Our children and family pastor had an 8-year-old ask the people in church Sunday morning a series of questions. The questions related to the Christmas story. All came directly from the Gospel record.
Most people missed at least half of the questions. Almost all missed these:
- How many wise men?
- Were wise men at the manger scene?
- Did Mary ride a donkey to Bethlehem from Nazareth?
- Is the story in all four gospels?
People get confused all the time. I see it ofen relating to the Bible. I see it other places.
You see a picture someone painted of a scene. That becomes real in your mind even though it was an artist’s interpetation with no thought of being literally true.
The other day in a study group a question came up. I suggested, “Read 1 Corinthians 5.” Someone else said, “Did you hear the pastor’s sermon on that? Go listen to that.” I repeated, “Read 1 Corinthians 5.”
What is so hard about going to the source material.
In college I got so frustrated. We read about Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Euclid, Newton, and so on. We didn’t read Plato, et. al.
If you are discussing things related to Scripture, then read the Scripture. You can say subsequently, so and so said this about the passage. Then everyone can discuss. But you have as close to the source material as you can get.
It is so important to get the facts before we go off constructing wild hypotheses represented as fact when actually it is unfounded conjecture.
Wow, wouldn’t that raise our discourse above the shouting matches our politicians love!
Tags: disciplines, research, Study
Faith Venture 
Leave a Reply