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Reply to Eveline,
Samaritan is a Jew or Gentile? 
Poor Thing, So-Call Chup Cheng ('Santa' Monica)
Quite distasteful. (frank)
Well.. (Eveline How)
To Eveline, (Interested )
Interested (Eveline How)
Hi! Eveline, (Interested )
Interpreting Bible & Scientific Method (Eveline How)
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Hi! Eveline, Thanks for the mail. I was being practical when I said you have to interprete the massage of the Bible in the 21st century sense. It depends what you are looking for. If you are looking for the message of salvation then it is the same for all ages. But if you are looking for something like your lifestyle, work, friends, husband, home, etc, then the first century or even 18th and 19th century England will not do you much good in this present age of IT. You have to do it according to your present time. You have to let the Bible speak to you in your present time. You have to use your mind and intelligence to see what principles you can draw from the Bible for your present needs and decision making. An example of the first century which we don't practice; the Bible says we are to greet each other with a holy kiss. Well, in the Middle East same sex kissing is normal but out here and in Western countries it is only okay if the other person is of the opposite sex. Kissing someone of the same sex? Eeeeyaks, not for ten million dollars. Nowadays I see men hugging each other in some church services. Again I don't believe in this. Don't feel natural hugging a man. Girl is okay. I know some church groups perform foot-washing. This again is a normal Middle Eastern activity because of the sands of the desert and they wear sandels. But for us who wear shoes and who walk on good roads why would we want somebody else to wash our feet? To show we are very humble? I don't think so. A handshake is, in my opinion, good enough. So you see, many of the first century practices need not be followed now even though it is in the Bible. This is what I mean by intepreting the Bible according to your time. You make the decisions according to present lifestyle, customs, etc. But I know there are some church people who think we ought to follow everything according to what they did in Bible days without using our intelligence. I don't agree. These are just extreme examples. We could use the same principles for the working woman, children, woman's rights, maids rights, and many other topics. Like maids rights, for example, it is definitely wrong to treat a maid badly. You should treat her well. But then she is only an employee and your realtionship with her should be one of employer and employee. Should you bring her to your club? Well my boss is a memember of clubs but he has never asked any of us working with him to join him at his club. Is he discriminting aginst us? Certainly not. To say that society is not stratified into classes is to talk nonsense. It exists everywhere. The communists tried to have a classless society and they failed. So what I am saying is that Scriptures do contain all things necessary for salvation. But it also has many other things which are not essential and need to be interpreted according to our time in history. We have to distinguish what is essential and what is not. Those non-essentials can hava a variable interpretation according to time and place. You have to use your brains for this. Bye Bye:- |
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