It's Just Me: How God Saved a Nobody

By Bob Spies

I'm not famous. I'm not a theologian. I'm not a Bible scholar. I'm not a pastor. I'm just a regular guy who tries his best to make sense out of the world he's living in, including my spiritual world. To most people, I'm just a nobody. But I'm a nobody who questions what people tell me until I can come to peace with it. I don't take anything at face value. That's the way God wired me.

The first time I read the Bible, cover to cover, I had questions, a lot of them, forty typewritten pages worth. For instance, why does God get so angry? Does God ever change his mind? Is there only one way to get to heaven? Is it possible to please God? Did even Judas get saved? What about reincarnation? Will heaven disappear? Do you talk to dead people? Can you trust the Bible? Is Jesus really the son of God? And I had questions about things you hear many Christians say, like "God is in control," but is he? I had hundreds of these questions, and I wanted answers.

That's what this book is about. It has been seventeen years in the making. I wanted answers, so I searched for them. I met with my pastor. I read books he recommended. I researched various theological views from trusted online resources. There were times I speculated my own answers because I couldn't find anything else to hang my hat on. Sometimes there simply were no answers. But I found out that it's not about getting the answers that's most important anyway. It's the search for the answers. Join me in that search. You might just find answers to some of your own questions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 16, 2024
• ISBN: 9798891305885

Book preview

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It's Just Me

How God Saved a Nobody

Bob Spies

ISBN 979-8-89130-587-8 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-89130-588-5 (digital)

Copyright © 2024 by Bob Spies

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Setting the Stage

Chapter 1

Who Am I?

Chapter 2

The Beginning

Chapter 3

Now What?

Chapter 4

Surprise!

Chapter 5

What's This Bible Stuff All About?

Chapter 6

The Trial Balloon Rises

The Old Testament

Chapter 7

Why Did God Threaten Moses's Life?

Chapter 8

The Egyptians and the Pharaoh

Chapter 9

Questions from the Book of Leviticus

Chapter 10

Why Does God Order So Many Killings?

Chapter 11

Malformed and Illegitimate People Banned from Worship?

Chapter 12

Why Did God Allow Polygamy in the Ancient World?

Chapter 13

Another Senseless Killing By an Angry God

Chapter 14

Are There Inconsistencies in the Bible?

Chapter 15

God Kills an Innocent Baby for the Sins of His Father

Chapter 16

Why Does God Get So Angry?

Chapter 17

Should Children Suffer for Their Parents' Mistakes?

Chapter 18

Is Tithing God's Law? Or Is It Just a Suggestion?

Chapter 19

Why Did God Allow Satan to Do Such Terrible Things to Job?

Chapter 20

Does God Ever Change His Mind?

Chapter 21

Do We Earn Our Way to Heaven?

Chapter 22

Does God Make Promises and Not Keep Them?

Chapter 23

I Get Confused When I Read the Book of Proverbs

Chapter 24

What Does Proverbs Have to Say about Sex?

Chapter 25

Is There Only One Way to Get to Heaven?

Chapter 26

Why Is the Book of Ecclesiastes So Negative?

Chapter 27

What about Predestination? Is It Really True?

Chapter 28

Not One Woman Is Virtuous

Chapter 29

Money Can't Possibly Give Everything!

Chapter 30

Does the Bible Condone Premarital Sex?

Chapter 31

Is It a Sin to Work on the Sabbath Day?

Chapter 32

Why Do Some People Die Before Their Time?

Chapter 33

What's with All of the Forbidden Foods in the Old Testament?

Chapter 34

Questions from the Book of Ezekiel

Chapter 35

The Prophet Hosea and His Prostitute Wife

Chapter 36

Is It Possible to Please God?

Chapter 37

Is It a Sin to Be Childless Or to Get a Divorce?

The New Testament

Chapter 38

Old Testament God versus New Testament God

Chapter 39

Can We Be Better Than the Teachers of Religious Law?

Chapter 40

Is Anger Really as Bad as Murder?

Chapter 41

Look but Do Not Touch

Chapter 42

Cut Off Your Sinful Body Parts! Really?

Chapter 43

Marry a Divorcee, and You're Both Committing Adultery?

Chapter 44

Which Is It—Acknowledge God Publicly or Pray Privately?

Chapter 45

Is God's Will Always Done in Heaven?

Chapter 46

Why Are There Different Versions of the Lord's Prayer?

Chapter 47

Who Gets to Heaven? Only a Few or Many?

Chapter 48

The Unforgivable Sin: What Is It? And Why Not?

Chapter 49

Who Decides What Is a Sin and What Is Not?

Chapter 50

Why Does Jesus Tell Us to Become Like Little Children?

Chapter 51

Did Even Judas Iscariot Get Saved?

Chapter 52

Another Shot at the Few versus Many Dilemma

Chapter 53

What's Wrong with Calling My Dad Father?

Chapter 54

Do We Have to Visit Prisoners?

Chapter 55

What Really Happened When Jesus Died?

Chapter 56

Do We Have to Be Baptized?

Chapter 57

Is Demonic Possession Real?

Chapter 58

Be Nice to Your Parents or Die

Chapter 59

Why Did Jesus Call the Gentiles Dogs?

