Bible’s True Lesson 

It’s not about “Religion”

To many people, “Bible” and “religion” connote a distasteful lifestyle. Religion is associated with restriction, pain, and the denial of reason and simple happiness. For millennia, religion also included threats, coercion and scares of eternal damnation. These notions were not limited to one or two religions, but seeped into all cultures. 

Religion became associated with punishment, pleasing God and not yourself, evolving into the belief in powers and mysticism, asceticism, and forfeiture of pleasure and happiness. However, these misconstrued beliefs are not born from an intelligent and accurate understanding of the original Hebrew Bible. Rather, they stem from fears, poor upbringing, corrupt educators, Bible distortion and ignorance. What then is Bible’s true lesson?

Reviewing Bible’s main categories, we find detailed accounts of men and women, their travails and successes, their wisdom and moral character, their strategic interpersonal relationships, God's providence in their lives, laws and miracles. But we do not find validated mystical beliefs or practices, no validation for superstitions, no flawless saints, no human deification or worship, no fearmongering, and no commands that are bereft of reason. In  fact, Bible refutes such beliefs. In other words, God’s Bible—the only system God ever gave mankind—teaches His preferred human traits that we should embody in our every day lives, true ideas versus false ones, and validation of God’s existence and intervention when man follows Him. God purposefully included model individuals as part of his Bible, as a lesson of true human capacity to attain perfection.

What is man? He is a creature riddled with fears, with the desire for security, the fear of death and the desire for immortality, strong lusts, aspirations for happiness, great wealth, peer approval, fame, egocentricity, and a need for God’s help. Bible addresses all of man.  

Abraham began life as an idolater, but used wisdom to discover a single creator of the universe, and arrived at a perfected system of morality. He, Moses and all prophets were fully convinced in, and astonished by God’s existence: a single, powerful cause of all that is. Abraham and Moses embodied the concern for all humanity and freely taught them so they might arrive at what is true and enjoy God's immense wisdom as Abraham did. The lifestyle these prophets taught mankind was reasonable and pleasing.

Real life events of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah also teach proper psychology and philosophy. By their example, God taught how we all should live and enjoy peace and happiness. Even experiencing untoward events, the patriarchs and matriarchs navigated difficulties, and employed wisdom which, both independent and dependent from God’s involvement, secured the best life. We also find accounts of corrupt people and cultures, meeting with God’s punishments like the Flood and Sodom, which He meted out to maintain a planet where good people could thrive, free of destructive influences. To help mankind further, God selected Abraham and his descendants from Isaac alone (Gen. 17:20,21,) to teach the world (Gen. 8:19) as all mankind are equal, and are people are equally perfected through a single system. God selected Abraham and the Jews, as the rest of the world was steeped in worshiping lifeless stone, metal and wood gods, while Abraham and his descendants followed and taught reality: monotheism. The Jews’ philosophy—Bible—was endorsed through God's continuous miraculous intervention to protect them. While no other culture or religion ever received any response from their idols, let alone miracles. Naturally, God's favoritism of the Jews through miracles and granting them His Bible in the only publicly-witnessed divine communication, evoked anti-Semitism throughout the ages. The world’s sibling rivalry will eventually turn into admiration and voluntary conversion in the messianic era.

God's laws teach us truths, and again teach proper psychology and philosophy and our best relations with others. God desires the good for all people He creates. But morality is only the necessary backdrop to form well functioning societies that focus on God's wisdom. For it is for the study of God's wisdom that man was created, as King Solomon teaches: “Nothing compares to her” (Proverbs 8:11). God designed humans specifically to find the greatest enjoyment in the pursuit of wisdom.

Bible spans the gamut of the human personality and our numerous emotions. We are asked to be charitable to perfect our greed, and to be patient and sensitive towards those less fortunate than ourselves. We quell our insecurities by relying on God, and not fabricating false hopes in inanimate idols and superstitions. We ensure family harmony by respecting parents. We fortify a healthy society with honest business dealings. Again, these are merely the backdrop for our primary pursuit, which is studying Bible’s underlying wisdom. 

What is Bible’s message? Bible is the perfect guidebook for human nature that will lead us to the happiest lives, which also earn us God’s help. Bible is something we ultimately embrace if we patiently study it under wise teachers and slowly grasp how it is perfectly designed to lead us to happiness. 

We must be realistic, and humble enough to admit that our existence is only due to God's will. This must be a sobering, but equally enjoyable recognition. God wants us to exist, in the best manner. But we are creations, just as a building is the creation of an architect and never existed before his plans. The value of our existence is proportionate to our value of God. And God performed the greatest kindness by formulating his Bible, and giving it to mankind. As the wisest men and women found the greatest life following Bible, we should be interested in learning what led them to this conclusion. 

Bible’s religion differs from all others: it can be summed up as God’s perfect system designed around our human natures, which will provide the most fulfilling life. Bible rejects egocentricity, coercion and mysticism, and instead, teaches equality, free will and reason.