Day 17 – A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
A book? More like a library of books that have changed my views on certain things but I am going to touch on ONE book, one I am sure many people will hail as THE book that changed them profoundly. It’s definitely made an impact on my life but with a twist.
There is no doubt that the Bible has been a book that has greatly affected my life. I’ve read the Bible from start to finish many times. Memorized verses and passages and know the stories that are told throughout it’s pages. I can remember having the Bible read to me as early as 2 years old and it was thoroughly beat into me well into adulthood. However, it wasn’t until I was in my mid-twenties that I really sank my teeth in the written words and read it. While I am sure that many people will tell you that the Bible inspired their faith and their belief in Jesus Christ that is not what the Bible did for me.
After my mother’s death I decided to sink my teeth into reading the Bible and studying it. I found three wonderful, well educated men who agreed to help me in my studies and for the next two years that is exactly what I did. What I discovered was that the Bible is beautifully written, and much of it’s stories, poetry, and moral wisdom is definitely a guide for us today yet my black and white thinking, believing that what it said was inerrant, and that it was all relevant for us today diminished. I discovered so many untruths taught in modern day churches today and multiple holes in theology. I also discovered that the Bible was not meant for people to cherry pick from book to book, from old to new testament to give people a message. I also discovered that the Bible was not written in modern day English or even King James, but in historic, old languages that are not used today and sometimes misconstrued once translated to English. The Bible I read in my mid-twenties, wonderfully and beautifully written, appreciated in a different light, was not the Bible that had not been beaten into me as an adolescent.
Reading the Bible, studying the Bible, sinking my teeth into theology did for me what college and science did for Mr. K. It diminished my faith in a “one, true God”. I never became an Atheist like Mr. K, but it did change how I felt about Christianity and the many branches that it has formed over the last 2000+ years. I spent the next ten years soul searching, reading, listening, and remaining open. As my husband says, even an Atheist has faith that he/she is right that there is no God.
I am sure some of you reading this are thinking “What? Doesn’t it say on her Facebook profile she is a Jesus Follower? Doesn’t her profile say she loves Jesus?” Yes, it does, but my belief in God, my devotion to following Jesus Christ, doesn’t come from a book. My faith is a gift, it doesn’t need to be justified or proven. It is something that resonates in me, like a calling – a journey that has no destination that I am completely comfortable with. The Bible is a guide, but it is not where my faith originates, nor is it a book that binds me in legalism and condemnation of others.