Chapter 60

I Do Believe, But Help Me Overcome My Unbelief

Chapter 61

Anyone Who Is Not Against Us Is for Us

Chapter 62

Is It Really So Hard for a Rich Person to Get to Heaven?

Chapter 63

Exactly How Do We Get Saved?

Chapter 64

My Personal Catch-22 with No Way Out

Chapter 65

I Thought Jesus Was God!

Chapter 66

Can Jesus's Will and the Father's Will Be Different?

Chapter 67

Using Scripture to Support Both Good and Bad

Chapter 68

Did Jesus Really Condone Breaking the Law?

Chapter 69

Was Jesus Being Disrespectful of Family Needs?

Chapter 70

Don't Worry, Be Happy!

Chapter 71

Give Everything You Have to Those in Need! Really?

Chapter 72

Did Jesus Come to Set Family Members against Each Other?

Chapter 73

Did Jesus Say We Should Hate Everyone Else?

Chapter 74

Another Run at Marrying a Divorcee versus Adultery

Chapter 75

Is the Bible Vague and Hard to Understand?

Chapter 76

Did Jesus Deny His Deity?

Chapter 77

Give Up Everyone and Everything to Get into Heaven?

Chapter 78

Do the Criteria for Salvation Differ from Person to Person?

Chapter 79

Did Jesus Talk about the End of the World?

Chapter 80

Will Heaven Disappear?

Chapter 81

What Do Jesus's Dying Words Really Mean?

Chapter 82

What Does Salvation Through Jesus Mean?

Chapter 83

What about Reincarnation?

Chapter 84

Okay Bob, Logic This One!

Chapter 85

I Thought Jesus Was God, Revisited

Chapter 86

Believe Is the Only Work God Wants from You?

Chapter 87

Some Passages Literal, Some Not: Who's to Say?

Chapter 88

Who Are the Chosen Ones?

Chapter 89

Look Beneath the Surface

Chapter 90

God Gives Us What Our Hearts Desire

Chapter 91

Are Believers Free to Disobey God?

Chapter 92

Can We Do Miracles Just Like Jesus Did?

Chapter 93

Jesus Said to Just Ask Him, and He'd Do It! Really?

Chapter 94

Does Jesus Contradict Himself Sometimes?

Chapter 95

If Jesus Gives Us Peace, Why Am I So Troubled?

Chapter 96

Is There a Hierarchy in the Trinity?

Chapter 97

Do You Walk the Walk of Your Faith?

Chapter 98

Are We Really Just Robots?

Chapter 99

Strange Bedfellows

Chapter 100

If I Am Saved, Will My Family Get a Free Pass?

Chapter 101

Will Homosexuals Be Saved?

Chapter 102

Are Some Sins Greater or Less Than Others?

Chapter 103

Can We Just Give It the Old College Try?

Chapter 104

The Devil Made Me Do It!

Chapter 105

And the Winner Is?

Chapter 106

Paul Wouldn't Do That, Would He?

Chapter 107

Are You One of the Lucky Ones?

Chapter 108

Can a True Christian Have Doubts about Christianity?

Chapter 109

I Don't Want to Be a Missionary!

Chapter 110

What If the One in Charge Is a Total Jerk?

Chapter 111

No Harm, No Foul?

Chapter 112

That's Life…I Can't Please Everyone

Chapter 113

Act Only on What You Truly Think Is Right

Chapter 114

No Matter How Much I Sin, I Can Still Go to Heaven?

Chapter 115

Save the Guy by Handing Him Over to Satan?

Chapter 116

Walk in My Shoes Before You Judge Me

Chapter 117

Will Humans Really Pass Judgment on Angels?

Chapter 118

Is It Better to Be Single Than Married?

Chapter 119

If It Can Happen to Paul, It Can Happen to Me

Chapter 120

Put Your Hat On Before You Pray

Chapter 121

Shear Your Locks, You Sinner!

Chapter 122

Keep Your Head Down and Your Lips Zipped

Chapter 123

Maybe I Worry Too Much

Chapter 124

Obedience Without the Heart Is Worthless

Chapter 125

The Choice Is Ours

Chapter 126

The Last Thing I Want to Do Is Preach

Chapter 127

I Think I'm Tithing…Or Am I?

Chapter 128

Am I Tuned in to the Right Station?

Chapter 129

To Obey or Not to Obey, That Is the Question

Chapter 130

Doing Good Things, Does It Really Matter?

Chapter 131

Doubt Is a Two-Edged Sword

Chapter 132

True Peace Is Within Your Grasp

Chapter 133

Think Good Thoughts, Then Act Them Out

Chapter 134

We Are Not Alone

Chapter 135

My Ticket to Heaven: Free Ride or Hang On Tight

Chapter 136

Old Rules or New Rules, They're Still Rules

Chapter 137

It's All about Sex

Chapter 138

Unbridled Confidence Leads to Failure

Chapter 139

Question Everything, Assume Nothing

Chapter 140

Would God Ever Deceive Us?

Chapter 141

Raise Your Hands, Everybody

Chapter 142

Women, Just Sit Back and Listen Quietly

Chapter 143

Have a Baby and Be Saved

Chapter 144

What Pledge?

