(Introduction)(Dial.1)(Dial.2)DIALOGUE 3(Dial.4)(Dial.5)(Dial.6)(Dial.7)(Dial.8)(Dial.9)(Dial.10)

(Dial.11)(Dial.12)(Dial.13)(Dial.14)(Dial.15)(Dial.16)(Dial.17)(Dial.18)(Dial.19)(Dial.20)

ABOUT THE WORD OF GOD

DIRTY_C: Are you reading your Bible?

CLEAN_C: Yes, of course! It is the Word of God! Why shouldn’t I be reading it? “All Scripture is God-breathed, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness”, 2 Tim.3:16. The Word of God is like a phone calling us: when the need rings we should answer to it and when we hear the call we need to take it. Sometimes we call to it instead on it calling upon us.

DIRTY_C: I don’t understand much about the Bible. It confuses me. Whenever I try to read it, my mind is restless and starts wandering. I can’t find much in it to interest my restless mind. I feel I read it only because I fear God will punish me if I don’t. They say the Bible is the book which has sold most copies ever, right?

CLEAN_C: Even if it weren’t a Best Seller, it would still be the Word of God. We would still need to read it and absorb it to the full.

DIRTY_C: The best way for me to read my Bible is when I am in church. I find the environment there more inviting and more appropriate to read my Bible.

CLEAN_C: I don’t like the way people read the Bible in church. They are kind of religious about it and we should be living beings instead. Besides, we need to answer to the Bible everywhere and anywhere and not in church alone. Wherever our phone rings we must answer it.

DIRTY_C: But, the fact is that it doesn’t matter where I read it. I understand very little of it anyway. I understand only the historical part of it and find it boring. I cannot see any connection between reading it and my life at all. I don’t find life in it. The only reason I feel is the obligation to read it. But, I don’t understand any of it.

CLEAN_C: Usually the problem is inside who reads and not inside the Bible. Who reads it and understands it not, he is the one who has the problem. He is the reason why the Bible becomes boring and lifeless.

DIRTY_C: You are saying it is my fault that I don’t understand the Bible?

CLEAN_C: It is not possible to be the Bible’s fault! There is no other explanation. English makes sense to English people, right? They understand it. They use the language to talk about many things and to solve many issues. If an English man doesn't hear, understand or speak English, surely, the fault is in him and not in the language. However, if you are not English you are kind of lost when it is spoken. The Bible makes sense to such as are like it, to such who speak its language. Reading our Bibles far from God who enlightens our understanding causes us to miss every point of it and every simple meaning it has. It becomes lifeless, even though it is full of life. The Bible is a very straight forward and simple book. It is quite simple and objective. However, reading your Bible without God is like hearing an explanation of something important in a foreign language. However important the matter is, it won’t make any sense to you at all. It shall never mean anything to you. If you are sheep you shall hear the shepherd. They speak the same language. If you are haven’t been made sheep, you can’t hear Him at all. It is like hearing a radio station: you need to be in the wave it is broadcasted. It is as simple as that. Is English the problem or the person who does not understand it? Is the problem in the Bible or in who reads it? Should we change it because people don’t understand it? That is what many pastors and theologians are doing nowadays. "...Unstable people distort Scriptures to their own destruction...", 2Pet.3:16.

DIRTY_C: You are hurting me again. Somehow, you are. You always find a way to hurt me deeply.

CLEAN_C: Jesus said that sheep hear the voice of the Shepherd. We may assume the Shepherd hears sheep quite well too. If we become sheep indeed, if we find the way to become real sheep, we shall of course understand the Bible very easily. No goat will ever understand a sheep’s tongue, even if it seems they are alike or walk together. Goats and sheep are not alike, however close they may seem to be. So, we cannot try to figure out which of the many voices is the Lord’s or the Bible’s without becoming sheep first. Usually, people try to figure out the voice so they don’t have to become sheep or be made obedient. Jesus said only sheep hear it, whether it is through Scripture or not. They shall know it quite well because the voice of God shall be very familiar to them in any situation and under any circumstances. If we try to be like sheep instead of being real sheep, surely the shepherd shall not be Jesus, but another. A goat-Christian will not understand the Bible the way he should. Only sheep will.

DIRTY_C: Please, stop offending me! I have already accepted Jesus! Why do you keep saying I do not belong to Him?

CLEAN_C: Well, then you might have another explanation for the reason why you do not understand the Bible seeing it is such a simple, easy book. Do you?

DIRTY_C: Oh, I don’t know! What could be the problem?

CLEAN_C: And why are so easily offended? Have you ever seen sheep complain about anything? Can sheep complain as you do?  

DIRTY_C: Why are you always pointing at me?

CLEAN_C: For as long as truth is still an offence to you, Jesus will not regard you as His sheep at all. I may agree to a point that just as goats may try to imitate sheep, sheep might feel they are goats still because they may have lived for too long among goats and their belief. "Woe is me, for I (...) dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips", Is.6:5. What they really are is altered and somewhat influenced through lies. "The LORD instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people", Is.8:11. They might not easily believe they are sheep because they walk the ways of the people around them. But, surely it shall be strange to sheep to complain as goats do. Jesus said those who are like Him hear Him. We may assume those who are like the Bible shall also understand it because it talks about them as well and explains what is going on in them. If truth still offends you, surely you must still undergo a huge transformation from inside. We should all have the ability to rejoice when Jesus talks, whatever He says. A rebuke from Him should be as comforting as an encouragement from His mouth. It means a lot. We need to change from the heart and not only change attitudes and outward appearances. We cannot afford to be sheep only on the outside, appearing to be what we are not.

DIRTY_C: I go to church, sing from my heart, plead for strength and you still say I am not a sheep? I am not praying to the devil am I?

CLEAN_C: No, you are praying to God, but He hears sheep only. He opens the door to them. I believe people who sing to the Lord for real, sing in such a natural way and so spontaneous that they aren’t even focusing on the environment they are found singing. They are too aware of the Lord they serve. No one uses strength to stay where he belongs or where he loves to be. Do you see worldly people forcing themselves to watch a worldly movie or to read a novel? People sit before television as if nothing else exists on earth. Oh, if they could do that with the things of the Lord! What a blessing it would be for the world!

DIRTY_C: You mean that for us to understand the Bible we should read it that way? Unless we do so we won’t understand it?

CLEAN_C: Yes, that is what I mean. If you ever understand it some other way, it will only be to feel accused. It would be good and understandable if people could read it in a living way, yes. It would only mean they are very familiar with it. They would be friends with the Bible and with God because they would be fulfilling His commandments easily. It would mean the spirit wouldn’t be enslaved to the body anymore. And it could mean many more things. A living spirit would read the Bible much like that, yes.

DIRTY_C: How can I become a sheep and be like that? Can you advise me?

CLEAN_C: Becoming sheep is very easy. The hard part is the willingness of man to let go the goat. Goats go to church, sheep are found in the Lord, whether they are in church or at work. That is one of the reasons we should be very careful about having a religious spirit or mind which does not allow the Lord into it or its world as a familiar Lord. The way Christians read and hold their Bibles nowadays is very religious and is not a living way. This is why I put in my heart I shall read my Bible as hungry people would eat living bread. I don’t like the way people, pastors and preachers read the Bible and the way they teach how to read the Bible at all. At least, that part you shall need to change after you have become sheep. You should know it is the bread of Life, as it is indeed. If it is not real bread to you, you might have a heart which would rather believe lies. I believe it is easier to change a murderer into a living being than it is to change a cold Christian into a living Christian. It takes a lot more to change religious people from the inside. Dead Christians have their own way of doing things already, and they have settled habits as well. And they have their own way of reading the Bible which they fear to put aside. They fear more to put their ways aside than they fear to put the Bible aside. They fear more to leave their own ways than to leave the ways of the Lord. Woe to them! Look at you and find out if you are a good example of that or not.

