The best place for you to begin to obtain a correct view of God is wherever you currently are. This doesn’t mean you already know God, you simply have to start with what you already have. There’s nothing else you can do.
Coming to a knowledge of God is not something you should expect to accomplish by next weekend or anytime soon. It’s going to involve a major investment of your time. It’s not enough to develop an academic or intellectual knowledge which you plan to regurgitate into a presentation you’ll perform in 15 minutes or so. Likewise, a knowledge of God doesn’t consist of some intense emotional experience you have and thus you believe you’ve become enlightened. It’s going to involve some reading/ listening of/ to your Bible. I prefer the New King James version as it’s a literal translation but is in modern English. The New International Version is a good translation also. For my second Bible I like the New American Standard.
Disclaimer:SimplifiedTheology.org is not affiliated with the NKJV, NIV, or NASB Bibles in any business sense. We make no money from referrals of those Bibles. The companies that produce them do not endorse SimplifiedTheology.org.
One of the most difficult things we have to do is to overcome our a priori misconceptions we have of God. We all have had experiences with an authority figure, with someone we’re close to, with…(fill in the blank with an individual) someone we had perceived in a way who turned out to be different than how they presented themselves. We all have (insert your age here) years of experiences which have made us jaded over time. Perhaps the opposite is true. Maybe we’ve had the rose colored glasses, happy-go-lucky mindset for the last (insert your age here) years. Either way, whatever frame-of-mind we bring to the table when we begin wanting to know God will be projected onto Him and thus distort our view. This will require correction, but will be challenging.
It is what it is.
What are some of the common misperceptions/ misrepresentations of God?
- God is love
- God is a sociopath
- God of the “Old Testament” can’t be the God of the “New Testament”
- Jesus is love
- Jesus was “nice” and wants us to be
The best thing is to start reading/ listening to your Bible everyday. Then, thinking about what you’ve read. Our family reads 5 chapters per day. I recommend you do the same. Start in Genesis and read 5 chapters per day until you’re done. Then, start over.
This is going to be a giant cycle (thus the graphic at the top of the page). There’s no shortcut to be implemented.
One important concept to grasp from the beginning will be proper biblical interpretation. For a discussion about that please go to the Library then the Print section and read it, or click here: