**Ten years in Bible ** How Gods complete Word has changed me.

This month of September is an anniversary of sorts for it was ten years ago , in 2007 , that I went thru the entire Bible cover to cover that year and I have been doing so ever since.
What follows is just a brief look at an incredible journey. When I began reading the Bible I could not have foreseen all the changes that would occur. By that I mean , how deceived I was and the changes were in my thinking. But I know it was all for the better. And the growing is not over. In many ways it just begun. How smart I thought I was prior to reading Gods Word from Gen to Rev. I would spend 40 years in the Christian culture before I had the sense to actually pick up the Bible and read it. How shocked I was to find little resemblance between what it actually says as compared to what the visible church culture is offering today. All I can advise anyone to do  is get a Bible and tryreadNit


-10 yrs ago I went thru the Bible vrs by vrs for the first time ever.
Since I grew up in a Christian home I have no excuse other than laziness to blame for why it took me so long to actually read it.
So many things occurred in my thinking those first few months of going thru it slowly, every chapter , every verse.
I would find myself annoyed and sometimes angry but I was never quite sure who I was angry with.
Several times I tossed it all aside thinking "why am I doing this?" but I would always go back and get it because I knew God wanted to reveal His truth to me.
-9 yrs ago My first time thru was with a five year plan which I completed that in only one year.
I began to have so many questions that first year.
I wondered how so many verses became so twisted.
I wondered why this Book was preached so long to me as a book about "me" when in fact it is about Jesus only. To prove that, look at the highlighted areas of your current Bible you are using and take note of how many saved notes and highlights pertain to "you." This may surprise you . It did for me.
What this means is , if the Bible is written as types and shadows of someone , then those types and shadows become about Jesus and "You." That's a sure sign you are reading it wrong.
I wondered why so much talk about Israel was in this book.
I wondered why so many church's ignore at least two thirds of this book. In other words , so many passages never get read. there are 66 books. Take note from the contents page, how many you rarely hear of. 
I knew I needed to keep listening and reading this Book so I sought out other methods of doing verse by verse teaching.
I found men like David Guzik, Joe Focht and Gayln Weimer's. These men all teach verse by verse.
Also after that first year of reading , marriage became more important in my thinking because much of what God wants to reveal to us can be found in marriage.
-8 yrs ago I began to see how context helped put things back where they belong. I began to understand, believers can't even comprehend Jn 3:16 let alone eschatology.  That's because we take that verse out of it's context. I was still looking for reasons as too how so many Bible passages became so twisted.
Little did I know then that over the next few years  these questions and more would be slowly answered. I tried to reflect that in this blog.
-7 & 6 years ago - for the next couple of years I'd immerse myself in solid verse by verse teaching. Mostly audio with several good men. During that time I began to compare the many things that divide Christians. I'd listen to opposing views of same passages. Since all Christians use the exact same passages to support their opposing views, discerning this became frustrating.
Discernment is not so much trying to discern between what's right and wrong than it is trying to discern what's right and almost right.

So..5 years ago - was when I began finding discernment podcasts. And there are plenty of them so be careful. The one that was most useful was a program called "fighting for the faith."
Those programs taught me how to rightly divide Law & Gospel,
I would also learn about what the emergent church was. This movement became very skilled at twisting words as a means to manipulate those hearing it.
These are just a few areas I'd learn of. Discernment podcasts taught me how to "listen."
People who have agendas speak in a crafty way. The emphasize or over highlight vague areas in order to manipulate the hearer. They find passages that are descriptions of things and teach them as prescriptions for our lives. That confuses many people.
I learned alot about heurmenutics. Thats sounds like a hard word but its not. All it means is paying attention to how someone communicates the Bible.Or , what are they thinking when they teach it.
Once people begin to slow things down they can better see the tricks people use when communicating. Whether people intentionally or unintentionally try to deceive others is not for me to judge. All I know is , most teachers of the Bible have an agenda and that agenda will affect how they communicate. That agenda is doing anything it takes to get people saved. That may sound good but in the long run it is not . Most people compare beliefs with their own views of scripture and even though they say they are discerning, they are not.
I truly am thankful for all the good resources on the internet that teach discernment ..
4 years ago - but as most things go, all things run there course so by the end of this fourth year I sensed I needed to move on from these podcasts. Things were becoming repetitive. The most important thing I would come to realize is that Christians who are growing spiritually need to know when to move on. People who camp out too long on any one area of growing tend to be soon misled. Growing spiritually is like a never ending staircase. Take it from me , it is not good to get stuck on any one step. It is best to seek God in moving forward.
3 yrs ago - till present - I knew little about Calvary Chapel but I noticed that many of my verse by verse podcasts were from there. When I discovered a Calvary Chapel in our neighborhood I thought it was the answer to my problems.  Imagine, a church that preached every word from every chapter. What an amazing concept. A church that actually read the Bible.
But even that was just a step. One I stayed with far too long.