DIRTY_C: But, I have been going to church for many years now. You think it will be difficult for me to find the Lord that way and live with Him for real in such a spontaneous way as you are telling me? I have never seen people living that way at all. Maybe, I missed them altogether!

CLEAN_C: It shall not be an easy road, surely. Anyway, everyone has a kind of problem of his own. You need to keep in mind God wants living beings and not programmed robots. Many things need to change, especially those you consider good and proper things. I believe the greatest stumbling block to people is what they consider right and holy. Usually, God hates it. If your inside changes for real, you need to put aside each religious habit you gained over the years. The habits should at least be reviewed. They don’t work out with Jesus and they do not fit into real Life at all. Life is Life and it drives people to read their Bibles as they should and to understand it progressively - as they can take it. Each day has its bread. There are a lot of areas in people’s minds they need to renew.

DIRTY_C: Can you give me one more example?

CLEAN_C: For example, people in church are taught a way to preach to others quite well. That’s how people convince themselves they are already something. They believe they are rich, yet are very poor in God’s sight. They just don’t know they are poorer than the poor. Preaching to others is the way of a goat. People assure themselves by trying to convince others. But, one needs to sow in own ground, as Jesus said.

DIRTY_C: How so?

CLEAN_C: Jesus said once that people who find the good seed go and sow it in their own ground. Many, however, as soon as they understand something about the Word, they start searching people to whom they can preach and explain whatever they may have learned. It doesn’t work that way anymore, at least once we become sheep. Paul said that, “It is right for the labouring farmer to partake first of the fruits”, 2Tim.2:6.

DIRTY_C: Please, carry on.

CLEAN_C: Let me illustrate it through a story I have heard a while ago. There was a family who never saw a mirror before. They didn’t know what a mirror was. The husband found one and he hid it from everyone else. So now and then he would go to the mirror in secret and smile to it. His wife thought he had an affair with some other woman and resolved to spy on him. She was filled with jealousy and even more so when she saw the husband smiling at it. She thought he was smiling to some woman, something he seldom did to her. After the husband left, she went to the mirror to see the woman he had been smiling to. She saw an ugly woman staring at her and was very sad that her husband would give her up for such an ugly woman as the one she was looking at.

DIRTY_C: And then, what happened?

CLEAN_C: She went out crying loudly. Her mother came and asked her what was the matter. She said her husband had another woman. The mother couldn’t believe it! So, the daughter went to the mirror to show the mother. The old mother looked at the mirror and was stunned that her son-in-law and given up his own wife for such an old, ugly woman as the one she saw in the mirror. She thought at least the other woman would be prettier and younger than her daughter.

DIRTY_C: What does it have to do with the Bible and understanding it?

CLEAN_C: The Bible is like a mirror to us and it reveals the face of whoever reads it. People usually believe they are becoming aware of other people’s problems and other’s faces and sins. Make sure every time something from the Bible touches your heart, you believe it is talking to you. I have seen many people read their Bible and say, “Oh, my family should hear about this! My husband should read this!” And they lose the blessing God intended for them. They cannot easily and promptly figure out that God and the Bible are speaking to them. The Bible has only personal relationships with us and never means to cause us to preach to others before we ourselves partake of it. One of the wrong ways to read our Bibles is to believe one needs to learn from it so we can preach to others. It won’t work out, and it just can’t bring any blessing to us if we secretly believe that. Most people who do so fall from grace sooner or later. In fact, unless someone changes, he shall surely fall in disgrace and will wander far from God one way or another, sooner or later. He just won’t finish his race in the Lord, even if odds and hopes say he will.

(Introduction)(Dial.1)(Dial.2)DIALOGUE 3(Dial.4)(Dial.5)(Dial.6)(Dial.7)(Dial.8)(Dial.9)(Dial.10)

(Dial.11)(Dial.12)(Dial.13)(Dial.14)(Dial.15)(Dial.16)(Dial.17)(Dial.18)(Dial.19)(Dial.20)