https://youtu.be/1uZcGaixMhg?si=aY923AXLLCnZsLgx
Isaiah 6:8 "Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me."
We are God's hands, demonstrating God's love through us...be a willing vessel to a world that is hurting and hungry for God's truth...
oh i did focus on that, for years. I was an atheist who studied the origins of the Bible, and used my findings to drive people away from it. i had found what you are describing, and was convinced that the purpose of the Bible was to be misleading.
it took me years and years and miracle after miracle to see past that.
let me save you some time. believe the Bible. pray humbly and sincerely.
i have other favourite spiritual texts, too. but all they do is clarify the Bible. and if they are at all at odds with the Bible, I assume either that I have misunderstood one of the two, or that the other is not real spiritual info.
but nothing has been more useful to the human race than scripture. do you think that is the result of a blunder by some ancient tyrant?
put that big brain to some good use
The thing that really drove me to see the Bible how I do was, ironically, listening to atheist philosophy.
It wasn’t wrong on a lot of things, of course, or no one would ever listen to it, but on others I kept noticing shifting sands…
What they did manage to point me at were the blind spots of different sections of the church, and different things that are very difficult for people that have to be wrestled with, which just drove me back to scripture.
I am by no means an expert. (…ugh. no pun intended), but the scripture makes rational sense now (except, oddly enough, for Paul, who is extremely difficult to understand, and also a favorite citation of a lot of people who like to take him at low context face value), and constantly turns over new jewels when I read it. Hopefully one day my habits will be better built to it.