by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
All too often people in churches and Christian groups are told the formula for JOY...
Jesus first,
Others next,
Yourself last
...but this is not the case.
Jesus said: “Love your neighbor as you love yourself”, which means that you first have to love yourself before you can even begin to love your neighbor.
Like with so many other things there is so many false messages out there concerning the Gospels and the message of Jesus the Messiah.
He did not say that you have to put yourself last... In fact, if you do not love yourself you cannot love your neighbor; it is as simple as that and many churches that spout the J-O-Y formula have got the entire thing wrong.
Then again there are so many other things where they quote verses of Scripture entirely out of context or purposely misquote them in order to push their agenda.
There is nothing, absolutely nothing, written between the lines of the Bible regardless of what this or that “teacher” may claim but there are parts of text that do not work as they are either accidental or deliberate mistranslations.
Everything has to be seen in context and also in the setting of the day when the words were written.
Some people love to band about the false notion that money is evil, or that money is the root of all evil (but it is written, they will say). What is written, however, is that “the love of money id the root of all evil” and not money per se. We can see this, obviously, everywhere in today's world where the love of money takes over and causes all manner of grief.
If they want to quote Scripture they best learn it first...
© 2013
