This is found at the beginning of my mini Gideon New Testament that I was given by a noble soul at Clark College some years ago:
The Bible contains the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the
doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers. Its doctrines are holy, its
precepts are binding, its histories are true, and its decisions are immutable.
read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, and practice it to be holy. It
contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer
you…Here is paradise restored, heaven open, and the gates of hell
disclosed…it is given you in life, it will be opened at the judgement, and be
remembered forever. It involves the highest responsibility, will reward the
greatest labor, and will condemn all who trifle with its sacred contents.
What is your reaction to those words? Good? Bad? I cut out some in the middle but left the beginning and end in tact, So what do you think?
Sounds good to me.
from a purely literary stance, it's not that good. People don't like reading more than one or two lists at a time. A whole paragraph is even worse.but that's just form.
What consists of trifling with it's contents?
The things I don't really like:"…the doom of sinners…" – that sounds more like Old Testament stuff to me: didn't Jesus teach that everyone is save-able?"…it's precepts are binding…it's decisions are immutable…" – makes it sound like whoever wrote this paragraph believes if you follow the Bible EXACTLY you will be holy, even if you don't really communicate with God on a personal level.The things I do really like:"Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, and practice it to be holy." – this is getting a LITTLE close to insinuating that all you have to do is read the bible and not communicate with God in order to be holy, but if you take this as a sound bite it's pretty awesome."It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you…" – this is a cool line! I think the reason those statements are ture is because the bible gives you the tools to be closer to God, but again, as a sound bite it's really awesome.From my (limited) personal experience with the bible and with God, here's what I believe:The bible is simply a tool to build your PERSONAL relationship with God. I can see this because you can have 10 different people read the same passage and get 10 different interpretations. The important thing is that you take what's written and apply it to your own life and relationship with God. The long and the short answer is that no one person can give any other person the "meaning" of the bible – that's why it's call the LIVING word: it works differently in everyone. The really cool thing about that is that you can re-read a section a ton of times and learn something different each time.
tri·flingintransitive verb1 a : to talk in a jesting or mocking manner or with intent to delude or mislead b : to treat someone or something as unimportant2 : to handle something idly"Doom of sinners" – the New Testament teaches hell in even greater detail than the Hebrew Scriptures did. Yes, Jesus taught that all CAN come to him, but those who remain unforgiven by choice are doomed.