1 Peter 3:15...How Important Is this?

[Jethro Bodine]

If I could only understand what it is that convinces people that it is indeed the word of God, I may just have a way past that barrier.

What convinces me? The conviction of sin guilt. And the conviction that upon death if you have not made peace with God you have no part of God and will not go to be with Him. That is what convinces me and countless others that the Bible is true.

That is why I'm unmoved by any debate about the authenticity of Christianity and the Bible. To entertain any doubts about them is to give up what I know I have surely received from God--the forgiveness of God. My faith and my confidence is not based on mere words. It's based on a deep seated conviction of the truth about sin and the judgment to come that I received from outside of myself, not from my own reasoning power or formal education about these things.

Underneath it all I just know sin is real, and the God who judges all of mankind is real. The bedrock of the Christian faith is the forgiveness of sins. For me to entertain doubts and suspicions about Christianity and the Bible is to give up that which I cherish above anything else in life--the forgiveness of my sins.

 

[Chopper]

I have done exactly as you ask, to the best of my ability. I will wait now to see what happens.

Hello again, I like what you said, to the best of my ability. That's all Jesus is asking right now. I'll explain in my next post to you. I want you to read this before others jump in and possibly add thought that right now is not necessary, in my opinion.

 

[Chopper]

overcoming that barrier

Here we go dear Aardverk, Now, you have done what God in His Word says to become His child. Now, lets work on that side of your mind that is a "barrier". First of all, there is a war going on for the eternal state of your soul. Satan is and has been fighting hard for you to spend eternity with him in the "lake of fire". And, Jesus is calling you through His Holy Spirit to spend eternity in the new heaven & earth with the rest of His children. That's where I'll be, praise Jesus!

My position in this conversation is what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 "And I, when I came to you brothers. did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demostration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God."

My friend, it's obvious that, at some point in your life, there was a desire to know spiritual things. That usually is because the Holy Spirit is calling you to salvation. Satan has for almost seven thousand years been able to discern when a person is moving toward salvation. Somehow he knows that you are going to be very valuable to God in His quest to save those Whom He is calling to be His child. Boy is Satan fighting to keep you from Jesus Christ. It's been a long time since I've seen a war like this one with you. You are very important to God, He has a plan for your life. He has already prepared the way for a wonderful, fulfilling adventure with His Son Jesus the Christ.
Satan has put up this barrier of doubt about the reliability of what we have in our Bibles as the true Word of God. I can't speak to every word in our present Bible as to, through the translators, it is exactly like the original manuscripts. I do know this, Almighty God has overseen all translations simply because the Scriptures is His to us. God created everything to His standard and He's not about to let man mess with the plan of Salvation. We have in our hands, a reliable exact, expression of how to come to the Father God through Salvation. The process has never changed, God won't let it!

So, you have a dividing line. On one side of the barrier you have Satan with his men who have discounted the reliably of the translations, and on the other side of the barrier you have the Holy Spirit of God saying "pay no attention to what Satan has messed up you mind with. Choose life with Jesus, not death with Satan"..... You have taken the first step in Salvation. You have believed on the Name of Jesus Christ. You have believed that He died and rose again and the Scriptures say that you are saved. Now you must un-learn that crap about cannonization, leave it with God, He know the truth! Your next prayer to your Heavenly Father is HELP, HELP, HELP me understand Your Word. Holy Spirit teach me. Jesus love me. I believe that you meant it when you did what I asked. I don't believe your a dis-honest person. So hang on! buckle up! Whatever God has for you, it's got to be very good because you have just come out of a battle. My prayer for you: Dear God, help my new brother forget the past and reach forward to you for new heavenly knowledge that will bring Glory to you and to Your Son. Amen

 

[Vaccine]

That is why I have always asked people why they believe that The Bible is the word of God. Sadly I have never received an answer which makes sense - to me.

I am sorry to hear that. I do hope you find an answer someday that resonates within you.

