Adam Hamilton Making Sense Of The Bible Study

Wednesday, 3 July 2024

And there are times where, you know, people say, "Well, as you become more inclusive, you're just capitulating to the culture. " I hadn't heard of Adam Hamilton before, but I was impressed. From Genesis 12 on, the Old Testament becomes the story of the Israelites and their unique relationship with God. But when Paul's speaking about this in Romans 1. Dinosaurs as we typically think of them were around from 230 million to about 66 million years ago. Some of these men and women are excellent shepherds; they're great at hospital visitation and other areas of ministry-but perhaps they don't feel they can preach very well, or at least not every week. Of course, we all recognize today that slavery isn't the will of God, even though hundreds of verses in the Bible seem to take slavery for granted and even encourage it. Why did they care so much about controlling this little piece of ground?

Adam Hamilton Making Sense Of The Bible Study

This same God says adulterers, Sabbath violators, homosexuals, and children who curse their parents should be put to death. Next are the New Testament Gospels telling stories about what Jesus said and did, about his Crucifixion and resurrection. And some of them disturb me. RNS: A lot of critics reject the Bible because of the violence in the Old Testament. While this book is a good attempt at a basic introduction to the Bible, Hamilton makes several over simplistic generalizations to age old debates. I know that you have received a fair amount of criticism through the years, and that's probably putting it pretty, pretty lightly. And then, more go up. We wanted to create a space with a bit more recognition of the difficulty, nuance, and complexity of cultural issues. Chris and Eddie are joined by Adam Hamilton, pastor of Church of the Resurrection, the largest United Methodist church in the country.

Adam Hamilton Book Making Sense Of The Bible

That's true in a lot of other areas, and we've already done that with a lot of things where we've said, Yeah, you know, Paul says this about women being silent in the church, and he doesn't let a woman teach a man. I think about the ways that we serve low-income people in Kansas City and our church's role in caring for schoolchildren, and starting preschools and caring for immigrants and, you know, ministry in the prisons, and all these things we do together. And at the time, my view was probably, well, definitely, was more of a traditionalist view. And I believe, what's at stake... And so I want to make room for people who may not be maybe where I was 25 years ago, or else if we'd had, you know, or else I might not have been a United Methodist 25 years ago, if there wasn't room for people like me then. Having grown up in a conservative, evangelical church culture I have been afraid to question anything in the Bible. Can't recommend this book enough.

Adam Hamilton Making Sense Of The Bible Fellowship

We'll ponder science and the Bible. And you make it clear that you want to see your church move toward inclusion. I'm not sure if I agree with all of Hamilton's conclusions, but will admit that the book has given me some things to think about. In the UK and across Europe, there's a stark contrast: Very few people go to church anymore. They stop helping the poor. The issue is not authority, it is our assumptions about the Bible and the way we interpret it.

Adam Hamilton Making Sense Of The Bible.Com

Maher was pointing out that a large portion of Americans tell pollsters that we need to take these Bible stories literally-and Maher also was pointing out how absurd the Noah story seems, if we have to take it literally. And I think that's happened an awful lot. Here we discuss the message of his book and how he navigates the most difficult and debated passages. Most United Methodist leaders, even today, havecopies of Wesley's numbered sermons. As you just noted, I do regularly tell people how I wake up in the morning: I drop to my knees and pray and then the very next thing I do is read the Bible. It turns out he's pastor of the largest United Methodist congregation in the country, and I can understand why. And there are other churches who have already said, "You know what, we are a place where everyone is valued and loved, including God's children who are gay, lesbian, transgender, and queer. " If you've always wanted to read straight through the Old Testament but never quite made it, this chapter is for you. I wished I had read this book a long time ago. The first anatomically modern humans are seen in the fossil record about 200, 000 years ago. They're not all the same conversation. The church's digital team regularly sees men and women logging into online worship from Michigan to Florida and from New York to Los Angeles-often including sites overseas.

