>>The thing I find most disturbing is the idea that somehow "God" - an anthropomorphic construction
>>in man's image - has "spoken" and created a users manual in a collection of disparate documents
>>assembled, deconstructed, mistranslated and rewritten over 2500 years by committee and that
>>ultimately this is the authority for questions of human existence, when the only authority for its
>>primacy or integrity is itself.
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>The part that you're missing, Charles, is the acceptance or ability to accept that God is not like things we have or know here upon this Earth. He is Spirit. He is eternal. And He has purposes in the things He does which go along those lines (spiritual, eternal). And, being completely sovereign, He does not have limitations that are imposed by men or men's evil intents or deeds. What He wants to have happen will happen, no act of man or men withstanding.
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>With regards to the Bible, there is one author. It is God, His Holy Spirit guiding men to write things which contain parts that are incomprehensible outside of being born again. God did this for His own purposes. "Ever hearing, yet never understanding. Ever seeing, but never perceiving," and so on.
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>When a person seeks to know the truth, desiring honestly and truthfully to know the truth, they find it. It is God being sought in that case because God is truth -- literal truth.
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I agree with you. I find it strange if people think that God would not communicate in writing. Since we are created in His image (not literally like an old bearded man but in the sense of the trinity), we can see ourselves since thousands of years corresponding in writing. Even the kids nowadays correspond in writing using text messages and social media, which is just written words, only on more modern devices. (Apart from the pictures and videos that now happen to become popular). So why in the world would it be so strange if God does simply the same, corresponding His ideas to mankind using words? I think it's just the most common sense thing to do. To validate the message he also included the prophecies that we can verify if it is the true word. Some prophecies have been fulfilled 2000 years ago, some are being fulfilled in these days and some will be in the future.

>We come to faith by hearing the word of God and by seeking the truth. When you're willing to do that, God will have already been moving everything in your life toward that day because He sees outside of time. Until that day, no person can ever come to know faith, or God.