A Common Sense Belief In God, Part 2

         To use a profane title as, “My Search for The Real God” for my book is considered to be almost sacrilegious by some, it poses questions that many will say shouldn’t be addressed or even discussed.  To have engaged your attention this long without giving you a list of scriptures is not even the accepted mode of Bible study.  Yet there are those within and without the religious core that are struggling to find answers, and a detail dissertation on God delivering the children of Israel is not always the answer. There are souls in the vineyard of Christ who are withering and dying and yes Jesus did  say there would be a falling away.  I am reminded of the man who went out at midday and observed his Tomato vines wilting in the hot summer sun and suffering from the  lack of water.  He retrieved his water hose began watering his beautiful Tomato crop, pleased with the idea that he was going to have a bumper crop of tomatoes to sell. By evening time he became aware of a strange and  observable fact taking place his Tomato plants were dying.  At midday his plants were suffering from the lack of water, at evening time his plants were dying from too much  water.  Now the wisdom of this analogy is, he that grows Tomatoes must be wise, and as the scripture implies  “he who win souls must be wise.”   It was a lack of common sense in the application of the water and the same hold true with the word of God.

      I used the word religious core as a made up word because it is becoming hard to find an acceptable word to define the spiritual nature of man.  The use of the word Christianity has come under fire and is no longer acceptable by some.  Yet there are souls who are struggling to find nourishment and they are tormented by the doubt that caused by the workers in the vineyard.  There is a pretense nature that prevails in the arena of religious lore.  It is so persuasive that cliques or cute phrases take on special or enlighten meanings, yet when they are held up to the scrutiny of common sense they fail.   The use of common sense is the basis of this discussion and it is the reason why I have not given you a list of scripture verses to study. The Bible is filled with common sense applications and science and the Bible do not disagree.  In this age of enlightenment, to understand the Word of God we must understand the language that it was spoken in.   The same is true of a road map it does not show all of the topography of a route, there is much that must be filled in by understanding the symbology of a road map and common sense.  If we lay aside the symbology of the Bible, we have Eve talking to a snake and plucking fruit from a tree or we have Cain going into a distant land and marrying his sister.  If we do not understand the symbology of the ancient Hebrew language we will never understand the Book of Revelation.

     The president and political candidates have been skewed many because works spoken by them were taken out of the context in which they were spoken.  Words taken out of context can be contradictory to the intended message and often rendering the intended message unbelievable. The news reporter who plays on this fallacy will one day find himself in the  irrelevant position of nothing more than a soothsayer.  The messengers of God who uses this concept of interpreting the Word of God will find themselves in unacceptable positions lacking the ability to win souls for Christ.

     Let us use a for instance verse, Ecclesiastes 9:8 “Let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no ointment. “  This verse was used by a vineyard worker to teach that to be saved according to the Bible you must wear white and keep your hair oiled.  Maybe the Bible teacher should have understood the biblical use of symbolic words.   In the proper context and according to the symbology of the Bible maybe Ecclesiastes, the preacher was saying, “wear clean clothes and groom your hair.”

     The descendants of African slaves staked their claim to freedom on the immortal words penned by Thomas Jefferson, a slave owner himself, when he wrote, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.”  Contrary to popular belief at that moment in time, Thomas Jefferson was not addressing the rights of slaves, he was protesting the divine rights of Kings.  Many learned minds will falsely proclaim that he was addressing the issue of slavery whereas if this were true then the signing of the Declaration of Independence was an overt act of hypocrisy.  In 1776 abolitionist Thomas Day responds to the possibility of the hypocrisy of the Declaration of Independence when he wrote, “If there is an object truly ridiculous in nature is an American patriot, signing resolutions of independence with one hand, and with the other brandishing a whip over his frighten African slaves.”  To understand an appreciate the message of Thomas Jefferson we must understand what was he talking about, who was he speaking to and most of all the context of his speech must be defined.

     Growing up in the fifties there were certain things we were taught not to tamper with, one of those things was Santa Claus.  Whether we admit it or not Santa Claus taught us how to believe in a spiritual world.  In todays world common sense is asking the question, “How do you teach a young mind to believe?” Santa Claus, the Easter Rabbit and the Tooth Fairy were teaching mechanisms that taught a young mind the power of believing.  After nearly two thousand years we choose to define them as pagan symbols based upon their roots, and many insist that they should not be a part of the Christian experience.  Thus, the belief system of the past became todays subject of attack.  If we had redefined them , as a spiritual manifestation of the love that exist between family and friends our belief system would have remained intact.  Modern society no longer believes in the elements of a spiritual world.  Ghosts or spirits no longer roam the land, yet God is a spirit.  Once we tamper with an ancient belief structure, common sense will ask you the question, “how do you repair the damage and still teach a young mind to believe?’  To make the question more revelent, “How we repair the damage we have done to our schools.”  We have not made this world a safer and better place.  With the death of Santa Claus it was the belief in God that suffered most.  The next step was easy, a concerted attack on God.  The sixties produced a drug induced stupor where learned ones were not afraid to go on national television and challenge the existence of God.  When God refused to respond it was concluded by many that God was dead.