Chapter 145

Don't Let the Words Fool You

Chapter 146

It All Comes Down to Trust

Chapter 147

Do You Talk to Dead People?

Chapter 148

I'm Just Asking but Don't Forget You Owe Me

Chapter 149

Who the Heck Is Melchizedek?

Chapter 150

Keep Your Conscience in Good Running Order

Chapter 151

Who Needs Teachers?

Chapter 152

Universal Salvation: Truth or Fiction

Chapter 153

What Am I Missing? A Lot!

Chapter 154

The Cat with Many Lives, or Not

Chapter 155

When It Comes to Sin, There Is No Never

Chapter 156

Out with the Old and In with the New

Chapter 157

Welcome to My House, Anyone, Anytime?

Chapter 158

Here We Go Again with My Favorite Pet Peeve

Chapter 159

My Pastor Is Not God

Chapter 160

Can I Really Trust My Conscience?

Chapter 161

Prove It by Your Actions

Chapter 162

Promises Are Meant to Be Kept

Chapter 163

Freedom Is a Balancing Act

Chapter 164

Don't Say Stop, Say Help

Chapter 165

I Can't Stop Sinning

Chapter 166

What It Really Means to Fear God

Chapter 167

Is Jesus Really the Son of God?

Chapter 168

The Sin That Leads to Death

Chapter 169

The Book of Life

Chapter 170

More on Universal Salvation

Chapter 171

The Book of Life and Predestination

Chapter 172

The End-Times and the Beast

Chapter 173

Round Three with the Book of Life

Significant Questions to Consider

Chapter 174

Can We Trust the Bible?

Chapter 175

Cherry-Picking Pastors

Chapter 176

It's My Way or the Highway

Chapter 177

The Penalty for Noncompliance

Chapter 178

God's Involvement in Our Lives, Fact or Fiction?

Chapter 179

Messages from the Other Side

Chapter 180

The First Day of the Rest of My Life

Chapter 181

God Is Always in Control—or Is He?

Chapter 182

False Humility

Chapter 183

The Fear of Death

Chapter 184

The Marriage Contract

Chapter 185

When It's Okay To Lie

Chapter 186

Salvation Is a Heart Issue

Chapter 187

Homosexuality and Salvation

Chapter 188

Our Beliefs versus the Real Truth

Chapter 189

One God, Many Faiths

Meanderings with Pastor James

Chapter 190

Heaven, Salvation, Doubt, Failure, God's iPhone, the Plan

Chapter 191

Many Answers, Spiritual Abuse, Two-Way Street, God's Anger

Chapter 192

Sound Bites and True Happiness, God's Will

Chapter 193

God of the Possible, Being Reborn

Chapter 194

The Truth of Scripture

Chapter 195

Cremation, Baby Bible Reader, a Picture of Salvation

Chapter 196

Ezekiel Is a Bummer, Love Wins

Chapter 197

Heaven versus Hell

Chapter 198

Free Willies; Shades of Gray

Chapter 199

Saints Who Sin; Motivation Matters

Chapter 200

That's All, Folks

About the Author

Part 1

Setting the Stage

Chapter 1

Who Am I?

Okay, so it's just me. But who am I to you? Most likely nothing, so I want to introduce myself. My name is Bob Spies. I was born on October 28, 1942, in St. Paul, Minnesota. I was the third child of six siblings. Mom and Dad also experienced some miscarriages along the way. We never had much money, but both Mom and Dad worked very hard to be able to provide for our needs. I have to say that when we were kids, we really didn't know that we didn't have much. We had enough, and that was all we really needed.

When I was about fourteen years old, a cute girl named Bonnie moved into the neighborhood, just two doors from us. She played in the yard with my sisters, but I had my eye on her too. When we finally grew up, I married my childhood sweetheart on January 2, 1965. We were twenty-two and twenty years old at the time. Within the next five years, we brought our two children into the world. First was our daughter, and then two and a half years later came our son. It was a wild and bumpy ride at times, just like many other marriages, but we remained committed to each other until death do us part.

Eventually, the kids married, and our daughter had a baby girl, then our son had a baby boy a year later. Our two grandkids are now reaching adulthood, getting ready to map out their own future. Where has the time gone? It seems it wasn't that long ago we were just beginning this life, and now we're already nearing the end.

My dad was born and raised in the Catholic Church, but not Mom. Mom converted to the Catholic faith, probably before they got married, and probably so that they could get married in the Church, but I'm not really sure when that all happened. Dad was pretty strict with us kids, kind of ruling with an iron fist; at least I thought so. I know that he loved me in his own way, but it seemed like he had a difficult time showing it. Hugs from him were rare. I guess that was Mom's job.

I didn't like the iron fist approach and would sometimes rebel in little ways, never afraid to tell him what I thought. Well, yes, maybe I was afraid, but I didn't let that stop me from doing it anyway.

There was one situation that I'll never forget. I'm not too sure how old I was at the time, maybe about ten or so? Dad liked to party, so Mom and Dad would go out and then sometimes bring their friends back to the house at some pretty late hours. One Saturday night, Mom and Dad had been out for the evening with some people and ended up back at our house for more partying. I had already gone to bed in the upstairs bedroom that I shared with my two brothers. They were making lots of noise with their partying, seemingly oblivious that there were kids in the house who were trying to sleep. It seemed to go on forever. Would they never leave? Would the noise ever stop?

