The Holy Bible - An Introduction

The Holy Bible is one of the most misunderstood, misquoted, and it has to be said; misused books on the face of the planet. It is also fair to say, that the vast majority of the populous considers this book to be nothing more than an outdated book of fairy stories, that has no place or meaning in our modern world; a world where science has 'supposedly' disproved the bible beyond any shadow of a doubt; thus creating the misconception that anybody who still believes what is written within the pages of this book, to be nothing more than an uneducated, simple-minded and superstitious fool.

The Holy Bible is a collection of 66 books, that were penned by 40 different authors over a period of approximately 1,500 years. The thing that makes the bible unique, is that, although it was penned by different authors over different periods of time; the bible writers were said to be under the direct influence of the Holy Spirit, when they wrote down the words of God in their own style and language. It is for this very reason, that you will hear people use the term 'inspired' when referring to the fact that the Holy Spirit was moving the authors of the bible to write down God's message. Simply put; the Holy Bible is said to be the inspired word of God through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In reality, though, this is perhaps a difficult concept to grasp, even though the idea is a simple one; because it requires an understanding beyond that of our everyday human experience. In other words, knowledge and experience of the Holy Spirit is required on a personal basis, before a person can really understand the true meaning of that statement.

It is true, that if the Holy Spirit is present in any believer whilst they are reading the bible; to that person, the bible will take on added significance and they will no longer be reading it from a one dimensional viewpoint but rather a multi dimensional one. When the Holy Spirit is present, the true meaning of certain bible passages come to light, and suddenly, a passage that a person may have read one hundred times before; takes on new meaning and significance. These are the hidden treasures of the bible because they can only be revealed to a person by the Holy Spirit. It is ironic that the bibles harshest critics rant on about 'proof' and 'evidence' for God's existence; while spirit led believers get all the proof they need of God's existence, just by reading the bible. It is indeed, a unique book and when one studies it for any length of time, far from being a book of fairy tales, one begins to get a feel for its grand design and prophetic insights, which were often written hundreds of years before the event, and show beyond a shadow of a doubt that the bibe could only be the inspired work of God.

The bible is divided up into two distinct sections, known as the Old Testament which is made up of 39 of the 66 books; and the New testament, which is made up of the remaining 27 books, respectively. Anyone who has studied the bible indepth, will come to realize that the old and new testaments are analogous to a lock and key, in that, both the old and the new testament actually fit together to form a whole integrated message system, rather than being separate entities in their own right. In addition, and using the lock and key analogy in its literal sense, the old testament provides the key to unlocking much of the symbolism and imagery used elsewhere in the bible, such as the book of Revelation which is found at the end of the New testament. Many people mistakenly hold the view that the old testament is not really valid and/or that important in our modern age, not least because we are living in the age of the New Covenant, which was heralded in by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The new covenant means that believers are no longer under the old covenant laws, for example, there is no longer any requirement for a blood sacrifice for the atonement sins, since the death of God's own son on the cross was sufficient for all. This however, does not mean that the commandments are no longer valid, but rather, through the resurrection of the living Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at pentecost (acts1:4-5, acts 2:1- 4;) the laws of God are to be written in the hearts of believers as opposed to following a set of rules and diktats written in stone (Rom 2:15 Eph 6:6, 2Cor 3:3).

To the vast majority of the general public, it appears that modern science has dealt a death-blow to the bible and in particular, the creation account as given in the book of Genesis. To this effect, many naive and no doubt well meaning Christians, in their panic to find answers to these so-called contradictory findings by the vast majority of the scientific community; have tried to combine the theory of evolution (TOE) with that of the Genesis account, and thus, have concluded that God must have been metaphoric in His terminology, by using distinct periods of time instead of meaning literal days for the account given in Genesis. This state of affairs can only be described as tragic. Not only does it compromise such a persons faith as to make it null and void, but moreover, people who hold this particular point of view, are in effect, calling God a liar. In addition, such people actually know very little about the bible, because if they did they would know that the book of Genesis is not the only place the six day creation is referenced as being literal days, and thus; any illusions to the idea that God used epochs of time to represent days, are shattered.

Exo 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Whatever way you look at it; there is no getting away from the fact that the six days of creation were meant to be literal days and not epochs of time as some people propose. The bible should always be taken in the literal sense, except where, of course, its context points to it being otherwise; for example, either idiomatic, metaphoric or symbolic in nature. It is a multi-dimensional book that is often only read in one dimension, especially by its critics, most scholars and the secular world in general. Sadly, the vast majority of those who claim to be Christian also fall into this category of people who read the bible in one dimension. These are what Jesus termed as luke-warm believers, who are neither hot nor cold. They attend church regularly and go through the motions but have no real belief in the bible, insomuch as it is the inspired word of God. Such people will often disregard the old testament and pick and choose which parts of the bible they believe in, whilst ignoring the rest.

However, the real tragedy is that people who claim to believe in the existence of God and moreover, that the Holy Bible is the inspired word of God; are more readily prepared to accept the word of man - namely, those within the mainstream scientific community - than they are the word of God in the bible. Part of the problem is that science and its advancement has played a major role in shaping society as we know it, and today in the 21st century, it would be pretty hard, if not impossible, to deny the role of science and its importance to our way of life. And why should we have to deny science anyway? The answer is of course, that we dont have to deny science and nor should we, but at the same time, we should be careful to distinguish between those branches of science that deal in empircial evidence which can be tested and observed in the laboratory; compared to that of circumstantial science, which attempts to reconstruct an unknown past via means of indirect evidence and whose ultimate conclusions can never be tested in the laboratory or observed in the real world.

Having a belief in God and the reality of the bible as the ultimate word of God, in no way compromises a persons intellect, as so many people who oppose the idea of creation by an omnipotent creator, like to claim. Time and time again, believers are often ridiculed for believing in fairy stories and are accused of 'not having the intellect' to understand either 'the scientific method' or the 'principle of evolution'. As a result, the accusation most often labelled against believers, is that they are using 'God' as a means to explain away what they cannot understand. Worse still, believers are often labelled as weak individuals because they need to have, what has been described in derogatory terms, as a 'sky-daddy' figure as an emotional crutch to lean on and are not strong enough to face life without it.

In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Firstly, it actually takes far more intellect to think outside of the proverbial box and go against the consensus of current scientific opinion, than it does to take the easy and lazy way out, and go along with the mainstream consensus. Secondly, being a true bible believing Christian and walking in the ways of Jesus Christ, is not an easy path to follow and the idea that people are using Jesus as an all encompassing crutch for their ills, smacks of ignorance and is laughable, at best. Thirdly, no true believer really believes that the dwelling place of the creator is up in the physical sky or even the space above it, come to that; and the term 'sky-daddy' is just another form of ridicule based on ignorance and spoken by people, who by their own definition, profess to be knowledgeable and wise. Ridicule has always been used as a psychological means to make people conform to the mainstream point of view, least they be put to shame for their wayward beliefs. It seems that in our modern world, you can be anything you want to be, and believe in anything you want to believe in, except, that is; when it comes to believing the Holy Bible to be the true word of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ to be the ultimate truth. Indeed, it is the authors personal experience that anyone who believes the bible whole heartedly and takes it in it's literal sense; are often branded as fundamentalists, with the word 'fundamentalist' having all kinds of negative connotations associated with it. This of course, begs the question; what is the point of basing your life around something that you don't really believe in? A concept so simple that even a child could get it!