If God is love and can do anything, then why hasn't He fixed the sin and sickness of the world? What is He waiting for? Good human parents never want their children to suffer harm, sickness, or disease. Could God have created parents who love their children more than He does?
Would a mother or father who loves their suffering child say, "Though I could fix you right now, you'll have to wait because I'm busy. When I get back, I'll see what I can do. But if you haven't done everything, I told you, I will let you keep suffering." How sad that so much Christian doctrine portrays a God like that.
How would you feel if the only way you could get to know your girlfriend or spouse is by what a friend told you? If you couldn't know exactly what they said, how could you ever be sure you really know them? That is what we experience when translators tell us what they think God said. If all agree God said such and such, is that proof that He did? Is it possible that all could be wrong, and that God is more loving and wonderful than all of them say He is?
The only reason first century Greek is so difficult is because long ago the original rules of grammar were changed. We still have the original rules, but they have been misused. We need to know exactly what God said. Then we need Him to make sense of the words He inspired so they make sense to us. He is our father, and I believe He always wants us to know how and what He thinks.
Many versions of the Bible come from translators who believe God is unknowable, and some preachers declare that God is different, that He is other than His children. I disagree. God must be like us because He made us like Himself - "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." And when we understand the original Greek text of the Bible, we discover it is easy to know Him.
What prevents people from understanding God is not God's fault but man's. Though God made man in His image, man has fashioned God in man's image, thus we see a God who cannot be totally trusted, and Who can even be cruel.
It is critical to realize that every version of the Bible is nothing more than someone's interpretation of what God said. And when many versions agree that God said something, historically that has become understood as what God really said. But so often the original Greek text, when translated using the original rules of grammar, gives a very different perspective on God. It is a wonderful perspective that changes everything.
This series, The Unseen Emails: Emails to Malcolm Smith is the beginning of my published exploration into what God really meant in the documents of the New Testament. It goes places that are perfectly consistent with the Scriptures yet views them from a perspective that eliminates the contradictions that so many claims they see.
