I gave you two specific examples, both very clearly expressed in the New Testament. I take it for granted we both agree that above all, God loves us and wants us to be with him in his kingdom forever. So when I read the words of John “ These things I write so YOU MAY KNOW you have eternal life” I take them at face value. Likewise Romans 6:23 “ The wages of sin is DEATH, but the GIFT of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
You insist that people can’t understand Biblical truth without knowing Hebrew and Greek and putting them in historical context etc., So you believe that a God who loves us above all and wants us to be with him for eternity would express that sentiment and then say something like “ BUT FIRST YOU MUST EXPLAIN TO ME EVERY JOT AND TITTLE OF EINSTEINS THEORY OF RELATIVITY!” Could you pass that test? Seriously Meri, what could a Greek Scholar add or subtract that would clear up my apparent misunderstanding of Gods word here?
Do you speak Hebrew or Greek? I suspect not, but if I’m wrong, have you then gotten your hands on the original manuscripts of the Apostles and translated them yourself so you could be 100% certain of every conceivable thing they might have been thinking when they were allegedly being inspired by the Holy Spirit to write? If you haven’t, and you’re confined to an understanding of imprecise English like me and most other Americans and English speaking people, how have you derived the limited understanding of Biblical truth you must obviously have? You’re not just taking the words written and left behind by some dead scholar are you? If so, how did you verify the sources of information that they used were true? How did you verify the truth of the sources sources? If one scholar says one thing and another scholar says the first scholar is wrong, who do you believe and why?
You can go back in time as far as you want and get the opinions of a thousand scholars, ever seeking and never finding the truth, but since you believe some things and not others, you’ve obviously taken somebody’s word for something.
I believe it was a group of 47 men who were responsible for the King James Bible. Though I don’t speak Hebrew or Greek, they did. Though I don’t have any letters after my name, they did. Though I’ve never laid eyes on an any actual text that any version of the Bible is based on, they did. IOW, I trust their scholarship produced exactly what God wanted to be produced for the English Speaking world at just the right time in history, right when what would become America was just getting started. That was not a coincidence BTW but that is another topic…
Again, God is not the author of confusion. I’m not confused at all about Gods word, Gods Will, Heaven or how to get there. Why are you?