There is a website that is called "http://jesus-is-savior.com/". It is a fundamentalist website that has many off of the wall articles on it. I have looked at many of the articles on the website and at almost every one found myself so angry I did not know what to do next. It is amazing to me how many people out there that don't want to accept any form of Biblical criticism out there. It is also amazing to me that most of them think they know more than the scholars in the field doing the research. As I stated before I am attending an United Methodist seminary and would consider myself a part of the UMC, the Episcopal Church, Disciples of Christ, American Baptist USA, and perhaps the UCC. It is offensive to me how this person who writes the stuff on jesus-is-savior.com thinks he knows more than the scholars of these particular denominations. It is offensive to me to see all of the attacks on the Catholic church on that website (not to mention any protestant denomination that disagrees with his theology).

I heard someone once say that the Bible was not the word of God, but that Jesus was the word of God (see John 1.) While I do not affirm that statement (because I believe that Holy Scriptures lead us to the eternal Word which is Jesus) I think people like this guy are putting the scriptures in an idolterous place. Holy Scriptures tell us about God and God's son Jesus, but they themselves are not in the place of God. They are the words of God preserved to us today. But we must not mistake them for the Eternal Word who is Christ.

We also must realize that these text were written by people. They have human opinions within the text as well as divine revolations. Paul was under the opinion that the return of Christ the parousia would happen within his life time. We believe that he was killed in the 60s. That was 1940 some years ago. The Parousia did not happen yet. It also gets to me how many people mis use Paul. There are many letters atributed to him that scholars are not sure he wrote. They have differnt language than the comfirmed epistles of Paul, and at times they seem to have slightly differnt ideas. There are some that hardly any scholars would say were written by Paul, and yet these are the ones most often used to make claims such as women should not serve in the church (see 1st Timothy) which is in contrast to him greating Phoebe (Romans 16:1) which in the Greek it calls her a deacon. (Yes I did take 2 years of Greek through my undergrad).

So what do you do with these text? Well they are our Holy Scriptures. They, in one form or another, have been passed down to us through the ages from our parents and their parents. But I believe that it is the responsiblitiy of church leaders today to educate people on the scriptures. What do they mean? How can we treat these works with respect and still understand them and what they mean? Does it take a crises of faith? No! One just has to keep an open mind, and one must stay in prayer. These are the writings that tell us about our lord, but we have to keep an open mind, because if not we will abuse the people that wrote these, the communities that accepted these, and ultemently our Lord who died upon the cross of Calvary to save us.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit! Amen!