{"id":123,"date":"2021-01-19T16:46:59","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T16:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/176.32.230.18\/swordmagazine.net\/?p=123"},"modified":"2021-02-22T07:25:00","modified_gmt":"2021-02-22T07:25:00","slug":"the-ideal-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/?p=123","title":{"rendered":"The \u0131deal Bible…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Truth is undemocratic, non-negotiable \u2013 thank God!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The truth is finally out\u2026 The LGBTI community has declared that it needs a Bible that will say what they want to hear and, through an executive agency of Her Majesty\u2019s UK Government, (see p. 20) they are calling for research funding to \u2018reinterpret\u2019 sacred scriptures so that they line up with gay and transgender ideology. We can all sympathise with the need for a Bible that never disagrees with us… <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some years ago, I was asked by a church to speak on the theme \u201cLove your enemies\u201d \u2013 it was just after the end of the Falklands War against Argentina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I tried carefully to help believers pick up this hot potato, it was obvious that one man in the room was \u2018uncomfortable\u2019, to say the least. At the end of the evening, this Christian brother had the honesty to say that he could not accept the teaching. It emerged that he was the sole survivor of five close friends, four of whom he had seen fall under heavy Argentine gunfire. I was 32, had never encountered serious hostility, never had to put my life on the line and had never seen \u2018the enemy\u2019 kill my friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What right did I have to tell this war veteran to love his enemies? The truth is, I had none \u2013 but his argument was not with me. The authority issue that night was not between me and my struggling brother, but between the Christian soldier and his Commanding Officer, Jesus Christ. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We talked about how a soldier operates under orders, not suggestions; that orders have higher authority than opinion or emotion. Jesus\u2019 difficult commands so often bypass both our opinions and feelings and require us to choose between argument and obedience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Christian soldier agreed when the Bible taught \u201ceye for eye, tooth for tooth<\/em>\u201d, (Lev. 24:19 \u2013 in context, a restriction upon retaliation, not a licence for it!) but disagreed when it required \u201clove your enemies, do good to those who hate you<\/em>\u201d.He needed a blessing for his bitterness \u2013 but God\u2019s Word blesses sinners, not their sin. Here\u2019s why: having commanded \u201clove your enemies<\/em>\u201d (Luke 6:27), Jesus explains that God\u2019s children are unlike their Heavenly Father when they hate their enemies and like Him when they are kind to them! (Luke 6:27-36) Now let\u2019s sharpen the pencil\u2026 \u201cwhile we were enemies<\/strong> we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son<\/em>\u201d.(Rom 5:10) \u2013 emphasis added) Show me a Christian, any Christian, and I\u2019ll show you someone who started out as God\u2019s enemy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like gravity, sin is a non-negotiable reality in our world. Our sweet children are born needing no instruction to be naughty and selfish and requiring careful training to respect proper authority and love others. We are born in a state of argument with God. The first time a nation ever encountered God, they experienced Him as an Instructor. He taught them His wisdom, His way to really live, His way to not ruin themselves and others through selfishness, to not shorten their life expectancy through immorality, His way to protect their kids from the child abuse demanded by false gods and their twisted worshippers, His way to abundant fruitfulness, freedom and joy in His presence. Israel became a visual aid to the nations. When Israel agreed with God, all went well and rulers came from the ends of the earth to inquire about the source of the nation\u2019s awesome prosperity. When Israel argued with God\u2019s wisdom, they became as morally bankrupt as their blind neighbours and every other kind of bankruptcy soon followed…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God condemns sin, because He loves sinners. Sin ruins sinners. God saves sinners \u2013 at His own expense. The Bible says so \u2013 or should that wonderful truth also be \u2018reinterpreted\u2019? The Bible is not \u2018modern\u2019 \u2013 thank God. Neither was it modern 500 years ago when a Catholic monk discovered that the official Church had a massive argument with God\u2019s Word. He saw that unscrupulous religion was keeping people ignorant of the extravagant goodness of God to guilty sinners and cried \u2018Back to the Bible!\u2019 Praise God for His Word which is never modern or fashionable \u2013 but always true and full of mercy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once we have printed \u2018our<\/strong>\u2019 Bible that disagrees with God, the next logical step is to jump off a tall building and disagree with gravity\u2026 Mind your step!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Truth is undemocratic, non-negotiable \u2013 thank God! The truth is finally out\u2026 The LGBTI community has declared that it needs a Bible that will say […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[62],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions\/124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}