Sort of a spin off of my previous thread and the reply regarding it, although I was considering this post previously, hope I don't bore you too much. I posted about denominations and how many of them hold on to thier doctrine even if shown to be wrong, and how many of them emphasized on things that really aren't super important concerning one's relationship to God, that was ,at least, the conclusion I was trying to get the reader to come to. I got a response and was asked to do a word exercise, which I appreciate the challenge. This however, solidifies my point and also the following point. Many groups tend to isolate a verse of scripture and run with it, not considering the surrounding verses. As challenged by, I was asked to place more emphasis on certain words more than others while reading the same sentence and therefore deriving different meanings. This can be done with just about any sentence. For example, Mary hit a car. We only know this small portion of the puzzle, different people would have different pictures in their mind as to what actually took place because there just isn't enough backround. It would be easy to take a sentence, a verse, or part of a verse of scripture and derive different meanings from one verse, but if we consider the text before and after the sentence or verse, it would, of course, narrow things down quite a bit. Many groups, knowing the power and authority the word of God has use it to promote their propaganda of hate, racism, sexism, and other attrocious things, but they tend to isolate one or two verses and make a whole doctrine from it not considering that which surrounds the verse, and in the process masses are brain-washed. Religious groups make doctrines in the same way, by isolating a scripture, and then coming to their own conclusion, not considering, or just flat out ignoring the text surrounding it. One must also consider punctuation when reading something, not that I'm so great at it, but just a slip with a comma, semi-colon, period, or whatever changes the whole meaning of something. If someone would just take off the bliders and read the Bible, considering all the text, there would be very little room for confusion. The meaning would, well, have meaning. The Bible has already been interpreted, in many different languages at that. Just read it for what it says, I think if one considers the whole text then there would be no confusion as to what is literal, figurative, poetic, or otherwise. Just isololating a verse or two leads to utter confusion, just read it. When in question about a topic, read until the subject is changed. Somethings are parenthetically inserted, but this again can be identified by punctuation, and if it interupts the flow of the topic at hand. Really, the Bible is not at all hard to understand, it does not have many different meanings. Like anything, you read it for what it says, if something is figurative or symbolic it will be obvious.