Beyond that, we get a brief mention, by Pliny, of Jesus and his brother but no other historical support.

I don't mean this as a challenge, because I understand there are a lot of disparaging facts out there about christianity. I just want to give you hope that there are facts supporting the case for Christ as well. I read in "Evidence That Demands A Vedict" (McDowell) as many as 30 historians mention Jesus.

Tacitus (AD 56 – 117), is generally accepted as greatest Roman historian. In his Annals, he mentions Christ in a passage which most scholars accept as authentic regarding the Emperor Nero:

"But neither human effort nor the emperor’s generosity nor the placating of the gods ended the scandalous belief that the fire had been ordered. Therefore, to put down the rumor, Nero substituted as culprits and punished in the most unusual ways those hated for their shameful acts, whom the crowd called “Chrestians.” The founder of this name, Christ, had been executed in the reign of Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Pilate Auctor nominis eius Christus Tiberio imperitante per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio adfectus erat. Suppressed for a time, the deadly superstition erupted again not only in Judea, the origin of this evil, but also in the city Rome, where all things horrible and shameful from everywhere come together and become popular. Therefore, first those who admitted to it were arrested, then on their information a very large multitude was convicted, not so much for the crime of arson as for hatred of the human race odium humani generis."

http://www.christianforums.net/showthread.php?t=52152&highlight=josephius+pliny

Attention to facts has moved me from your side of the barrier to my side and sadly I can't find any way back.

I thought I'd also share some info about the dead sea scrolls, with the hope it will sway you some! What you say is true, it comes down to faith, so I hope this will add some weight to the other side.
http://seethescrolls.com/exhibition/about-the-scroll-fragments

 

[ezrider]

This, I fear, is the true problem. If any of us believe - then we believe, if any of us disbelieve - then we disbelieve. There seems to be no way of overcoming that barrier. My disbelief, or rather my doubts, are based on facts not upon anything supernatural or instinctive. If I cannot move past that barrier for supernatural or instinctive reasons, I am left with a study of facts but facts have, so far, lead me to more and more doubt rather than more and more belief. That is why I have always asked people why they believe that The Bible is the word of God. Sadly I have never received an answer which makes sense - to me.

I'm sorry to say that, to me, it is a confusing collection of edited ancient texts and no more. It was compiled amid much arguing and disagreement with many previous strands of Christianity being completely dismissed and their scrolls destroyed. If I could only understand what it is that convinces people that it is indeed the word of God, I may just have a way past that barrier.


Starting without that faith, how does one change? I seems an insurmountable barrier.

You're never starting with out that faith, it is all ready sown inside of you. Remember, "I stand at the door and knock". The barriers are not insurmountable, because they are barriers people build up themselves. Barriers they carry in the flesh, the wages of sin, and the thirst for knowledge. I can empathize with you when you say the more you study the facts, only leads to more doubt and disbelief. I have been there before. Many years ago, I would study the Bible daily, always trying to understand the meanings of all the words. And I thought myself a true believer, but there came a point, that the more knowledge I consumed, the less I really knew, and it choked the faith out of me. You see, I had on my gospel armor. I believed the the Bible, so I was girded with my belt of truth. I believed the Jesus died and rose again, so i had on my helmet of salvation, and surely because I could quote the Bible, I could wield that sword of truth. And my shield of faith, oh how believed that Bible. But something happened, my desire for the knowledge in the Bible ultimately destroyed my faith. I was shattered, the only thing that kept me was a line from the scripture that said "remember your first love," it brought my mind back to Christ, and Christ alone. Then the Lord took me on a journey through the scriptures that revealed him like I'd never seen before. I saw that HE is my Salvation, HE is my righteousness, HE is my Truth, HE is my Peace. HE is my FAITH, and He is the Word of God. And the Lord showed me that my faith had been based upon my beliefs and on my knowledge. And I saw as though the gospel armor that I had put on had been pulled off piece by piece until I was standing there naked before the Lord; then I was clothed with a new garment, and saw that this armor of God was but just one piece, and can not be broken, as in many pieces. And that armor is Christ.

