The bible is God talking to you (priest, pray, faith)

[UltraViolet]

Life is God talking to you.

[Yeshua_Lives]

Originally Posted by Francine

Catch-22. How do you receive faith and understand the commandments if scripture is concealing these truths from your unprepared spirit?

When the student is ready the teacher will teach.

[Autodidact]

It seems odd to me that, of all the things God might have chosen to say to me, He found these particularly important:

If two men, a man and his countryman, are struggling together, and the wife of one comes near to deliver her husband from the hand of the one who is striking him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals, then you shall cut off her hand; you shall not show pity.
Deuteronomy 25:11-12

Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.
Leviticus 25:44-46

The Philistines asked, "What guilt offering should we send to him?"
They replied, "Five gold tumors and five gold rats, according to the number of the Philistine rulers, because the same plague has struck both you and your rulers. 5 Make models of the tumors and of the rats that are destroying the country, and pay honor to Israel's god. Perhaps he will lift his hand from you and your gods and your land.
1 Samuel 6

Not to mention the page after page after page in the OT that details ad nauseum each and every neighboring tribe and nation that the Israelites conquered, how they defeated them, how they destroyed them and everything they owned, particularly their babies.

600 passages of explicit violence in the Hebrew Bible [a.k.a. Old Testament], 1000 verses where God's own violent actions of punishment are described, 100 passages where God expressly commands others to kill people, and several stories where God irrationally kills or tries to kill for no apparent reason. Violence ... is easily the most often mentioned activity in the Hebrew Bible.

(Raymond Schweger) The conquest of Canaan, in which God ordered the Hebrews to completely exterminate the Canaanite people -- from the elderly to newborns and fetuses. This is described throughout the book of Joshua.

You know, this sort of thing:
But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee.
Deuteronomy

or this:
And they warred against the Midianites, as the Lord commanded Moses; and they slew all the males.... And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle... And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves
Numbers 31

I mean, if God is talking to me there, what exactly is He trying to tell me?

[Wandered Off]

STAFF ADVISORY: Since this thread generated some debate, it was moved from the Christianity DIR area, where debate is prohibited, to this area where debate is welcome.

[Don Penguinoini]

No, the Vedas is closer.

[Jistyr]

Originally Posted by penguino

No, the Vedas is closer.

How do you determine that?

[YmirGF]

Originally Posted by Francine

The Bible is God talking to you.

Who? Who is the so-called "god" entity?

Originally Posted by Francine

Prayer is you talking to God.

I rather expect that they are talking to themselves, although that is saying a bit more than most may realize.

[eXiled]

Why can't God speak for himself? I mean, he's God... why use a book? Everyone's different. Some people, for instance, cannot read. So does that mean they'll never be 'ready' for God's word? Some people learn better visually, so couldn't God pop in and say, "Do this...". Seems to me, that if he loved us all, it would be a helluva lot easier to get a hold of him.

[Starfish]

Originally Posted by eXiled

Why can't God speak for himself? I mean, he's God... why use a book? Everyone's different. Some people, for instance, cannot read. So does that mean they'll never be 'ready' for God's word? Some people learn better visually, so couldn't God pop in and say, "Do this...". Seems to me, that if he loved us all, it would be a helluva lot easier to get a hold of him.

God will speak to you in any way you are able and willing to receive it. Sometimes it's in the Bible, sometimes it might be in something you hear, or he might put thoughts into your mind. Anyone can pray. If you're sincere, he's always listening.

As far as the scriptures, God has already answered many of life's questions in them. So he like us to find our answers there, because there's so much to learn from them. Sometimes we're kind of lazy and don't bother searching. It takes effort. But God will reach out and speak to us in whatever way we're receptive, IF we're receptive.