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• Life’s Owner’s Manual

  The stories in the Word are the owner’s manual for life. In this owner’s manual you find "quick reference" principles that define basic operation. By this I mean fundamental, clear and accessable teachings about right and wrong as found in the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, and many of the Lord’s words and actions. This basic instruction about how to live is sufficient to get anyone on a healthy spiritual path.

  Then there is the more detailed instruction. The descriptions for the finer points of spiritual life, the in-depth "how to" type of instruction that gives information about what happens when troubles come up. Finally there is contextual teaching about the Lord, the spiritual world, and how we are influenced by the spiritual world.

• Inner Meaning of the Bible

  ...Jesus said that all the Law and the Prophets hang upon the Two Great Commandments, to love the Lord and to love the neighbor. But some parts of the Bible don't seem to say anything about loving God and others. Do these parts of the Bible actually have hidden meanings that teach us how to love?

• The Bible is a Metaphor for your Relationship with God

  ...No one can take the Bible completely literally, and they shouldn’t. God says, “If your right eye offends you pluck it out” (Matthew 5:29). Don’t do it. God encourages his people to dash their enemy’s infants against the rocks (Psalm 137:8). Don’t even think God means it. God says he creates evil as well as good (Isaiah 45:7). Don’t believe it. In the Biblical story of creation, God created light on the first day but didn’t create the sun until the fourth day. The disciples were promised they would see the second coming of Christ before they passed away from earthly life. It didn’t happen. Contradictions exist all through the Bible and one cannot either take it completely literally or live by everything God commands within it. The reason is that this holy book is to be handled with extraordinary wonder, and is to be explored deeper to see the underlying meanings, the real heart of what is being said, the spiritual story behind the story. The Word of God is a metaphor, a mirror in which we behold ourselves, a series of parables which beg us to look deeper and welcome us to a world of pictures, symbols, and the soul of spirituality clothed in rich story telling.

• The Bible is Not to be Taken Literally

  The Lord’s Word is not to be taken only literally. There are several layers of meaning within the Word. There is the literal meaning – the meaning that you get from reading the Word at face value. There is the historical meaning – the meaning you get that describes the relationship between God and His people. This meaning talks about the history of the different churches on earth. There is the Spiritual Meaning – the inner meaning that contains the lessons of spiritual growth within them...

• Biblical Contradictions Resolved

  The New Church insight into such biblical complexities as The Creation Story, God's Character, the Trinity and Marriage.

• Adam and Eve

  If we look more closely at the story, we see that "Adam" or Mankind is not meant to be understood as a literal person, but as a name for people in general. The story says that God created them male and female, and called their name Adam (that is, Mankind) in the day when they were created. (Genesis 5:2, 1:27).

• The Rapture

  It’s human nature, whenever we have gotten ourselves in a tight spot, to look for an easy way out of our troubles. Some people, when they are down to their last dollar, will spend it on a lottery ticket, hoping to be magically rescued from their financial trouble. The real tragedy of this kind of escape is that the person who seeks such escape often misses opportunities to find happiness because they are simply waiting for their troubles to end. Some people look forward to "the Rapture" in a similar way. They expect that at any moment Christ will appear in the clouds and instantly whisk every believer out of the troubles they face in every day life, to be with Jesus up in the sky. While we may look forward to being with Jesus, it would be a shame if we missed the real presence of Jesus in our lives because we are expecting His coming to be a meteorological event.