Welcome to OO: Introductions & General

Mon, 06 June 2011 11:05

grandom
Messages: 404
Registered: October 2007

Senior Member

In my early Christian experience I set out to read the Bible, taking the promises at face value, believing the Scriptures as I found them without benefit of footnotes or commentaries. I began with Genesis and was claiming everything for myself when I was informed that those promises were for the Jews! My ardor was dampened but I did not want to lay hold of anything that did not belong to me, so I moved into the New Testament and began to appropriate the blessings of the Sermon on the Mount when again I was interrupted and duly notified that all those things belonged to the Kingdom Age. Not wanting to trespass on the Kingdom Age, whatever that was, I started over in the Acts and was daring to claim some if not all the fruits of Pentecost when I was again reminded that the Acts covered a transitional period and that we were not to press those matters too literally! By then, I did not know which promises were mine nor could I stand with confidence on any passage of Scripture lest some divider of the Word might come along like a policeman to order me off private property. In desperation I said, “Lord, I’ve heard of a man without a country, and I’m becoming a Christian without a Bible. Give me a verse I can claim for my own.” He answered with one I have stood upon ever since: “. . .let God be true, but every man a liar .” (Romans 3:4)!

Vance Hafner

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