Throughout life, challenges and experiences are thrown our way. Prior to my knowledge, gained throughout the year, I would blame God for misfortunes. However through my understanding, God helps us go through the inevitable. Important concepts in THCT100, helped me understand God and regain strength to develop my faith again.
I was raised by catholic guidelines for the way of living, behaving and the ways I viewed the world. My schooling life has been through catholic institutions, which has been unusual considering my father is Coptic and my Mother is Catholic. As I attended St Mark’s primary school, it was prominent theme that Catholicism was essential. Beginning of primary school, I was taught early about the Catholic faith and how to behave like a good catholic.
As young as kindergarten, I remember being taught what the bible represents, and what it meant to the world. As a young boy, I never paid much attention to this, as I didn’t have much interest in it. By year two, I gained a great interest in the bible, after my teacher telling the class about a story of Adam and Eve.
Later that night about one hour of the bible, I thought to my self, it was amazing to read all of this and it was true. That year I gained an accurate understanding of what it meant to be a catholic, and what we as catholic believed in. As I moved from year 3 to 4, I received the sacrament of Eucharist, although, the teachers in primary school referred the Sacrament of the Eucharist as first communion. As my teacher told the class about this “first communion”, and how my class will be receiving “Body and blood of Christ”, I sat there in fear just thinking about what was going to happen, more so the fear of the unknown. Later that night my mother expla...
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...ing is in becoming." (1976). When we talk about God as a person, we may think that God is only one person. The word ‘person’ originally derives from the Latin word persona, meaning an actors face- and by extension, the role which he plays (Studies in Doctrine By Alister E. McGrath).. There for, may play each role, ie, God, Jesus & the Holy spirits; however God is still one person playing these roles.
My most important learning experience from this unit in my understanding of both, the old and New Testament. I understand that many of the written things in bible are contextually derived, so it is important not to take it in a literal sense. I understand the significance of the origins of words, these words allow for a greater understanding of the concept. As a result, I have gained the knowledge and concepts, which could aid me to become a Christian believer.
The Bible: The Old Testament. The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Ed. Sarah Lawall et al. Vol 1. 7th ed. New York: Norton, 1999. 47-97.
In argument for the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, they said that reading the Bible not only was essential to the building of good morals and development of the minds of impressionable school children, it was free to be interpreted anyway because of lack of comment and explanation. They claimed that the Bible was not a religious work, but when viewed from the eyes of a Christian, it did express the message of Christianity.
Coogan, Michael David., Marc Zvi. Brettler, Carol A. Newsom, and Pheme Perkins. "Genesis." The New Oxford Annotated Bible: With the Apocrypha. New York: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.
In The Battle for the Beginning, MacArthur directs believers to recognize the scriptural claim that first three chapters of Genesis concerning creation are the record of a literal and historical event. MacArthur senses a growing shift amongst modern evangelical believers who seek to revise or interpret the events of creation in a non-literal or naturalistic way. Macarthur reasons that a non-literal or naturalistic interpretation discounts what the scriptures says, and ultimately undermines Christian theology. For MacArthur the Bibl...
It is this lack of knowledge that gives rise to inaccurate claims about Catholicism. Catholicism is viewed as an impersonal relationship between God and man. This misguided assumption stems from the 16th century belief that only the religious officials had the right and ability to interpret the Word of God, the Bible. In the past, Catholics gained their knowledge of the Lord during mass on Sundays. Priests and other officials studied the Bible and communicated with God through prayer then relayed the message to the people of the church. This way of interaction with God was like going to a foreign country and not being able to speak the national language. Priests acted as a translator, speaking directly to both God and man. Just as with a translator, the personal connection made between God and man is limited. Some of the emotion is lost in translation; nevertheless, the message gets through. This tradition was...
In the first half of Theology 104, we went over many different topics. All these topics gave me a wonderful and better understanding of Theology and Christianity. I got a better understanding of Jesus claiming to be God, as well as our character development and how it plays a very vital part of our lives as Christians. By asking Jesus into our lives, we will be highly rewarded. For this I am
The Hebrew Bible, better known as the Old Testament, is a collection of tomes that form part of the Biblical canon. Many scholars around the world do not think that a single author wrote the books contained in the Hebrew Bible, but rather that it represents centuries of stories frequently compiled after the events they describe . The stories were created with visions for the future, in order to allow audiences insight into communities and beliefs that were common thought during their era. The stories responded to the issues and problems of their time, but also addressed contemporary climates. While the stories themselves may not be true, they convey truth without needing literal readings. For example, the creation stories in Genesis, portray God as creating the universe, and while this is considered as not ‘literally true’; the stories communicate theological truths about mankind’s relationship with God through the eyes of Hebrew writers .
Roles of the Catholic Church in Western civilization has been scrambled with the times past and development of Western society. Regardless of the fact that the West is no longer entirely Catholic, the Catholic tradition is still strong in Western countries. The church has been a very important foundation of public facilities like schooling, Western art, culture and philosophy; and influential player in religion. In many ways it has wanted to have an impact on Western approaches to pros and cons in numerous areas. It has over many periods of time, spread the teachings of Jesus within the Western World and remains a foundation of continuousness connecting recent Western culture to old Western culture.-
Harris, Stephen. Understanding The Bible. 6 ed. New York City: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages, 2002. Print.
Spanning fifteen hundred years with over 30,700 manuscripts, extensive archaeological evidence and 2000 prophecies that have been fulfilled, the Bible is God 's word to us. (Yohn, 2013). In the Bible, the Father is essentially giving us a picture of the history of the world and is also leading us to a place where we must make a decision that involves whether we choose to accept his son or reject him and remain guilty. Additionally, the Word of God tells us what happened that caused this breach between us and God, the result of this and how God has rectified it through the blood of his son. In fact, from the beginning of the Bible (written 1400 B.C.) to the last book (A.D. 96), God is showing us why we need Jesus and how to find him. Just as a plant’s root system propagates and occupies the pot that encloses it, Jesus permeates the entire Bible. Therefore, the motif of the Bible is the story of the redemption of mankind and it all points to Jesus as the messiah and savior who secures this for all.
In the first book of the Old Testament, Genesis, we read of the fall of man. As we study the Bible and recognize it’s importance in our lives today we must realize the role these stories play in our time. The Bible is not simply a history book or a book of stories of morality, but it is a book that speaks to us today of how we should live and interact with God. We are confronted with this fact in Genesis “through a graphic and dramatic representation it gives a
Mears, Henrietta C.. What the Bible Is All About. Rev. and updated. ed. Ventura, Calif., U.S.A.: Regal Books, 1983. Print.
Thus, an effort is made to highlight how Bible interpretation – through its publication – has developed in the history of Christianity.
Thiselton, A.C. (2005). Can the Bible mean whatever we want it to mean? Chester, U.K.: Chester Acadamic Press, 10-11.
Before beginning my first semester here at Vanguard I often found myself questioning why I believe what I believe. I had a hard time understanding the bible and an even harder time finding answers to my questions. It was difficult for me to find the courage to ask questions because I didn’t want to come off as someone who didn’t know everything about the bible. Once I started my freshman year I began understanding that I am not alone, every one has questions or things that they don’t quite understand. Encountering The New Testament broke down parts of the bible and made it much easier for me to understand.