Bylsma’s Bible Blogs
# 6 Read The Bible In A Year
Bylsma’s Bible Blogs
Before time began, a God with unusual qualities existed throughout the universe and will live forever. The one true God has multiple forms and was all-powerful, existed every¬where, and knew every¬thing. God also has a moral dimension, knowing the difference between good and evil. In this sense, God has a “personality”
The Holy Bible is a collection of 66 documents written by many authors during a 1,600-year period, starting in about the 15th century BCE (there is no agreement about when the first book was written). The documents (“books”) were not organized in chronological order.
In 5 BC, when Herod was the Roman king in charge of Judah, a priest named Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth were living in Hebron, about 25 miles south of Jerusalem. Both were descendants of Aaron, the first high priest, and both were righteous in God’s sight and obeyed all of God’s commands. They had grown old without having any children, even though they often prayed to have a son.
People have been pursuing the truth for many centuries. Aristotle lived in Greece in the third century BC and pioneered techniques of observation and inquiry we still use today. Galileo, the Italian astronomer and physicist, questioned conventional wisdom and used scientific methods in the early 1600s to discover the earth was not the center of the universe.
Science and religion are often seen as polar opposites on the “truth” spectrum, but this is based on a misunderstanding of both. In fact, they complement each other.
Nationalism is generally defined as a political belief that a person’s loyalty, devotion, and allegiance to a group of people who share a history, culture, language, and religion takes priority over the interests of individuals or other groups.
The term freedom is used in different ways in the Bible. The freedoms that governments provide are implied in the biblical narratives. People were free to live and travel where they want, to do business with others and spend their money how they want, to follow and believe different religions and philosophies, to choose their vocations and friends, to discuss and debate the merits of an argument, and to act in immoral ways that don’t interfere with the freedoms and safety of others.
