Biblical Studies

After I accepted Jesus as my Lord and savior at an event called “Jesus 78”, which was held in Florida, we moved to Texas. Because we moved to Texas, it meant changing denominations. My mom being the daughter of a Baptist preacher and my dad being Assembly of God, their agreement, after my dad joined the Air Force, was whenever we moved we’d alternate denomination. As a result of this I got started in the Assembly of God version of the Boy Scouts called “Royal Rangers”. Since I was 7 years old or so, I was in the “Buckaroo” part of Royal Rangers. I won “Sectional Buckaroo of the Year”. It involved scripture memorization and some other stuff. A little while after this I had a temper outburst and my dad had me sit down with his Thompson Chain bible and look up everything on anger. This, I suppose was my first experience in studying scripture.

Years later when I was in high school I lead the high school bible study for the entire school year. I also started debating people of other beliefs. This was when I had to pick up other tools such as the Strong’s Concordance and Interlinear Bibles. I found these references were helpful in digging into the scriptures. It helped me better understand what was being said.

I was aware of the various methods of study, exegesis, that Christians use. My grandfather was good at word studies. Most of the pastors I sat under were good at topical or word studies. Some pastors might do book studies, but it was rare. It wasn’t until I started investigating the Jewish, or Hebrew, roots of Christianity that I was exposes to Jewish exegesis called PaRDeS. As a result my studies have grown a bit with it, although I’m still learning. I have also taken up studying the history, archaeology and anthropology to the Ancient Near East, discovering the historical context of scripture.

I don’t care much about denominational doctrines and teachings. What I care about is truth. Most in the various doctrines would claim they care about truth, but yet when you hold up what they believe against scripture the differences become apparent. We must always examine what we believe, as well as what is taught, to see if it is true. To see if it holds up under scrutiny against scripture. We need to hold teachers and preachers accountable for what they say and teach. The way to hold them accountable is by not only fact checking, but looking at things like historical context.

The posts I write are studies I’ve done as well as thoughts I have. Sometimes I just feel inspired to write. Other times I spend time digging, researching, fact checking, digging into linguistics and such. Depending on the topic depends on how much time I spend in research. When I write, I write to give you a taste and to get you thinking. I want you to go and research it for yourself. A lot of time people, when they research something, they research in order to confirm what they believe. This is called “confirmation bias“. We all do it to some degree. The thing is, once you’re aware of it will you continue in it? This is why I like to write, to get people to stop and think, to examine what they think. Only by taking what you think and believe and putting it all on trial, being willing to lay it all out, will you find the truth.

 

In Yeshua’s service