted and assumed
to be Biblical, were really the dia–
metric opposite to what
I
read in the
pages of the Bible itself!
Can you imagine my state of
mind?
For example,
1
found that Jesus
said, "Blessed are the meek: for they
shall inherit the earth" (Matthew
5:5).
I found that those wbo do
Christ's will shall "reign on the
earth" (Revelation
5: 10),
and coro–
pared this with the teachings of
m
en.
Upon further examination, 1
found that the Bible says tbat the
patriarch David died and was
buried (Acts 2:29), and Peter, who
lived 1,000 years la ter, said of
David, after all that time, "For
David did
NOT
ascend ínto the
heavens ..." (Acts 2:34, RSV).
And finally, 1 read the very words
of Jesus who declared: "No
ONE HAS
ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN
but he who
descended from heaven, the Son of
man" (John 3:13, RSV).
J
was astoníshed. But there ít was,
right before my very eyes, right in
the Bible. And l couldn't argue with
it! Of course I had heard the popu–
lar "Christian" teaching that the
saints go to heaven wheo they die.
But here was the Bible - and it said
what 1 had never heard before.
Obviously, al! the different de–
nominations neíther rightly under–
stand nor properly interpret the
Bible! However, Jesus Himself said,
"Scripture cannot be broken" (John
10:35, RSV). To make it even
plaíner, He added later: "Thy word
[the Bible] ís
truth"
(John 17: 17). He
saíd men ought to live by every
word of God, referríng to the Bible
(Matthew 4:4; Luke 4:4).
How, then, can
you
right1y under–
stand the Bible - a unique book
that cootains a message which has
endured through the ages?
Read the Book
To come to grasp the real mean–
ing of the Bible and its contents, you
must first of all
read it.
Reading
books
about
the Bible is not enough.
The place to begin is with the Bible
itself - read ít, study it, as you
would any worthwbile book.
Generally, the place to start is in
the beginning - that ís, with the
book of Genesís, the first book in
the Old Testament. However, many
people begin wi th the first book of
the New Testament.
It
really doesn't
matter, as long as you begin. Of
course,
if
you begin with the book of
Genesis, and then read right
through, you will begin to see a
story flow through the entire Bible.
You wílllearn the history and back–
ground of many of the events men–
tioned later in the New Testament.
To come to understand any book,
whether a textbook of biology, civ–
ícs, or history, you must read the
book itself. The apostle Paul praísed
the Bereans, "for they receíved the
word with all eagemess, examíníng
the scriptures daily to see
if
these
things were so" (Acts 17:11 , RSV) .
What translation should you
read? That is up to you. There are
many good English translations, in–
cludíng the popular King James
Version and the more modero Re–
vised Standard Version. Other help–
ful translations are the Moffatt
version, the Goodspeed version, and
The New English Bible.
A popular
modero paraphrase of the Bible is
The Living Bible,
but it is not as ac–
curate as the more literal trans–
lations.
Begin reading the Bible with an
open-minded, inquisitive approach
35