It is a matter of faith, and that faith still dwells within you. The only advise I can offer, is to lay aside the rest, and remember your first love. Meditate on Him and Him alone. When you receive him, he will teach you what you need to know.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

I don't know how things like 'do not steal', 'do not covet', 'do not commit adultery', 'do not lie', have to be validated as truth.

Before I got saved, I did not know much of what was in the Bible outside of the Ten Commandments. That was enough truth, and truth that did not have to be validated as being truth, for me to seek God's forgiveness of my sins so I could be saved, not condemned when I die.

 

[Aardverk]

....... My friend, it's obvious that, at some point in your life, there was a desire to know spiritual things. .........

I have always had that desire; it has never gone away. I once had a firm and sure faith in God but it disappeared. I do not feel at all that I ever 'rejected' God, I just found that so many of the things that I believed were true were in fact no more than rumors and opinions.

I have nevertheless lived my life very much in the way that I believe a Christian should, in the hope that what you do and how you behave is actually more important than what you believe. I can not pretend. If there is an almighty God who knows my most secret thoughts, what on earth would be the point in pretending?

It shocks me that so many people on this forum seem to think that what you believe is more important that what you do and how you behave - but if I can't believe - is that my fault? Some say that I should start by pretending to believe and true belief will follow but I simply can't. That would be lying to other people and to God. If there is a God, He knows what is in my heart and the heart of every one of us.

I will just have to wait and see if my prayers are ever answered. If they are not, I just hope that I have lived as a good example to others. At the very least, to my children and grand children.

 

[Aardverk]

I don't mean this as a challenge, because I understand there are a lot of disparaging facts out there about christianity. I just want to give you hope that there are facts supporting the case for Christ as well. I read in "Evidence That Demands A Vedict" (McDowell) as many as 30 historians mention Jesus.

Instead of 30 historians, I would suggest that many hundreds of historians mention Jesus but they were not contemporaries of Jesus. Pliny the Elder was alive at the time of Jesus which is why I singled him out. Origen was another contemporary and he lived in the village next to Nazareth. Despite that he never mentions Jesus of Nazareth - isn't that strange!

Tacitus (AD 56 – 117), is generally accepted as greatest Roman historian. In his Annals, he mentions Christ in a passage which most scholars accept as authentic regarding the Emperor Nero:.....

Yes, but he wasn't even born until way after Jesus died. Expecting him to have revealing insights is rather like expecting you or me to be able to produce new information about the 1st world war.

I thought I'd also share some info about the dead sea scrolls, with the hope it will sway you some! What you say is true, it comes down to faith, so I hope this will add some weight to the other side.

I did try reading the Dead Sea scrolls but it was hard going and I gave up. To the best of my knowledge there is no mention of Jesus but some references to an Essene activist could well be him. The Essenes were clearly very much against the way the temples were being used.

Unfortunately there are documents in those scrolls which pre-date Jesus by over a hundred years but which contain many of the words of Jesus that I like. For example, most of the words of the sermon on the mount appear in the scrolls from 100 years before Jesus. I still like to think of them as Jesus's words though.

I imagine that is part of the reason that the Vatican kept them hidden away for 40 years or so and why they only released them in dribs and drabs. It would have been a huge shock to Christianity to release them all at once.

Thank you for those references, they are much appreciated.

 

[Aardverk]

....It is a matter of faith, and that faith still dwells within you. The only advise I can offer, is to lay aside the rest, and remember your first love. Meditate on Him and Him alone. When you receive him, he will teach you what you need to know.

Thank you. I think you understand the problem.

I do try, I really do but I still find myself on the wrong side of that barrier. I can only wait and, in the mean time, try to understand what it is that motivates others to believe that The Bible is the word of God - or inspired by God - whichever you prefer.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

It shocks me that so many people on this forum seem to think that what you believe is more important that what you do and how you behave...

