I have always worldview ? What do they think and believe about Jesus ? What might I learn from their religion ? It was all new to me. For me, the signposts of faith were not there.
And what about the war that had just ended in Indochina ? The United States ( with a little help from Canada ) had tried to destroy communism, and left the place in ruins. As a committed Christian pacifist, it was hard to make sense out of such destruction. And there has never been any acknowledgement by governments to say that they were wrong. And, there are still unexploded bombs in the ground that go off when farmers try to open fields.
When I went to seminary ( school for ministers and theology ), I was looking at the Bible as a static book that told one, maybe two, stories. I was reading it to find God, but also to find laws/statutes/sayings to live by. In the years since I went to school to become a pastor, I have a different view of the Bible. I had never thought where the book actually came from in history. The books in the Bible were written by real people, to real peo been in the church. My parents took me as a baby, and continued to take me right through high school. And even in university, I attended a Presbyterian church in Peterborough when I went to school at Trent University. And all through my adult life I have worked or attended church on Sunday mornings. So, I am a lifer, and a believer. But, my belief has changed over the years.
I was scared into the Kingdom of God. Some adults who I grew up with, thought it would be good to tell me I must believe right now, or you might go to hell, if you die tonight. For my personality, it was the wrong thing to do, because I believed it, and was scared for years . I struggled with kind of fear for years. It did not stop me from believing in God or the ministry of Jesus Christ but it was hard to say that, I liked being a believer
In my 20’s, my wife and I went to Thailand to work with Mennonite Central Committee for three years working with refugees in Thailand . Thailand is a Buddhist country, and many of the refugees we worked with were also Buddhist. What is theirple, in real life situations. So, I describe my relationship to the Bible as a person who holds the book lightly. I do not look for hard sayings, but I invite the Holy Spirit to lead me. For some issues of this day, the meaning has not yet come.I take the Bible as seriously as I always have, but hold it differently , so I might be changed by it every day. I want the Bible to be for me a way to live in this world.
Come Holy Spirit : Change my mind, so I might love without judgment . Come Holy Spirit so that I might be peacemaker in all situations. Come Holy Spirit and open my mind to understand the Bible, your holy book for us all. AMEN .
Fred Redekop
Ponder Anew 