Do you find the Bible confusing?

[A.W. Bowman]

Pehaps a definition is in order:

confuse |kənˈfyoōz|; verb [ trans. ]

cause (someone) to become bewildered or perplexed : past and present blurred together, confusing her still further.

• make (something) more complex or less easy to understand : the points made by the authors confuse rather than clarify the issue.

• identify wrongly; mistake : a lot of people confuse a stroke with a heart attack | purchasers might confuse the two products.

DERIVATIVES

confusingly adverb

ORIGIN Middle English (in the sense [rout, bring to ruin] ): from Old French confus, from Latin confusus, past participle of confundere ‘mingle together’ (see confound ). Originally all senses of the verb were passive, and therefore appeared only as the past participle confused; the active voice occurred rarely until the 19th cent. when it began to replace confound.

Thesaurus

confusing; adjective

the instructions are confusing bewildering, baffling, unclear, perplexing, puzzling, mystifying, disconcerting; ambiguous, misleading, inconsistent, contradictory; unaccountable, inexplicable, impenetrable, unfathomable; complex, complicated.

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For me, when it comes to the Bible, in addition to clairity and understanding, from time to time I also suffer from most (if not all) of the above symptoms. Guess this is why I stay confused so much of the time. LOLOL.

Kidding aside, I am truly impressed with those who do not seem to suffer my problems in understanding the Bible. I have to dig for almost everything - perhaps thatisbecause I see a depth to the word that invites a "stretching" of both the mind and heart, and that keeps me off-balance - it instill a conficence that I have not yet fully comprehended the fullness of what the word is designed to convey in its instruction to mankind.

Herein lies the reason for my frequent statement that, "I truly wish I understood everything I think I know about the sord of God."

A point of clarification: When I confess a lack of knowledge or understanding, i.e. a degree of confusion concerning someting in the Bible, that does not equate to a confusion, uncertainty, doubt, or distrust of God, Himself, or of His love and compasion, or His justice/judgments. There is a vast differeence in being"confused" concerning things about God, and being confused about a relationship with God.

There are things about my wife that frequently confuses me, but I am not in confusion concerning our relationship.

However, I think I have worked this subject beyond its threshold of endurance.

[A.W. Bowman]

Originally Posted by Michlow

I do believe that I am in stage #4, or at least that I am striving to do so. I like to discuss issues because I am interested in what other people believe, and feel that we can learn (or at the least strengthen our own beliefs) from each other.

I have never been in doubt concerning your desire to push and pull and do whatever it takes in order to arrive at the truth of a matter. Don't slack off.

Thank you!

[A.W. Bowman]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

I'd like to explore this more. I argued once that "to seek the face of God" was idiomatic for seeking His favor. So I wondered if "face to face" was not somehow connected to that very idea. Surely if you are favored enough you might have had a more direct encounter with God "in His presence" than others.

This comes by way of some that assert they saw God in the OT, where God said no man can see Him and live and in the NT we are told no man has seen God at any time.

BTW how I got to looking at Prosopon. Prosopon is the Greek equivelent of the Latin Persona. Persona is of course where we get Person from. However Trinitarians would never ever agree to persona to represent Father, Son and Spirit as it means "mask" of an actor essentially..

The greek/Latin word they used was hypostasis, which means substance or foundation. Essentially then hypostasis is what is underneath. Prosopon or Persona is what is above...it's the part you see. It's the physical appearence or presence of a person.

God has no physical "parts" except considering the incarnation. In the OT, however some did "see" something. But if definitionally God is a non-physical being then what they saw was only representative.

Some very excellent points here. Seeds for several threads!