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Guest, Join Papa Zoom today for some uplifting biblical encouragement! --> Daily Verses
Very Confused & Very Curious
- Thread starter Jaxyy
- Start date
I'm not sure, I've never gone that route myself. I would probably try to get an education from a source written and studied by self identified Christians if you're going to do that. It's certainly not a bad idea!
For myself, I just look up scholarly sources as needed or if I have a particular question. One thing that helps me: Hebrew & Greek concordances to look up the verses and words in the original language and what the original language best translates to in our language.
If you do want to pursue an academic course, though, I'd go for it if it's within your means!
Then it seems like a great idea
Yeah! Depends on how much per day and how often, but yeah.
Anyways. Work with your brain, not against it. If some of our suggestions don't work with your brain, it's okay to do stuff that does work with your brain instead. There's no one-size-fits-all way of learning.
Ditto. It's not a race. The important thing is to stick with it and read regularly. Some parts, particularly the Old Testament, may seem a little humdrum but God has a reason for it all. One of the things that jumped out at me over the years is God's desire to know Him. You'll hear that theme throughout the Bible and especially in the Old Testament. That's the whole thing. It's not about knowing about Him but it is about knowing Him, personally.
Think of it as a friendship. If you don't spend time with your friends, you never really get to know them but the more time you spend with them, the better you know them. Same is true with God and His written Word.
Christ_empowered
Member
Classes can help. Both organized study of scripture and those that aim at cultivating a Christian worldview.
jasonc
Member
I do that with history ,as you see my posts ,unless really a serendipitous finding ,I plan the photo and have either explored it story or heard it and I spent time as much as I could finding it .sometimes hours looking at photos by the military of our area and or using court records and also local historical socities . Yet often when I do go back I find more on that .Yep, that's a thing for neurodivergent folks like us
Multiple readings would be a good idea. Do your hyperfixation and then take more time later to go over things more slowly
Aussie Mark
Member
I don't believe for one moment that God made you autistic. Our eldest son is visually impaired.
God created a perfect world but so much of what we see around us: the pain, suffering and the imperfection is a result of the fall, mankind's rejection of God. Many people have various disabilities or encounter hardship in life, it is all part of our broken world.
Paul talks of our earthly bodies that decay and us having heavenly bodies. No one knows what those look like but given that God dwells in heaven, I would imagine that mankind being created in His image relates to this heavenly form rather than our current earthly form.
As Christians we have have a "bigger picture" looking beyond the decay and death of our earthly bodies to eternal life in heavenly form. While we live in that hope, and gain comfort in that, at times this is difficult for us to truly comprehend and imagine, especially when times & circumstances are hard.
God Bless
This is a different subject but Scripture says to pray without ceasing.
16 Rejoice always,
17 pray without ceasing,
18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NKJV
So what does that mean? God is always with you and always listening. To pray without ceasing means to always keep God in the loop in everything you say, think, and do. Prayer is conversation with God and it's a two-way conversation which means listening is part of it. Does that mean you'll hear voices? Probably not but I find that answers seem to come to me when I ask. They don't always come right away either.
Being new to Christianity, you've probably noticed that when I quote Scripture I identify where it is found and I add an acronym like NKJV to identify what translation I am quoting from. NKJV stands for New King James Version. Some may quote from the NIV (New International Version) or ESV (English Standard Version) or NASB (New American Standard Version) and others. If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.
Those are the verse numbers in the book I referenced, which was 1 Thessalonians. The Holy Bible is actually a conglomeration of many books. When they were first written, the books didn't have chapters, paragraphs, or verses so it was difficult to direct someone to a specific place. Over the years, each book was divided into chapters and verses to make it easier to locate specific things. So, when you open the Bible you'll see in the table of contents a list of all the books found within. For example starting in the Old Testament you'll find Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and so forth. When you open each book, you'll find they are divided into numbered chapters and then each chapter is divided into numbered verses.
So when I wrote 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NKJV it means that you can open your Bible to the book titled 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, verses 16, 17, and 18 and I quoted it from the New King James Version.
Edward
2024 Supporter
If you read it 7 days a week for one year you can finnish it and that's reading at about 3 chapters per day +- because some chapters are s long that it's a one chapter day, and other days it might be 5 chapters because of short chapters. Just keep 3 chapters in mind and you'll know when to stop for the day. You can feel it.
Christ_empowered
Member
Odb.org
Free reading material devotionals courses and Bible reading plans. If you feel like it they also have in depth courses for a fee.
Free reading material devotionals courses and Bible reading plans. If you feel like it they also have in depth courses for a fee.
Well, being made in God's image means you have certain abilities that reflect what God is like. You can, for example, imagine the future, appreciate that a thing is beautiful, or majestic, or wonderful, understand that a thing is morally right or wrong, you can create, and contemplate, and ask "Why did God make me autistic?". No animal, or insect, or plant can do these things. Being made in God's image, though, doesn't mean you look just like God, or are omnipotent, or omniscient, or infinite.
Why did God allow you to be autistic? As some have already explained, in a world where people can freely choose for or against God, they often choose against Him and when they do, there are consequences: sin, corruption and death. These consequences show up, in part, in a steady, generation-by-generation deterioration of the human body that has lead to things like a genetic disposition to cancer in humans, or to various syndromes, or to Alzheimer's, etc..
If God just always suspended these bad consequences of choosing against Him, He would be negating our freedom to choose. We make a choice for something in order that we might partake in it in some way. If I choose pizza over fried chicken for supper, it's because I want to eat pizza, right? But if I made the choice to eat pizza but was always prevented from eating it, what use is there in choosing it? My choice for pizza is pointless when the consequence of the choice is always negated. The whole point of my choice for pizza is to eat pizza!
So, too, on a bigger, more general level with the choices people make: If God were to constantly negate the consequences of every choice they made to do something He didn't like, their choices would be meaningless and so their freedom to choose would be, too. God wants us to be truly free to choose Him, though, because we can't really love Him if we can't choose freely to do so. But making it so we can express love to Him, to choose for rather than against Him, requires that God allow all our choices - even if the consequences of them are harmful and bring sin, corruption and death to others.
And so, we have a world where those made in God's image are impacted by evil choices, choices that are against God, who suffer from the corruption that those evil choices produce in the world like birth defects, diseases - and autism.
I would say, though, that autism is not necessarily a bad thing. Very severe forms of autism are difficult, yes, but I have a nephew with higher-functioning autism and he's a wonderful fellow, bright, thoughtful, humorous, and generous. His autism makes him...quirky, I guess, in some ways, but not in ways that are seriously harmful to him. Anyway, you are as God intends you should be; you are not a mistake. Place your life in His hands and He will make of you all that He created you to be.