Adam Hamilton Making Sense Of The Bible Church

You are not judging God by wrestling with the Bible; you are asking questions of human authors of scripture. It's easy to understand. In this book, I tried to put about a year's worth of graduate study of the Bible into a book that general readers will find interesting. This is how they're seeing the world. What do you think about his assertion? Some of our members were saying, you know, "Pastor, you don't realize the silent majority is not with you on this. "

Adam Hamilton Making Sense Of The Bible

After a long drawn out discussion about the history of the Bible and the way the Canon of Scripture has been collected over the years, the author seems to think that he is the one that suddenly has it right -- Scripture is not inspired -- at least not inspired the way most accept it. If you've given up on the church, we want to give you a place to encounter a fresh perspective on the wisdom of the Christian tradition, in our conversations about politics, race, sexuality, art, and mental health. He talks to Eddie and Chris about how to be guided by an ethic of love, how his position on sexuality has changed over the years, and ways we can argue ethically without shutting each other down. He's an effective teacher. And so we wanted to have people help us with that conversation, to help people maybe understand what they believe or didn't believe in that conversation. And the vast majority of those were people who said, "We want to welcome everybody and we believe it's okay for them to be married. " But, you know, it's led us to slow down just a little bit and to really re-emphasize wear your masks for those who hadn't been vaccinated. And almost everywhere I go, I have, you know, I'll be in a restaurant, I'll be, you know, wherever I'm at, somebody will come up to me and say, "I want you to know how grateful I am for the stance you've taken, for the way that you speak up, because my daughter, my son, my friend, my partner... " And so it doesn't necessarily mean that people are going to come to church if you're more inclusive. 2 people found this helpful. So a book that purports to "make sense of the Bible" might possibly offer a welcome contribution to thinking Christians. I'm doing everything I can, every day, to see that this happens. Today this is modern-day Iraq.

One area of deep concern is related to the question of divinely authorized or initiated violence, especially within the Hebrew Bible. Hamilton, in my view, offers great answers to all that and more. "Instead of assuming that the Bible is the result of God's word-for-word inspiration of its authors, or that the Bible is merely a human book, I've suggested that the scriptures were written by human beings who were inspired by God yet wrote in the light of their own experiences, the scientific knowledge they had access to, and the historical circumstances in which they lived. ADAM: Yes, that's how to understand my new book. He sees the passages that are often used to support condemnation of homosexuality as misinterpreted. As you can see, there is no shortage of questions that might be raised about the. They fear this might undermine people's confidence in scripture. The last Ice Age ended about 12, 000 years ago. Part of the reason for writing this book is to sort through the issues for myself. I'm going to summarize the entire Old Testament in fifteen minutes (ten if you are a fast reader!

Many of them have local pastors in some cases part-time at the church. I have lost friends. The first half of the book is a succinct exploration of modern biblical interpretation, but Hamilton does it in a wonderfully approachable way. There was more of a grief of just seeing people who would leave the church, who you'd baptized them, brought them into faith. This is my second time reading this book. So I was really relieved when I saw that, but yes, there have been... Leviticus, if it was written in the late Bronze Age, what did people know and not know? And I think the church, to the degree that we're talking about love and justice, you know, which is one way of framing the conversation and the world around us, looks and says, "Wait, I thought y'all were supposed to stand for this stuff? Which is hard when you started it. I met with young clergy and seminary students at a number of our seminaries over the last four or five years. He addresses questions that might be on many people's minds – homosexuality, science, and women, and ones that might be less pressing (the presence or lack thereof of dinosaurs on the Ark. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well (NIV).

And then we have a whole array of sexualities and orientations and gender questions that most of us weren't thinking about a few years ago. I have to look it up. It is inconsistent with the character of God described in many places in the Old Testament, and certainly inconsistent with the Word of God revealed in Jesus Christ who calls his followers to love their enemies. He began, I'm drawn to the God of Jesus Christ, who loved sinners and tax collectors and who laid down his life for the lost. And this is where I stand, but I understand why somebody stands in another place. "