Welcome to the end-times church Jesus prophesied about.

- but if I can't believe - is that my fault?

Please tell your audience exactly what it is that you can't believe. That God is real? That the judgment to come is real? That even if God is real he has no right to condemn us as sinners? That God can not/does not forgive sin? That the sin we think is sin really isn't sin?

This will help us understand your struggle.

 

[Chopper]

I have always had that desire; it has never gone away

James said "Faith without works is dead". 1 John is full of proofs of Salvation and it all is centered on works. Example: 2:4 "Whoever says I know him but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abids in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked."

Listen, don't listen to what others are saying. In your heart, you know if you belong to God because subconsciously you will be working out God's will for your life. Obviously not all the time. When you were saved the Holy Spirit came into your being to guide you into all truth and from what you are telling me, He has been busy. I am convinced that your enemy has found a way into your mind. The door of access was probably your research into canon procedures. Satan attacks our beliefs about Jesus Christ. If he can put doubt into your mind then he can accuse you before God. Your faith will be weakened but never destroyed, never! You need to put on your battle clothes, grab your sword, the Bible, and fight Satan with the Word of God. Start with 1 John and tell yourself, when it identifies the true believer, THATS ME. Get on the positive side of your faith instead of thinking "it disappeared" Satan made you think is disappeared. Man, can he mess with our minds. Anithing that is anti-God is anti-Christ. Begin speaking truth into yourself instead of the lies of Satan. You have to fight, fight, fight and fight some more! I wonder, why is Satan picking on you? It's war my friend, it's war! You can win this. Remember when you had it together? You were probably saved then but Satan has deceived you. Listen, who cares how we got the Bible. We got it by the power of God through the Holy Spirit.

I could go on and on but please change your thinking. There is enough evidence of your Salvation in your life and you know it. So tell that old lying, deceiving devil to get behind you and don't look back. Take your Christianity and run with it. Go to a good Bible preaching church, get involved in a men's Bible study and pick up where you dropped off and "get r done"

 

[Chopper]

try to understand what it is that motivates others to believe that The Bible is the word of God - or inspired by God - whichever you prefer.

OK, here it is. This is the most dramatic text that explains what you are asking. Isaiah 7:14 "therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His Name Immanuel." Now, Matthew 1:18-23 Read it.

 

[ezrider]

....It is a matter of faith, and that faith still dwells within you. The only advise I can offer, is to lay aside the rest, and remember your first love. Meditate on Him and Him alone. When you receive him, he will teach you what you need to know.

Thank you. I think you understand the problem.

I do try, I really do but I still find myself on the wrong side of that barrier. I can only wait and, in the mean time, try to understand what it is that motivates others to believe that The Bible is the word of God - or inspired by God - whichever you prefer.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Bible is a collection of words of God, and in fact inspired words; But in the end, these words can only impress upon us from the flesh, because the Bible is of the flesh. The true Word of God is Spirit, and dwells within you.

If you want to know why people call it the Word of God, http://www.christianforums.net/showthread.php?t=54295

 

[ezrider]

try to understand what it is that motivates others to believe that The Bible is the word of God - or inspired by God - whichever you prefer.

OK, here it is. This is the most dramatic text that explains what you are asking. Isaiah 7:14 "therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His Name Immanuel." Now, Matthew 1:18-23 Read it.

And even more significant than that...

Deuteronomy 18:15-19
The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken; According to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not. And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken. I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.

 

[Vaccine]

Instead of 30 historians, I would suggest that many hundreds of historians mention Jesus but they were not contemporaries of Jesus. Pliny the Elder was alive at the time of Jesus which is why I singled him out. Origen was another contemporary and he lived in the village next to Nazareth. Despite that he never mentions Jesus of Nazareth - isn't that strange!

