This is a thread I have been wanting to write, but it neede…

We have politicians who in one tweet say very divisive words like “radical left” and their next tweet is a Bible quote, think Rubio. I have explained in the past that many Americans call themselves Christians based upon the fact that that they are white and American only. “I am

an American and a proud Christian.” This is Christian nationalism. They don’t actually follow Jesus or what he represents. It’s the same as someone who is born in Iraq, they are Muslim based upon it being the predominant religion of the country. There are those that practice

their religion and others that do not.
But what I want to highlight is the evil that comes from those who only use a religion for power. And it really highlights two things.
1. Evil using religion
2. The literal meaning of the Bible.
Now theologians and Biblical scholars

state that the Bible isn’t literal. It’s what they study. But we have evangelicals who say that it is a literal word of God. But there are issues here. They don’t take the whole Bible literal, they choose parts to take literally. But here’s the issue. If these people say we must

read the Bible literally. They are ignoring Jesus. Because Jesus wouldn’t take Biblical scripture literally. Here’s how. Satan also read scripture to Jesus. Satan tried to push the literal meaning of the Bible to tempt Jesus. In Satan’s third temptation, he quotes scripture

to Jesus, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'” The devil asks Jesus to test

these Biblical promises of angelic protection by throwing himself down from the pinnacle of the temple. In other words, if Jesus has real faith, then he will prove it by taking these promises literally, right here and right now. If Jesus has real faith in God, then he’ll

demonstrate that faith by taking God at his word, right?

I’m reminded here of the question that parents so often pose to their children to steel them against peer pressure: “Would you jump off a cliff if so-and-so told you to?” Perhaps a similar question could be posed to

Christians: “Would you jump off a cliff if the Bible told you to?” Fortunately, Jesus’ faith does not depend on blindly following and testing literal interpretations of Bible verses. Jesus’ faith rests on so much more. Jesus responds to the devil with another Biblical

quotation, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” For Jesus, faith is not about memorizing Bible verses and subjecting their literal truth to extreme tests. For Jesus, faith is not a dependence on proving Biblical texts true or false. A faith like that would plunge us

headlong from the pinnacle of the temple to the ground.

For Jesus, faith is about figuring out how to live not with testable certainty, but with trust.
Today’s gospel shows us that the devil knows how to use Scripture verses in combat, so we need something more than Bible

verses in order to survive the devil’s assaults. What Christians need is to live, as Jesus did, with a radical trust in God. A trust that lives not by bread alone, not by acquiring power, not by having something to prove. A trust that lets all of these needs and compulsions go.

Now I will state again. I am not a Christian. But I do study Christianity. What I’ve learnt is that good people will find good from the Bible and evil people will find evil from the Bible. If you hate, you will find hate to justify your hate and your evil.