I felt disrespected. I felt angry. I just wanted to be able to go to sleep, but there was no way with all of the noise they were making. I got to the point where I wanted to get their attention in some way, to let them know that there were other people in the house trying to sleep. I tried various ways to make a little noise, to make them aware, but they didn't hear me or didn't care. So finally, I got up to go to the bathroom and, in the process, slammed some doors loud enough that they would've had to hear the commotion over their yelling.

What happened then? Well, the noise did subside after that, and I finally got to sleep. But you know for sure, that was not the end of the story! Nobody came upstairs to see what the problem was, but the next day, there was definitely hell to pay. I remember that we were all in the car on the way to church. It was pretty quiet for a while, then Dad just said something short and not so sweet, and he didn't mince words: Who slammed the doors last night!

No, my punctuation isn't totally wrong because that's how the question came out of his mouth, with an exclamation point. I knew there would be consequences, but I still didn't back down. I told him that it was me. Then I explained that I wasn't feeling good last night, I wanted to get to sleep, and couldn't because of all the noise. So, yes, I did it!

Funny, but I have no idea what my punishment turned out to be. I can remember all the other details, but nothing about the punishment. I can't say that I am proud of what I did that night and regret the embarrassment I must have caused my parents. But even though I was just a kid, I wanted to have a voice about what I considered to be an injustice at the time. Obviously, they had the right to have a party, but did it have to be so loud and so late, when there were sleeping kids in the house?

Dad would sometimes call me the black sheep of the family, probably because of my occasional rebellion. I guess I did cause him some grief at times. But I learned at an early age that if I wanted to survive in his world with my identity intact, I needed to make some waves when I felt it was needed and not knuckle down to every one of his rules. And, boy, did he have a whole lot of rules!

My angry outbursts and angry behavior didn't start or stop with that one incident. It continued into my adult life and would burst out when things got too stressful for me. Unfortunately, it also continued into my marriage. Poor Bonnie never knew when the storm clouds would suddenly rear their angry head. Sometimes, when the tension got too thick, she would take a big risk and poke the bear just enough to provoke me into a blowup in order to get it over with sooner. She still had to bear the brunt of my anger, but at least it got over quicker that way, even though I hated it when she did that.

I ended up going for help to a guy who did Gestalt Therapy for anger management. I needed to get control of this or our marriage would suffer tremendously. The therapist asked me to write down a list of the rules that my dad had when I was young. When I turned in my homework assignment, he told me that he had never in all of his years of therapy seen a list as extensive as my list was. At least he now knew what he was facing with me. It was a lot of hard work with the therapist, but I think my wife, Bonnie, would attest that I became a different man for the better, and thankfully so.

After that therapy, I was even able to forgive my dad and let go of my anger toward him. I realized that he wasn't doing anything to be mean to me or any of my siblings. He was just doing the best he could to deal with the stress of raising six kids with very little money.

I wanted to write this chapter right out of the gate so that you knew a little bit of my background. It helps explain why I am the way I am today. I don't have a lot of trust with authority figures. They need to prove to me by their actions that they deserve my trust, that they are operating from a servant's attitude, and not to satisfy their own private agendas. I don't like people telling me what to do and how to do it, unless it makes sense to me. Yet I know beyond a doubt that you do have to have rules to live by in this life or our world would be in constant chaos with everybody running around, doing their own thing, no matter what the cost to others. Yet my lack of trust and skepticism is a dilemma for me.

What to do about it? Question, question again, and yet again. Make sure there is a good reason for the rules. Don't accept anything at face value without running it through the lens of common sense. If something doesn't make sense to me, and I can't find anyone who can satisfactorily explain to me the reasons behind it, then maybe it's time to think of the issue in a different way or totally discard it from my life. I'm not talking about legal issues here but rather social and spiritual issues. It's not in my nature to ignore the laws of the land and get into legal trouble as that would be pretty stupid of me.

Now apply that mindset of questioning everything before I'm ready to believe it to issues of faith, theology, matters of the soul. What do you get? That's what this book is all about. It's about my personal journey through the minefield of various church teachings, pastors' sermons, books about God and faith, and even the Bible—especially the Bible. How did I ever get from where I was to where I am today? You can see that I don't just roll over and believe anything I'm told, no matter who the teller is.

I want you to know that my reasons for writing his book have absolutely nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with you. I finally realized after all these years that if I can verbalize my struggles and show you how they have progressed for me, maybe you will also be able to realize that all is not lost for you. There is hope. There is forgiveness. There is love.

Despite all of the wrong that exists in this mixed-up world that we inhabit, despite all the pain and sorrow that each and every one of us must endure as we slog our way through this difficult life, there is light at the end of the tunnel. If I can manage the dark times and get to the light, so can you.

Chapter 2

The Beginning

Where do I start? This project has been on my mind for years, and I keep putting it off. But it just won't leave me alone. So to get the nagging feelings off my back and out of my mind, I finally decided to just start typing and see what happens in the process.