I tend to overemphasize things that have helped me.
When a believer overemphasizes any aspect of their spiritual walk they tread dangerously close to herisies that can keep them preoccupied for many years.
And sometimes I think I have been doing just that, overemphasizing the things that have helped me.
I suppose most believers do this. It must be in our nature. To over emphasize our favorite things.

Here it is, ten years since reading that Bible the first time thru and so many things have occurred most of which I never could have imagined in a million years. For instance , most recently I have been examining  what we all call "church" and have been shown that what we think church is , actually isn't.  But a majority a Christians today will not consider for a moment that they have no clue whatsoever what church is. That is because they have been going to a weekly Sunday gathering for so long and it is all they know. Many of their friends and family also grew up in some institutional church environment.
Todays modern thinking is all about inclusiveness and experiences. These are two very problematic mindsets.
If Christians only knew how much of their "church" beliefs  actually originated from church traditions, they'd be shocked.

But what people fail to see is that this  idea of going to a weekly Sunday gathering that invites any and all to attend, this idea creates endless complications that can last years and even decades. The biggest complication is it causes people to think they are going to church and this is the beginning of redefining words.
Milt Rodriguez puts it like this.
People today think that church is like 1) a restaurant where people get fed or 2) a classroom where people get taught or 3) a support group where they get their needs met.
This is what many people think church is  but it is far from the truth.
The Church exists for Jesus and Him alone. We must lose ourselves to gain more of Jesus.
The true Church is believers only.
If God's Word is being preached with only believers in mind, the unsaved wouldn't want to attend.
There are so many false converts in today's churches. That's why congregations need to be reminded week after week, year after year the simple basics of Christian faith. Preachers & congregants never know whose their any given Sunday (a sure sign of a problem) True believers in this environment are either doubting their own salvation continually or their suppressing many of their feelings and or questions. Either way they eventually leave.

Some of the problems with congregations that invite anyone and everyone to attend is that the preacher needs to find a new way to communicate the Bible so as to appease both the believer and the non believer.
Why do believers tolerate this? How does this occur?
The Bible needs to be presented in a different way. Something  called eisegesis. That is just a fancy way of saying , the Bible becomes about "you."
  Because of this , the language that gets directed to the non believer causes the believer to lack assurance in their own salvation. Many false converts come from this.
But the biggest problem with modern visible church is...

When a person hears the gospel and they respond to its message with joy and Humility and repentance and acceptance, what are they to do next?
Christians tell them to find a church, so they do.
But that is wrong!
Two hundred years ago that was good advice but not today. Two hundred years ago non believers did not want to go to any church. and That is the way it should be. Why invite wolves to where sheep attend? Now if you don't believe that,  try reading all the passages that talk about how the unclean makes the clean things , unclean just by being there. If you don't know what I mean by that you could either look that up or just keep reading the way you are.

Prior to any new believer joining some local place of worship, they need to first read the Bible thru. Anything less, in this culture, invites years worth of confusion.
It hurts me too say this but new believers should wait when it comes to attending what this culture calls "church."
A new believer needs to pray and ask God to send them to one or two stronger believers, those who have trusted in God for many years. What happens after that God will show clearly to this new believer.
Yes, this is a hard message to deliver in this culture.
 Deception is rampant throughout society and the worst form of deception is not knowing your in it.
It is the kind of deception that makes Truth appear as the deception. People tend to ignore both when this happens. The best way to recognize Truth is , anything that causes you to hold your hands over your ears is probably closer to the truth than what you currently believe.
 People need to get out of their inclusive churchs and get into their exclusive Bible's .
How I wish I had done that 40 years ago.




It has been an amazing ten years in Gods Word. I can honestly say that I am not the same person from when I began reading it.
I no longer speak christianese . Because of that I have difficulty in communicating.
I do not understand much of what our Christian culture offers. I have lost some friends but made new ones. 
In closing out these thoughts I want to just list some of the areas I grew most in along with things we do not understand (but think we do) I intend to expound on each of these points in future posts. Those areas are:

1) how did so many verses get twisted?
2) we don't understand context
3) we don't understand men's motives
4)we don't understand church history
5)we don't understand Israel
6)we don't understand God's law & Gospel
7) we don't understand the Bride of Christ.
8)we don't understand the Holiness of God
9) we do not understand "church"
10) we simply do not know how to read our Bibles













Here is a playlist I made that could get one thinking.
The idea behind such a playlist is not to get people to stop attending where they go every Sunday morning.
The idea is to get believers in Jesus to think. 
People can believe what they want. But I am amazed as to how much we believe but most don't know why they believe it. They heard it somewhere or read it some place is all they can say.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvtAO0N1y4XXE3jIOYu1OJBYuPFbwI9Un



The book entitled Unchurching :Christianity without churchianity is helping me. I also  have found it very helpful listening to these brief podcasts in order.
Christians who kinda sense something not quite right about the way their doing things in their Christian walk with God could find these to be helpful.

http://unchurching.libsyn.com/page/2/size/25

http://unchurching.libsyn.com/