Sunday Dispatch.647

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.647

“Many people are leaving the church to find God.”
~Lenny Bruce

I can understand, I think, some of what Lenny Bruce meant when he said that. There are people who have left a church
because of confusion, mistreatment , abuse or other reasons. And some have just abandoned the idea of even trying to find a church to visit
or confused because of the vast variety of denominations and distinct doctrines.

Where to go in search of God with so many choices?
If this is of interest to you, the next several Dispatches will be a suggested guide on how to search.

A Suggested Guide on Searching for God in a Sea of Religion

Introduction

“If I cease searching, then woe is me, I am lost. That is how I look at it. Keeping going, keep going come what may.”
~Vincent van Gogh, Letters to Vincent

If the question of whether God exists is still troublesome, don’t let it stop you from searching. I think atheists/agnostics,
even if not convinced of God existence can benefit from a clearer understand of religion.

Before investigating the Christian faith, some have found it helpful to read and explore the world’s religions.
Most people agree that all religions contain elements of truth. The trick is deciding if you believe all of them are
the same, but different paths to God... or if only one of them is true.

Chapter 1

Jesus and the Christian Faith

“If corpses can’t be raised, then Christ wasn’t, because he was indeed dead. And if Christ weren’t raised, then all you’re doing is wandering about in the dark, as lost as ever. It’s even worse for those who died hoping in Christ and resurrection, because they’re already in their graves. If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we’re a pretty sorry lot.”
~1 Corinthians 15:18-20

As you go....

-Don’t watch Christian television, confide in your family, friends, or read books about Christianity. You might be sidetracked. Keep your search personal for now. Wait until later to talk to others or explore other media.

-Find a reliable translation of the Bible that you find easy to read. Bible Gateway has dozens of translations you can choose from you can read online.

-As you read don’t get stopped or discourage if you come across something you don’t understand or unbelievable. it will happen.

To Start...

Read the Gospel of John first. This is important. Like the munchkins told Dorothy, to get to your destination it’s always best to start with the first brick on the road.

John was the youngest of Jesus’ Disciple. It was written around 50 A.D. John wrote this only a few decades after the crucifixion of Jesus.

“There are so many other things Jesus did. If they were all written down, each of them, one by one, I can’t imagine a world big enough to hold such a library of books.”
~John 21:25

Note: The Bible (Old and New Testament) was written over an 1800 year period, with a 500 year gap between Testaments by 66 authors. There are over 5,000 ancient manuscripts that confirm the reliability of the text. An ancient scroll was found near the Dead Sea in 1947 that contained the entire text of Isaiah as we have it in today’s translation.