Now, while I admittedly have my reservations about certain aspects of the Bible, I cannot, as the saying goes, ‘throw the baby out with the bath water’. Just because there are certain contexts that I do not understand yet of the Bible, does not render the whole Bible unusable.
I think this is where a lot of people get apprehensive when trying to listen to certain verses, passages, etc., because some perspectives of it happen to clash with our beliefs, or what we want to be true. So instead of trying to dig in deeper and seek out the truth, people instead turn away completely.
Lord knows I tried. (No pun intended.)
Past life as an atheist.
I was exactly the type of person that scoffed at the Bible and ridiculed anyone preaching Bible verses. I would get angry. When I was younger, I tried to read the Bible to understand, but all I saw were contradictions and violence. I actually became depressed when I tried to read it. So I gave up, early on in my readings, and became bitter and angry with anyone who tried to preach to me, or if I saw Bible passages anywhere. My thoughts if I saw someone who replied back with Bible verses was to vehemently automatically dismiss them, and surmise that they can’t think for themselves. I want THEIR opinion, not just rehashing what they saw from the Bible.
And if I got irritated enough, I would also counter back with my own verses of the Bible, none too kindly, that depicts God in a not so flattering light, if you get my drift. Usually once I did this, they had nothing more to say and wouldn’t counter back.
If there are any atheists reading this, or even agnostics, chances are whatever thoughts you had about God, Jesus Christ, the Bible, I have thought of also. I went from a person believing in God as a child, then wanting to believe, then dropping it altogether (although I still thought the paranormal was possible), until finally God/Jesus Christ/the Holy Spirit – whoever He was, reached out to me and got through to me and brought me back – for good.