THE LITERAL BIBLE IS IMPOSSIBLE TO UNDERSTAND
Religious people who believe that they understand the Bible are deceived. They may know the words and understand those words in a human, worldly sense, but they do not know the symbolic meanings of those words. What they know leads them into religion, but does not lead them to eternal life.
Here are only a few scriptures that confirm how difficult the Bible is to understand:
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It is not that God has intentionally made understanding of His word difficult. The problem is that he speaks with one language and humans speak another language.
STUDY TIP: See this link for understanding of what God’s voice is like.
God’s language makes perfect sense to him, but is foolishness to humans. The problem is that people listen with their natural ears and God speaks to hearts. The only way people can hear his voice, therefore, is to allow God to change their hearts. But God does not change the hearts of religious people unless and until they do the following:
People who do these things will find that proverbs, dark sayings, figures, riddles, dreams and visions all refer to obscure spiritual truths that are no longer hidden. If they resist temptations to take the Bible literally, God will soon begin revealing to them the mysteries of the Bible. From that point on, the Bible which was impossible to understand becomes understandable — as long as they do not return to religion.
People who do these things will find that their religious friends will argue with them to return to religion and Biblical literalism. The parable of the sower is instructive about this situation.
People who do these things will sooner or later find that their friendships with religious people will deteriorate. This should not be surprising because Jesus gave clear warnings that his followers would be persecuted.
STUDY TIP: See this link for understanding of what people who leave religion can expect from religious people who were formerly their friends.
People who do these things will learn what Jesus meant when he said that he did not come to bring peace but that he came with a sword. They will learn that religious people love the Bible even though it is impossible to understand.
Religious people believe they understand the literal words that instruct them about their religion and their religious laws. Fully convinced about their beliefs, they resent what anyone says that conflicts with their beliefs. The parts they don’t understand are not important to them because those parts do not fit into their idea of the gospel.
The pathetic irony of Judaism and Christianity is that they say they believe the words of the entire Bible are true, while also admitting that there is much of the Bible (i.e. Symbols, Signs, Types, Parables, Copies, and Shadows) that they don’t understand. The hypocrisy of this disconnect will continue to plague religious people until they respond to God’s call to come out of religion and obey his commands to listen to his voice. Then, and only then will the full Bible be understandable.
STUDY TIP: See Literal or Symbolic Interpretation Part 1 for more discussion about difficult scriptures.