I didn't want to even begin. For one thing, this is because of the very significant time commitment that I knew this project would take. Okay, I know, I'm retired, and time is one of the most significant assets I have. But I still value that time. I love spending my time with my lovely wife, Bonnie. I never wanted to take time away from her to do this. We are not only husband, wife, and lovers, but we are also best friends. We've been that way ever since we first met over sixty-five years ago. We do most everything together, whether it be doing dishes, the wash, taking a walk, golfing, shopping, cleaning the house, yard work, helping others, serving at church, whatever. Taking the time away from her, especially at this older and tender age, to write this book gave me much pause.

So the time commitment is one thing that has held me back, but it's also because I don't want to ever write anything that might cause someone to negatively impact their faith. Because that is what this book is all about: matters of faith, my faith journey. My ideas aren't going to be for everyone. And I want to make this abundantly clear from the very beginning. I am not a Bible scholar. I don't have any biblical credentials at all. I'm just an ordinary guy with some ideas that might just make you think a little differently about certain things. Some of my ideas on faith and religion may well not be mainstream. Please keep that in mind as you read through these pages. On the other hand, please don't dismiss out of hand what I have to say just because I'm not your typical Bible scholar with loads of credentials to flash at you.

I want to be right up front with you about something else too. I'm not an author. I have never published anything. I don't write for a living now nor have I ever done so. The only things I've written in the past are book reports for school, and that was so many years ago that I can hardly even count them. And I hated doing those book reports so much that I never wanted to do it again, ever! I even hated reading books that were assigned because they represented a school obligation that was followed with another obligation of writing a book report that would be judged and graded by someone else, namely my teachers. It took me several years to get past the horrible school reading experiences and eventually get to the point where I realized that reading for pleasure is something that would become an integral part of my life in my spare time. Now I can't get enough of it. How times have changed.

I'm actually a math person, though. I like working with numbers, writing spreadsheets, making the computer do all the hard work for me. I started out as a math teacher, but I burned out in that profession pretty early on in my post-college life. The major part of my eventual work career was spent as an actuary, which is most definitely a job that focused on numbers that were relevant to the insurance companies that I worked for. I am way out of my comfort zone in deciding to write a book, but I am very committed to finish this project anyway.

So I wonder what will come out of this mind that God gave me as I type away. I've been told by one person that my mind will think of things in ways that he never thought possible. That person is my good friend and pastor, James Brown. James was a pastor from one of our church homes, Crossroads Church in Woodbury, Minnesota. Since Bonnie and I are snowbirds, spending half of our year in Mesa, Arizona, we actually have a second church home in Arizona, that being Christ's Church of the Valley, better known as CCV. We love our weekend time spent at both places. It's become the highlight of our week to be able to serve as ushers and greeters.

Now here I am writing again, all these long years after those hated book reports. I guess that time has a way of making us forget the pain. I have no idea whether anyone will even be interested in reading what I have to say. I guess time will tell, and you will be the judge of that, not me.

What made me begin writing again after such a long hiatus? It actually started about the year 2006. Bonnie and I hadn't been to church in any meaningful way, except for weddings and funerals, for over forty years.

Why? I was born and raised in the Catholic church. Bonnie was born and raised in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints church. Neither of our parents wanted us to marry outside of our faith, so our intention of marriage was met with lots of resistance from both families, especially mine. My parents insisted that Bonnie and I both meet with the monsignor of our church for lessons. We believe that their intention, as well as the monsignor's intention, was to convince Bonnie to convert to Catholicism.

That didn't happen, never was going to happen, no way. When she refused to convert, the monsignor refused to marry us. We were ready to chuck it all and go get married by a Justice of the Peace. But, finally, the parish assistant priest agreed to marry us in the church. This whole incident left such a sour taste in our mouths that we became totally estranged from what we called organized religion. The rules and regulations we encountered were strangling us. All we wanted was to be together and love one another. We definitely still believed in God, but the last thing we wanted to do was step foot inside of a church again. We were still spiritual people, but we wanted nothing to do with organized religion anymore.

Things stayed that way, and we never looked back for a long, long time. We were happy to just be with each other, have kids, raise them to be good citizens and have good morals, and to fall in love with each other all over again with each new dawn. I'm not saying it was easy; marriage never is. But we were committed to each other, and we were determined to get past all the bumps in the road that we would encounter. When we said, I do, we both meant it, and knew that this was a lifelong commitment that we would never break.

One of my favorite songs from the early 1980s was a song by Michael Martin Murphy called What's Forever For? Overall, the song is kind of a downer. But one verse has stayed with me ever since: If love doesn't last forever, then what's forever for?

As far as I'm concerned, that one verse could be my life's motto. It states in one simple verse what I feel about how marital life, and maybe how all of life can and should be lived.

We continued that way, in essence abandoning churches for over forty years, right into retirement and beyond. We never missed it. Or so I thought. Shortly after retirement, we became snowbirds, spending our winters in Arizona, coming back to Minnesota for the spring, summer, and fall. Then my comfortable routines suddenly came to an abrupt halt one day near Easter of 2006. Bonnie dropped what felt to me at the time like an atomic bomb. She suddenly told me one day that she had been watching a new church being built near our Arizona home. It was a nondenominational church called Spring of Life.

