The first deals with our past.
When I was on the air one day, I made a comment about my admiration and fascination about Abraham Lincoln. When we lived in Illinois, Becky, Jaden and I had the opportunity to visit Lincoln's house and his tomb and I talked about the experience. A listener heard it and sent some information that completely shocked me. She was a history teacher and even more of a history buff than I, and recommended some books that detail the truth about Lincoln from actual letters, articles and speeches. One of her comments caught my attention. She said that, "He who wins the war, writes the history...!" That made perfect sense, so I decided to follow her suggestions. Right now, I'm reading the book, "The Real Lincoln."
I'm finding out that the books and movies that portray him as a quiet, shy, passive man aren't entirely accurate. I just started reading it, but it has been quite an eye-opener so far.The second area that I'm looking for truth is in the Bible!
Being raised in the particular theological vein that I was, I heard some of the most wonderful, powerful messages by some fantastic preachers. They were fiery masterpieces of inspiration and exhortation. Of course, the men who delivered them were renowned men of integrity; anointed, ordained men of God who only spoke the truth directly from their in-depth study of His Word. I'm not trying to sound cynical, because that was positively true; however, in their zeal to hold people's attention and get the message across, they managed to get some of the facts of the Bible slightly out of whack. I'm not sure when or how it started, but by the time I came into this world and was raised hearing it, those had somehow morphed into accepted truth. Here's a "for instance."
"Saul had a life changing encounter with God and, as a result, God changed Saul's name to Paul." It is usually followed by a question that asks if your name has been changed as a result of an encounter with God.
Imagine that delivered with zeal and vigor and you can see how it would impact the people who hear it! The problem is...it's factually wrong! God didn't change Saul's name to Paul. He went by either name! What he was called was dependent on the people he was dealing with at the time. When he accepted Christ, he began to be called Paul, but I haven't found anywhere in Scripture where God made the final decision on that.
Anyway, that's where I am at this point. Not confused, not meandering about, but wanting to know that what I believe is the truth! If it's not, I want to know the truth so I won't fall for any lie that the enemy might spout out. I'll keep you posted on what I find out.
Yes, TRUTH! Even as a child I learned that Saul became Paul after his conversion. I know they meant well, but sometimes Sunday School lessons were over-simplified for little ones to understand. As I grew into adulthood I re-learned many of those stories and was surprised at how much I misunderstood. Just goes to show that if we don't enter into relationship by reading His word, we are in danger of being stuck on milk.
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