Hebrews 4:12 "For the word of God is living an active. Sharper than any double -edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing the soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."
When we hear the word story, we tend to think of something make believe - a happily-ever-after fairy tale of some sort. We tell children bedtime stories and people sit around the camp fire and tell ghost stories. The word story seems to have some sort of fantasy element to them, even if they pass on a moral lesson.
Today as I was reading my Bible, I started thinking about how we view the contents of the Bible. We refer to most things as "Bible stories." I understand the limits of our language and the way we have been conditioned to refer to things... but have our personal biases dulled our senses to certain messages from the Bible?
Yes, Sunday school has a purpose and we need to teach our children but at some point we need to make sure we understand that those "stories" are significant events. It is very easy to allow ourselves to continue viewing the Bible as a collection of stories - if we do we are limiting the Bible to being simply a book. Unfortunately many people that claim to be a Christian never get past the Sunday school level and most never read the Bible for themselves. When we allow others to tell us what things say and what they mean - never taking the initiative to read and learn for ourselves, never becoming educated enough to ask questions, we risk becoming a group of deceived people. History is full of mindless masses simply following a pied piper to slaughter...
Challenge yourself to pray and to read your Bible daily. Dare to see what it really says. You just might learn something. Just because someone claims something is in the Bible does not make them right - if you never learn what it actually says and in what context it was said, you are standing on shaky ground. Adam and Eve were deceived by someone misquoting God, taking a little creative license and well we know what happened.
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