Thanks for the helpful answers. I'm a 21 year old who has been Christian for less than a year. When I hear about things from either other Christians or people of other beliefs I of course will investigate as I want to learn. As opposed to pleasing man by following what they say without question, the only thing I care about is "getting it right" and honouring our creator, as I've expressed many times in prayer. I am not trying to walk by flesh, but by conviction of the holy spirit.
The single best way to cut through all the voices telling you what to believe is to get into God's word, the Bible, for yourself and study it, prayerfully and carefully. You'll be helped enormously in your study of Scripture by having a solid understanding of basic logic and reason and by using a good interpretive hermeneutic. A very simple starting hermeneutic (Rules of Interpretation) would be:
1. Immediate context is king.
2. Immediate context is king.
3. Immediate context is king.
4. What is the genre of the Scripture I'm reading? Historical record? Poetry? Wisdom literature? Prophecy? Parable? You shouldn't treat poetry like an historical account, or a prophecy like a proverb.
5. How would the original readers of a verse or passage of the Bible likely have understood them?
6. Does my understanding of a verse or passage agree with the totality of Scripture?
7. Have I jumped to conclusions, or added my own ideas/preferences/prejudices to God's word, or made Scripture to stand in contradiction to itself?
8. An explicit statement must always have greater force or weight than an implicit one.
9. The ancient
common usage of a term or phrase is often more helpful in proper interpretation than
root meaning. Language evolves: words alter in their meaning over time - very radically, in some cases - so it isn't necessarily always helpful to examine the etymology of a word or phrase in Scripture.