Spring of Life eventually ran into financial problems and was saved by Christ's Church of the Valley, which now has their name on the facilities. When Bonnie told me what she wanted to do, my warning lights immediately perked up into high intensity. She told me that she wanted to attend that church for Easter services, which wasn't too far off. Oh boy, the alarms were now screaming at me like I had never before heard them. What did this mean? I liked my life the way it was, and I did not want it changed. What is she doing to me and my comfortable life?

Then Bonnie explained to me that she had for quite some time been feeling like there was a big, gaping spiritual hole in her heart. She desperately wanted me to go with her to the Easter services, but whether I went or not, she was still going to attend. She absolutely needed to try to fill that hole in her heart. At that point, I decided that I had better go with her, if only to be aware of what they were going to fill her mind with. And maybe in so doing, I'd be better equipped to protect the way of life that I had become accustomed to.

I was convinced that I didn't need any preacher telling me what to do and how to do it when it came to matters of my spirituality. I figured we had done pretty good with that on our own since giving up on organized religion so many years ago. But I didn't know what might happen to Bonnie's commitment to continue going it alone with me. The only thing I knew for sure about what would happen was this: I wasn't going down without a fight! I wonder what I would have thought at the time if I had only known that the fight wouldn't be with Bonnie—it would be with myself. And that fight would last for almost three and a half years.

A big part of my reluctance to believe what I was hearing from the preachers is based on my skeptical nature, my lack of trust in authority figures, and being extremely wary of anyone who pretends to have all the answers. As far as I am concerned, there is no human being who has all of the answers. That reluctance has served me well, keeping me from getting duped into false beliefs. For instance, there are far too many cults in this world that prey on people who don't ask enough questions, those who are too malleable and too easy to influence for their own good.

I have to be very careful before I latch onto something that has the potential to lead me down a garden path. It could lead me to my own spiritual destruction. On the other hand, my skepticism also serves as a significant roadblock for me to be able to believe in anything! I know that a person has to have something to believe in. That's something I didn't really have, and that's where the hole in my life began. There has to be some purpose to this life. So I have to be able to let go of at least some of my skepticism. I have to trust in something or someone, maybe not totally but at least partially, if I'm going to be able to make any headway in my search for the truth about life and spirituality. This is my dilemma. How can I possibly overcome it?

Make no mistake, I do believe that there is a truth, an immutable truth, not a version of the truth. If there are several versions of the truth, then there is no truth at all.

Chapter 3

Now What?

So we went to the Spring of Life Easter services together. I remember sitting there in the ejection seats (very last row nearest to the exit door) with a deep frown on my face, my arms locked together in front of me in total defiance, and probably with at least a small amount of anger percolating in my heart as well. I did have to admit the music was pretty darn good. It was so totally different from the old-fashioned, droning, slow–paced music I had experienced for years at the Catholic Church I had attended. It was very upbeat and modern.

The worship leader, Matt McMann was a young guy with a beautiful voice. The songs he sang were done so well that even I had to let my guard down a bit and just enjoy the experience. Yes, the songs were about God, but they were like nothing I had ever heard before. They actually meant something to me. They had a message.

The pastor who gave the sermon, Kevin Carlson, was the lead pastor at Spring of Life. His way of preaching was also totally different from what I had ever experienced before in the Catholic Church. The messages he gave were about topics that we actually run into in our daily lives. Yes, each one was based on biblical teachings, but he was always very practical in how he applied the biblical principles to our daily lives. So, for me, the sermons were current, relevant, and meaningful to our lives today. There were lessons to be learned about how to deal with the pressures and obstacles of the world we live in. The fact that Spring of Life and subsequently CCV were nondenominational churches was a big benefit to us as we felt that they would have no preaching bias based on any denomination.

Kevin was a very visual preacher, who often used props to help illustrate the message he was trying to get across. The props he used would help the essence of the message to stick in our brains. I still clearly remember the sound effects from another Easter service we attended where Kevin used a prop to help illustrate the crucifixion of Jesus and the horrific pain he must have endured.

I don't recall if Kevin had a real wooden cross there or not. But what I remember with total clarity is the pounding, then more pounding, then even more pounding. Kevin used a sledgehammer on wood, and with each blow, the noise reverberated throughout the church, and you could envision and almost feel the excruciating pain that Jesus had endured for us when the nails were driven through his body.

Another time, Kevin had glow sticks passed out to everyone. At a certain point in the message, the entire room was plunged into darkness, and then he told us to break the glow sticks and hold the lit stick up in the air. Each person's little light didn't do much by itself, but altogether, they had quite an impact. I believe the message was that if we all do our own small part in spreading the light of Jesus, together we can have a major impact.

I also remember how Kevin would start a message by talking about many seemingly unrelated thoughts, and we wondered where he was going with this. But then near the end of the message, he would circle back around and bring everything together in a very cohesive way. He was simply an excellent teaching pastor, and we learned a lot from him.

But don't get me wrong even a little bit. I was still extremely wary, mistrusting, and very skeptical of whatever Kevin had to say. After all, he was a preacher with a religious ax to grind, right? As good as he was at delivering a message, I had better be very careful of this guy. There was absolutely no way I was going to be led down a garden path smelling the flowers he was showing us. I just wasn't going to pick those flowers. I definitely needed to pass everything he said through my own filters. Does it make sense to me? Is it something I can take to heart and run with it? Do I need to chew on it some more? Or do I cast it off as something I just can't wrap my arms around, much less believe in?