I hope you don't take this as opposition to you personally, I understand you are struggling with a lot of facts. It is to those facts which I direct my post.
When Origen's (AD 184-253) religious views and birthplace of Alexandria are taken into consideration, it's interesting but doesn't change the consensus. The historians mentioned by McDowell predate Origen: Titus Flavius Josephus, AD 37-100, Suetonius Tranquillus (AD 69 – 122), Tacitus (AD 56 – 117), Lucian of Samosata (115—200 AD), Thallus AD 53.

Unfortunately there are documents in those scrolls which pre-date Jesus by over a hundred years but which contain many of the words of Jesus that I like. For example, most of the words of the sermon on the mount appear in the scrolls from 100 years before Jesus. I still like to think of them as Jesus's words though.

The words from the 1QS scroll that predate Jesus are:
"Love all the sons of light, each according to his lot in Gods design, and hate all the sons of darkness, each according to his guilt in God's vengeance"

The words of Jesus from Matt 5:43:
"You have heard that it was said, 'you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy'. But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in Heaven."
I see the similarity in the reference to Lev 19:18, but Jesus takes a drastic departure from Lev 19:18.

Some scholars on the dead sea scroll program deny the virgin birth, but they say there is no evidence the traditional consensus is under attack by the dead sea scrolls.

I imagine that is part of the reason that the Vatican kept them hidden away for 40 years or so and why they only released them in dribs and drabs. It would have been a huge shock to Christianity to release them all at once.

That may be the opinion of some. Another reason they withheld them isn't as sensational. Just plain greed, they wanted to be the first to publish the translation. Not an uncommon reason for people to withhold documents.


***Just FYI, Most scholars don't give any credence to the idea the Buddhist oral tradition of a virgin birth had anything to do with Jesus. The earliest reliable documentation of Buddha is after the NT.
“I want to emphasize this point: Commonly repeated stories about the life of Buddha are the stuff of legend, not history”
atrick S. Bresnan.Awakening: An Introduction to the History of Eastern Thought. Second Edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003, 1999.***

 

[Chopper]

Well my friend, I have given you some simple plain truth. I would not be surprised if the devil read these posts he'd get saved. :toofunny I'd like my two frinds Edward and Mike to jump in and give you information that I've not thought of or just plain ignorant. Those two are anointed in explaining God's Word. I respect them highly.

 

[Edward]

Well my friend, I have given you some simple plain truth. I would not be surprised if the devil read these posts he'd get saved. I'd like my two frinds Edward and Mike to jump in and give you information that I've not thought of or just plain ignorant. Those two are anointed in explaining God's Word. I respect them highly.

I can't believe the turn this thread has took since I checked in! Praise the Lord, the Holy Spirit is obviously at work here.

It seems to me that Aardverk has never lost all of his faith, or that the Holy Spirit has never left him. I mean, he thought he lost his faith, but continues to be drawn to God and the seeking of the truth here on the Christian board. There's your proof sir. That's a fact also. I don't mean to be presumptuous but think about it...you tell yourself that you have no faith, but here you are. Why is that do you think. Could it be that deep down inside that you do feel it, but the thoughts arise that say you don't? I think this could be.

I didn't think I had any faith at first, but deep down I realized that I did. Not only that, I had enough to know how it works...that there's a war in the mind for control. Voices. Some are mine, some are...others. There seem to be three. Mine, God (or conscience, if you will), and Satan. Some reckon them to be cartoonish, a little angel and a little devil. But they're real and scripture speaks of it, Paul spoke of the war within my mind.

I believe that if God were not real, or had given up in Ardverk, he would no longer have this 'conscience' and drive for facts and truth. There is the proof of his faith that God has sown within him. Believe THAT and run with it. The way I do it is to put the ball in the Lords court...I pray...Lord, I put my faith and trust in you...here I am Lord. Send me your Holy Spirit and reveal to me the truth as you promised...I do not want to die in judgment Lord. I am nothing and am as a lost little child, and will die without you...help me.

