Bible: DM From God

(soft electronic music) I tried reading the Bible last week. Oh yeah, what'd you think? Well, I didn't get much out of it, to be honest. Almost! You'd think that a book that was supposed to be from God would be easier to understand. But it just seems like people just use it as an excuse to judge other people. Well, it makes sense to me. (soft electronic music) I have a secret. All my life, I've had questions about my faith, about God, and about religion. But now, I'm gonna tell you my questions, my struggles, my doubts. I hope you can handle the truth. (soft electronic music) ♪ Hey it's true ♪ (soft electronic music) I get that I should read the Bible and all, but what I really wanna know is how does it relate to my life. I mean, is it even still relevant? I think it's just a bunch of fairy tales, but even if it is real, it's just outdated. It's a love letter from God over thousands of years telling the story of God, and how He loves and rescues people just like us. Yeah, but it also says that some guy got swallowed by a whale and survived, and that Jesus just walked on water and raised people from the dead. Yeah. Please. You think I'm stupid. You can't actually believe all that. But here's the thing: I do. Yeah, there are a bunch of miracles and crazy events in the Bible, but I don't have to totally understand it all to believe it. Besides, it wouldn't change too much by just saying it's not real. The Bible's not what they think it is. Anyways, it's confusing. At its core, the Bible is what God wants us to know about Him. It's like an autobiography, using all kinds of different stories, genres, and authors to show His attributes. Which is why we shouldn't get it second-hand. It's like if I said to someone, "Hey, I heard Mike's favorite music is trap," and then that person goes to Mike and says, "I heard your favorite music is trap," and he's like, "Girl, what are you talking about? My favorite music is EDM." Our knowledge about God is sometimes like our knowledge of others, you gotta cut out the middleman and go straight to the source! And that's the other thing, context. Context, context, context. Sometimes, people hear a verse from the Bible, but they don't know, they don't know who the intended audience was, whether or not the author wanted to take it literally or not or how it is part of a larger picture. If we don't read the whole story, we can end up believing all sorts of things that may or may not be true. (soft electronic music) For a book that's supposed to be religious, the Bible never sugar coats the ugly side of humanity. True, within the first three chapters, the original two humans disobeyed God, which brings sin and suffering into the world, and then that led to war, murder, rape, and a bunch of other messed-up things. If the Bible was all hype, PR for God by God, you would have expected the authors to gloss over some of the things they did, like, for example, if I sold my siblings into slavery, or I stoned a follower of Jesus, I for sure would have left those parts out of the story. But that's why the authors chose to keep those parts in, so I'm pretty confident that the Bible reflects the legit truth of humanity, real stories of actual people who are not perfect. False alarm! So, what'd I miss? Since the Bible is God's story about Himself, and we're made in God's image, it means it's about us, too. That's why it deals with all kinds of aspects that are applicable to daily life. For example, did you know that are over 2,000 references to money and finances in the Bible? Over 500 verses about love? And over 100 about finding purpose? There are verses about caring for the earth, racism. Justice for the oppressed, diversity, social equality of women, and minorities. Defending the vulnerable, including immigrants, children, and widows. All stuff that's relevant and impacting our culture today. But for a book that is centuries old, there's no way that we can trust the Bible's been transmitted reliably. That's what I thought, too, but I've heard that the four gospels were dated within decades of the events they're about, so I guess that means the people who saw it happen were still alive when the books were written. I think there's no way that that could be handed down through history without any significant changes. Yeah, well, that's the crazy thing. I read that when scholars compared thousands of surviving biblical manuscripts, they found almost no variations that affected the teaching of the Bible, like less than 1% and only minor things like different spellings or orders of words, and that's after thousands of years of copies. But my issue with the Bible is, why can't I understand it? Like why would God have the Bible survive for so long, only to make it to me, who can't understand it? Sometimes, I just wish it was more direct. (phone alert) Like getting a DM from God? Is it? Nope, just my mom, she thinks she's God. (Julia chuckles) Yeah, whatever. (rhythmic music) My friends and I have a lot of good questions, and I get that. The first time I tried the longboard, I could not do it. I sucked so bad, and, you know, I kind of practiced, but nothing serious. It wasn't until I met a group of friends who skated, and I told myself, no, I'm gonna learn how to do this. JP was further along than me. He told me, Let's work on this everyday, everyday until you can bomb this hill. For me, understanding the Bible was the same way. When I started reading it and talking about it, this thing that seemed awkward and unfamiliar began to feel more natural. (rhythmic music) ♪ Hey it's true ♪ Do I always get it, no, it's still very confusing to me to understand, it doesn't always speak to me, but I do think it's becoming more and more real to me. (soft electronic music) (music slowly fades)