Getting back to what happened after attending that first service, we did go back to Spring of Life the next week and the week after that and the week after that, until it was time for us to return to Minnesota in the spring. During our summer back home, we easily slipped back to our former ways of no church attendance.

When winter came, Christmas was over, and it was time for us to return to Arizona. We found ourselves looking forward to attending Spring of Life again. We actually missed it. That was a surprise that I never saw coming.

Chapter 4

Surprise!

If I thought that missing church was a big surprise, I wasn't prepared in any way, shape, or form for what would happen next. Spring of Life Church would occasionally host baptisms right on the stage, using portable pools. This was done as part of the service that weekend. They would set up two of these pools and would alternate baptisms between them with a pastor in each pool doing the honors in order to keep things moving faster.

Normally, you were supposed to sign up for your baptism, but it wasn't absolutely necessary. They always would have pool attire and towels available in case there might be those in the audience who would make a last-minute decision to get baptized. In fact, when the scheduled baptisms were coming to an end, Kevin announced that there was still time for anyone who wanted to come forward, whether they had signed up or not. We sat there, again in the ejection seats, watching this all unfold. Kevin continued to invite people forward, again and again. After about six invites, he finally said that this would be the last call.

Before I knew what was happening, Bonnie was suddenly on her feet and walking quickly and resolutely forward to the changing room so she could get baptized. When she got up, I started to ask her what was going on, but she simply left me sitting there wondering what had happened. I knew then that my life would never be the same. I wondered what this would mean to me. This was a serious commitment she was making, and whatever that meant to our future, I was right smack dab in the middle of it. I was filled with dread.

But then I got the surprise of my life to top all other surprises. As it happened, Bonnie turned out to be the very last person to get baptized that day. When she got into the pool, she answered Kevin's questions and affirmed that she would publicly dedicate the rest of her life to her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Kevin then dunked her under the water, and up she came, spiritually a brand-new woman. All of a sudden, my dread had simply vaporized, and I found myself on my feet, clapping and cheering for her, right along with the rest of the congregation. To this day, my reaction still surprises me.

My dread about what might happen to me as a result of what I thought was a rash decision she had made had turned into an exuberant expression of my great joy for Bonnie. After all, this was about her, not about me! The more I thought about it, I finally began to realize that the focus of my thoughts and fears had been very self-centered on my part. I had been spending my time in fear of what all of this new church stuff would mean to me. What an enormous waste of time that was. I had been totally ignoring what it might mean for the woman I married, the woman I love more than life itself. Why couldn't I just roll with it and support whatever spiritual decision she felt she needed to make? It didn't mean that I had to make the same decision she had made, but I could certainly tear down some of the walls that I had been building for forty years. From that point forward, I wanted only to be an encouragement to her spiritual growth instead of the emotional roadblock that I had been setting up for my own selfish purposes.

Now one more thing before you get too bent out of shape about what I said about Bonnie dedicating the rest of her life to her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It's not some weird ethereal or mystical thing to do. It's actually pretty simple to explain what is meant by this, what every sincere and committed Christian means by this.

Baptism is all about going public about what you have already decided to do in your own heart. First, you declare that you have accepted the fact that Jesus was the Son of God who came to this earth in order to save all of us with his death on the cross. If we accept that, then with his death, he paid the price for our sins that we couldn't possibly pay by ourselves. He bought our ticket to heaven, giving us the chance to spend an eternity with him. But it doesn't end there if we're serious about our promise at baptism. His freely given gift of eternity to us cries out for our thank you back to him.

As I see it, to dedicate your life to Jesus simply means that you promise to thank him for his sacrifice by doing your level best to emulate the example that he gave to us during the short time he spent on this earth.

How do we do that? How do we hold up our end of the bargain? In Galatians 5:22–23, the apostle Paul says: "But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!" In my mind, if we would live that kind of life, guided by the Holy Spirit, God would be pretty happy with us. That doesn't mean that we won't screw it up sometimes. It doesn't mean that God will be angry with us when we do mess up. We humans have failings and will far too often fall short of our own goals, not to mention God's goals for our lives. But our true mettle shows up when we get up from the floor, dust ourselves off, don't give up, and keep trying for a better outcome. That's a goal worth shooting for in my book.

I think that's a pretty simple way to look at the concept of giving our life to Jesus. If you would like me to, I can make it even simpler for you. How about this? Love God and love others. That's it. That's Christianity in five words. Forget all the rules. Do this, and everything else will fall into place.

Chapter 5

What's This Bible Stuff All About?

We continued to attend services at Spring of Life. They had small paperback Bibles in the seat pockets available for us to reference when Kevin would want to highlight specific verses. One Sunday, he said that if we didn't have a Bible at home, then please feel free to take the one we had in our hands and keep it, his gift to us. I had never had a Bible in my home. I had grown curious as to what the fuss was all about anyway, so I decided to take one.