This is how it works. It's all about faith. Laying it at Jesus feet and trusting Him. He has never let me down. He always keeps His promises. He wants us to put our faith into Him. Blessed are those who have not seen, yet believed. God is wonderfully patient with us (me!). He knows it's hard for us. He will not put on us more than we can bear. I also helped to prove the Lord is real through paying tithes. It says in scripture that this is the only way that we can test Him...so in (un-belief) I paid tithes to see what would happen...The Lord honored his promise and did not let me down in doing this, childlike though it was...another step, a little more faith.

Lord give me something to believe in, reveal yourself to me...His Spirit bears witness with our spirit and gives us truth from within. Not anything that we can take to the laboratory and prove by scientific testing, but personal proof nonetheless. Inwardly, I have my proof. Other Christians will attest to this, no doubt. We're in the age of grace and faith. If God would let himself be scientifically proven, it would destroy His plan of us taking Him on faith.

When we read, we input information. Then we sleep on it. Our mind and spirit digests it, and then...it becomes knowledge. It is the same way with reading the Word. The Word is the seed. Then the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit and...faith and knowledge comes from it. Put the ball in the Lords court. He wants you too. Lay this at Jesus feet in prayer, and occupy, wait. Meditate on this and listen closely for the Spirit of God to speak to your heart.

 

[Aardverk]

........Listen, don't listen to what others are saying. In your heart, you know if you belong to God because subconsciously you will be working out God's will for your life.

I would certainly have agreed with you once upon a time but that 'feeling' has completely gone. My head has over-ruled by heart.

Listen, who cares how we got the Bible. We got it by the power of God through the Holy Spirit.

But I DO care. I VERY much care. The Bible is the absolute core of Christianity. Without The Bible Christianity would not exist. EVERYTHING that Christians believe is contained in The Bible. It is absolutely fundamental to Christianity. Without The Bible, Christianity, as we know it, would not exist. We would have many more people, such as me, choosing for themselves what to believe and what not to believe - which is very much why I no longer describe myself as a Christian.

Having said that, I don't think it is realistic to expect The Bible to be encyclopediacally accurate. If it was given to mankind nearly 2,000 years ago, it could quite reasonably been couched in terms that they may have been able to understand then. The fact that we know that some of the stories in The Bible are only fables (The Ark for example) does not matter to me at all. As well as those fables we also know of tens of thousands of copying and translation errors but again, that is irrelevant to me. The main, absolutely crucial thing is - where did that core of Christianity come from?

We know, historically, that Constantine ordered it to be compiled to stop the various Christian sects from fighting each other. We know that there was much wrangling and argument during its production. We know that Eusebius was the most prominent biscop involved it the editing process AND that he could and did write instructions on behalf of emperor Constantine. We know that Constantine was fed up with all the arguing and he wrote to the council telling them not to waste time of trivial matters - all he wanted was a Bible to keep the peace. Eusebius, the biscop with the ear of Constantine, got his way in the editing process and managed to destroy much of the opposing voices and documents.

In all that acrimonious and patently unpleasant (to some) process, I can not see any sign of influence from God...... which is why I keep asking the question - why do people believe that The Bible is the word of God? Not only was the initial process full of dispute, there were, very rapidly thereafter a further series of attempts to edit The Bible all over again.

That is a very brief explanation of the cognitive barrier that I need to overcome. I would love to be able to ignore all that (and much more) but I simply don't understand how anyone can understand these facts yet ignore them and happily assume that The Bible is nevertheless the word of God. I just don't understand and I am still searching for someone to explain how they ignore the facts.

