WilliamFearless

So this guy decided to live the bible literally for one year. Yet I don't see a whole lot of Christians doing that. In fact, I never see any Christians doing that.

Most of the Christian men I've known in my life allow their wives to speak in church (I Timothy 2:11-14) and shave their beards (Leviticus 19:27) and some of them sadly have gotten divorces (Luke 16:18). Homosexuality and evolution are still evil of course, but they are allowed to break those other rules in God's Word because...

...well, I'm not sure why.

The question for this thread is: What is the mechanism or method to determine what rules in the bible are to be followed and which ones are to be ignored? :huh:

Juststeve

A wonderful question. No Christian would agree but I think most Christians follow those biblical rules they would be inclined to follow even were they not biblical rules.

Steve

ApostateAbe

They follow the commands of the Bible that are acceptable to their own culture. They don't follow the commands of the Bible that are unacceptable to their own culture. I take that to be the basic formula.

Toto

Modern Christians read the Bible like New Agers read the Tao Te Ching. They open it at random, stare at the page, and wait for some inspiration from the Holy Spirit (or from the right side of their brain.) Then they do what they really wanted to do anyway.

aa5874

Christians don't really do that at all. They normally go to Church and attempt to follow the teachings of their religion as stated by the Pastor or Bishop.

At one time many Christians could NOT even read the Bible since it was written in LATIN.

It is the Pastor or Bishop or whoever is regarded as the authority of the Congregation or Church who EXPOUNDS and teaches the Doctrine that should be followed.

GakuseiDon

From the Naked Pastor:

jgoodguy

Until the invention of the printing press, the Bible was not widely available at all. Until the translation into the common language it was not widely read. Until the average man was able to read, it was not accessible by the average person.

Horatio Parker

It was punishable by death to own a bible in the vernacular.

<http://net.lib.byu.edu/scm/bibles/wycliffe.html>

"In 1409, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Arundel, issued thirteen Constitutions which prohibited the translation of any biblical text into English as well as the public or private reading of such texts. Violators were excommunicated and charged with heresy, which was punishable by death. English-language Bible manuscripts were pushed underground throughout the next 130 years, kept carefully by lay readers. "

But anyone who thinks that spirituality or religion is a cookbook ie follow the recipe and wake up in heaven is mistaken.

Don't confuse mythos with logos.

jgoodguy

One of the things a vernacular Bible did was to eliminate the monopoly of the Church leaders and in a sense returned Christianity to its 1st century status with lots of groups and view points. After Martin Luther it became impossible to put the genie back into the bottle. As long as the Roman Catholic Church had the monopoly and control over Christianity there was only one flavor. Once that was lost, then anyone could read the Bible and create their own group.

Doug Shaver

It depends on which sect the Christian belongs to. There is no consensus. Nothing even close to a consensus.