The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."This is the entire purpose of my "campaign," if you will, against blind belief.
Galations 5:14
Everything that God has put in the Bible and spoken through men, has come out for one sole purpose. The best I could tell people was "God didn't just say it...there is a purpose for it."
Love your neighbor as yourself. It is simple to grasp...simple to explain...and that's exactly the kind of connection that needs to be made with those that can't quite grasp the larger things in life.
The Old Testament is filled with the do's and don'ts of the time. An effort by God to get his people to live right, treat others right, and glorify him in doing so. People fail at life without an example.
The New Testament is God's effort to give his people an example of how they should be living, how they should be treating others, and how to glorify him in doing so. People will be blessed in life if they follow His example.
For months now, possibly years, I have been trying to get people to look deeper into the words they were reading in the bible. If they read from the Old Testament, all they could see was what they were conditioned to see. It was either elaborate stories, or boring genealogy, or out-dated rules for how to live. But there is so much more to it than that.
The elaborate stories were accounts of a time that things seemed impossible, and God showed his people with a slap in the face of their simple thoughts, that nothing was impossible through Him. The boring genealogy is much more than that...it's a record of who is related to who, so you can follow the lineage of the family that eventually resulted in the birth of Jesus. If you read it all, and straight through, you realize that the Bible is not just a collection of stories...it's a family history - how one man and one woman gave rise to an entire nation that was their family. And during the development of that nation, they had specific rules and guidelines - not to control them, per se - but rather to help enable them to live a better life. Don't eat this (because it's bad for you)...don't do this (because it's bad for you)...don't live like this (because it's bad for you).
Why not eat the unclean animals? Well, because all the ones they listed have very little nutritional value as compared to the clean animals they listed.
Why not sleep with the mother of your sister? Well, because that will cause genetic defects in your family line - not to mention the moral, social, and spiritual ramifications against it.
Why should we honor our father and mother? Well, because listening to what they have to say, and doing what they tell you will actually keep you out of trouble - yeah, believe it? I didn't either until I got older and found out the purpose of everything I was raised doing turned out to help be a better employee and person in life.
Now that you've gone through the Old Testament to get your internal perspective in order...next comes the New Testament - where you take your perspective and shift it to other people.
As BinaryAngel wrote in her religion blog, Jesus spent his time walking around the streets. He didn't spend his time looking for miracles to do, but rather as he was going about his day, he saw needs and answered them, and then used that moment to bring a message to his followers.
Jesus is the example for how one takes their own life, and gives out of it to make the lives of others better. A kind word, a gentle touch, an uplifted spirit - sometimes that is all it takes to make someone live beyond their condition. If you take some time in your day to do something empowering to someone else, without required payment or expectation of any kind of return...not only will it bring hope to their life, but joy to yours.
Jesus spent all his time bringing new life, new hope, and new joy to everyone he met. He asked God what his next steps should be, and continually prayed for the needs of those around him. He loved his neighbor as himself, being God - he loved his neighbor as God loved them. When his time was done, he had lived a complete life - not complete in years, but in purpose...to show the people God's love.
What's your purpose here?
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