Every religion in the world offers a "way", and points out how to achieve inner peace or receive eternal life. They promise you'll go to heaven, be happy and sometimes even get rich, and in any case they offer a philosophy of life.
Jesus said he was the way the truth and the life*, which is just a mysterious way of saying that if we make him our role model, we'll be able to see things more clearly.
So Jesus is supposed to the way...
To where? And just why should we follow him? What do we get out of it?
To where? And just why should we follow him? What do we get out of it?
Many people are still convinced that being a Christian means following a set of impossible-to-obey rules, but instead, Christianity is really a lifestyle.
The word "lifestyle" is defined as "the way we interpret ourselves inside the reality that we live in", and it is the collection of attitudes, reactions to social issues, interests, opinions and behaviors of a person, a group or a culture.** In other words, it's a set of conscious and unconscious choices, some of which have meaning only within our specific context.
A Christian lifestyle starts with a decision, and good decisions are made after a lot of thought and consideration. I think that when we start to clash with the culture around us - the events, the politics and the customs - we begin to think about what other things life could offer. If you don't agree or you're unhappy with your world, how can you change it?
Through the centuries, thousands of people have interpreted the Bible in different ways based on their cultures and convictions. We are supposed to start with the Bible and see what it says, instead of trying to graft verses onto our culture to reinforce our own views.
In the next month, I'll be posting a few articles about how to read the Bible: the easy stuff, like notation and the difference between the Old and New Testament content; and the more intellectual notions, such as how cultural context influences interpretation. We all know that Biblical text is centuries old, but we don't always take that into consideration.
The biggest obstacle to Bible study is the notion that we've heard it all before, and the only way to overcome it is to challenge it.
A Christian lifestyle starts with a decision, and good decisions are made after a lot of thought and consideration. I think that when we start to clash with the culture around us - the events, the politics and the customs - we begin to think about what other things life could offer. If you don't agree or you're unhappy with your world, how can you change it?
Convictions are really hard to change.
How much do you really know about the Christian lifestyle? Are you sure that what you think you know is actually true? If not, how can you tell the truth from the lies?Through the centuries, thousands of people have interpreted the Bible in different ways based on their cultures and convictions. We are supposed to start with the Bible and see what it says, instead of trying to graft verses onto our culture to reinforce our own views.
In the next month, I'll be posting a few articles about how to read the Bible: the easy stuff, like notation and the difference between the Old and New Testament content; and the more intellectual notions, such as how cultural context influences interpretation. We all know that Biblical text is centuries old, but we don't always take that into consideration.
The biggest obstacle to Bible study is the notion that we've heard it all before, and the only way to overcome it is to challenge it.
*John 14:6
** http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stile_di_vita