……. get involved in a men's Bible study and pick up where you dropped off and "get r done"

That was very much the start of my problem! I used to go to study groups, found strange (to me) interpretations of what was very clearly written and started to look back at the original documents to see if they made the truth any more clear. Whilst doing that, I obviously learned more and more about the actual history of The Bible. Once I realized that it was the work of arguing, acrimonious men, with no evidence of it being the work of God, the rot started to set into my faith. It also came as quite a shock to me to learn that the whole idea of the homoousios nature of God was only invented during that editing process; as a fudge to over-come differing beliefs. That was another nail in the coffin of my faith. It had never dawned at me at that time that God has never claimed a homoousios nature, it is simply an invention of man dating from 325AD precisely. Sadly I have never been able to over-come these 'revelations'.

OK, here it is. This is the most dramatic text that explains what you are asking. Isaiah 7:14 "therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His Name Immanuel." Now, Matthew 1:18-23 Read it.

Thank you. I did read it again but I'm afraid it did not move me. There were so many 'gods' pre-dating Jesus that were all said to be 'born of a virgin' that this whole concept seems copied, borrowed and conflated between a mass of stories. Bear in mind that there were dozens of 'foreign' religions brought into 'Palestinium' by the Romans and few of the locals would have separated the various stories in their minds. As Christianity got started, it would have been alien and mixed up in the minds of many with the tales from other religions. This would explain why there were so many differing threads of Christianity. There are even claims that the name of the Roman soldier who raped Mary is known. I very much doubt that his name is known but I do feel that explanation is fairly likely for all of these claims of virgin birth. Please do not take that as an insult to your beliefs. I only mention it as a partial explanation of why the passage does not move me.

 

[Aardverk]

........This is how it works. It's all about faith. Laying it at Jesus feet and trusting Him. He has never let me down. He always keeps His promises. He wants us to put our faith into Him. Blessed are those who have not seen, yet believed. God is wonderfully patient with us (me!). He knows it's hard for us. He will not put on us more than we can bear. I also helped to prove the Lord is real through paying tithes. It says in scripture that this is the only way that we can test Him...so in (un-belief) I paid tithes to see what would happen...The Lord honored his promise and did not let me down in doing this, childlike though it was...another step, a little more faith..........

Thank you Edward. I hope you remember me saying in other threads that I envy you your faith, your certainty and conviction. I see some of my Christian friends with the same certainty and a level of calm peace that I can not achieve without a good bottle of wine and a good cigar so I have always been encouraged by the words of Martin Luther.

Sometimes we must drink more, sport, recreate ourselves, aye, and even sin a little to spite the devil, so that we leave him no place for troubling our consciences with trifles. We are conquered if we try too conscientiously not to sin at all. Martin Luther​

The problem seems to be that what I want, my cognitive processes will not let me have. I'm sure there is a psychological term for this; cognitive dissonance perhaps? I would love to have your faith but I simply do not - largely for the reasons I have already given in this thread. I have sought help from some of the kind people on this forum but the answers I am getting are suggestions which undoubtedly suit someone who already believes but they are not addressing WHY they believe. That is my problem. I still don't understand WHY people believe that The Bible is the word of God.

I am returned to my childhood again when I was told that "Faith is a supernatural gift of God". I once had that faith, that gift, but it has gone. I suppose I could just sit back and wait and hope that it comes back but I am getting pretty old now and am running out of time. I am looking for ways to get that gift back. One of those ways is to ask others why they believe - which is why I was so pleased when this thread (1 Peter 3:15) appeared. It is just what I needed - without knowing it!

 

[Edward]

The fact that we know that some of the stories in The Bible are only fables (The Ark for example) does not matter to me at all.

Perhaps not. Scripture says that knowledge will be increased in the last days. Here's a video of Ron Wyatt, an archaeologist who found Noah's Ark, and the Ark of the Covenant. The videos not too long and extremely interesting and based upon facts as reported. A good story, and worth the watch. A lot of testing has been done on the remnants of the Ark, and the location it was found, the types of metal used in it the dimensions of it, all of it fall in line with scripture.

[video=youtube;ml15qU_mZIo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ml15qU_mZIo[/video]