Eventually, my curiosity got the best of me, and I started to actually read it, something I never thought I'd do. And it was strictly a curiosity move at that point. Over time, I ended up reading it from cover to cover, and it took me about a year to complete it. Shortly after I started reading the Bible, I ran into many situations that I questioned, that I had issues with. I had so many questions that I had to start writing them down, because I knew I'd never remember them if I ever wanted to find the answers. This felt important to me, and I didn't want to just gloss over the issues or I'd never be satisfied. So I read and I wrote, over and over again. I ended up with about a forty-page document, single-spaced, loaded with my issues and questions, but of course, no answers. Even that extensive list didn't include every question that I came up with, but they represented what I felt at the time were the more important ones. What do I do with this list? Where do I start getting answers to all of my questions? This was brand-new territory for me, and I didn't know where to even start.

After our second winter of attending services at Spring of Life in Arizona, Bonnie said that she wanted to find a church back home in Minnesota, so we had a place to attend while there. She did her research online and found a couple of possibilities, so we attended both places for a while. We ended up connecting really well with a church called Crossroads—interesting name because I was certainly at a crossroads in my spiritual life. It wasn't nondenominational like Spring of Life, it was an Evangelical Covenant Church, but you'd never know from attending that it was part of a denomination. It felt to us very similar in the type of message content and music presentation that we were used to at Spring of Life. Their music was upbeat and modern yet very meaningful to us. The sermons were Bible-based but were very relevant messages for today's issues that we all face.

I mentioned James Brown (JB) earlier. He was one of the associate pastors at Crossroads. Bonnie and I would occasionally talk to him after services, and he seemed like a nice guy, friendly, approachable. In January of 2009, I decided to take a flyer and send up a trial balloon to James. I emailed him using the subject line I Need Help! I attached to that email a copy of the forty-page document with all my Bible questions and issues. I did that so he would know exactly what he would be getting himself into if he responded to my plea for help, no surprises. I told him what had transpired so far and that I really wanted to talk to someone about getting answers to those questions.

I had no idea what to expect. Would he brush me off? Would he just ignore my email? But if he did ignore me, I had no idea where else to go or how to get the answers I thought I needed. Maybe he would recommend someone to talk to or somewhere else I could go to get the answers in order to get himself off the hook. But I was pretty desperate, so I took the chance anyway. Who knows? He might even say yes.

To my surprise, he responded to my email. He said that he would be willing to meet with me a few times to discuss my questions and that it could probably be done in three to four meetings. At the time, I didn't know that he was most likely being tongue in cheek about that. He has a fabulous sense of humor. How could you possibly cover forty pages of questions in three to four meetings? What he was probably also doing was hedging his bets with me. After all, he didn't really know me and probably wouldn't want to make a significant commitment that he might not want to keep. As it turned out, we met for a few times and hit it off well. We ended meeting off and on for several years, and we still do meet whenever we get a chance. This has developed into a friendship, one that I value highly to this day. We have also ended up collaborating on other church projects over the past several years to our mutual benefit.

Chapter 6

The Trial Balloon Rises

Fortunately for me, my trial balloon to JB didn't explode into never-never land. We began to meet pretty regularly, at least at first. After a while, it did taper off some, but we still continued for several years. Using the forty-page document as our meeting agenda and guide, we began to tackle the issues I had raised.

Probably one of the most important points he made with me almost from the very beginning was that some of my questions might not have any answers at all, at least answers that we mere humans can identify. That was so important to me because as I said earlier, I simply wouldn't trust someone who claimed to have all the answers. And here was JB, a pastor, telling me that there might not be an answer to all of my questions. We are all fallible beings, and so I knew intuitively that there really can't be anyone who could possibly know it all, no matter how well they present the truth to you. To have a pastor admit that was very refreshing to me.

What JB did say was: It's not the answer to the question that's important anyway, it's the search itself that's important. That statement spoke volumes to me. It meant that the most important issue involved was the integrity of the heart of the searcher. Even if we can't find an answer that we can rely on, what matters most to God is the fact that we are honestly trying to figure things out. That effort, that intent, is far more important than actually coming up with an answer. In fact, we really don't need to find an answer to all of the questions we have before we can make a spiritual commitment to follow Jesus. Some of these issues we dwell on may just be beyond our human comprehension, and we need to accept that, trust that God has it covered, and move on to something more concrete that we can then deal with.

Before I begin looking at all of those forty pages of questions, I want to explain the process I used. After meeting with JB, I would go home and write up my impressions of what we talked about. Sometimes he and I agreed and sometimes we didn't. Oftentimes, he would say something that would make me ponder my own views. Sometimes, I would say something that made him think twice about his own conclusions or ways of looking at things. This process continued for quite a while every time we met. Eventually, when he realized that it would take a very long time to get through all forty pages of questions by discussing them in our meetings, JB asked me to move ahead on my own, using whatever resources I could find to try to get to the answers by myself. We would continue to meet and discuss the issues, but I would be doing a lot of legwork in between. He and I might never get to all of them. That certainly turned out to be true.

At that point, JB also had decided that with the research I was doing to investigate things, along with my analysis of that research, I was able to come up with explanations on my own that he felt were worth writing about. He really encouraged me to put my own flavor into what I was writing, not just relying on finding a scholarly or knowledgeable source and parroting it. I was really nervous about doing that, but he told me that I needed to trust myself, that I had good instincts about these things, and I should use them. Besides, I have to admit that sometimes I found that the scholars I researched would disagree with each other on the topic. The differences they had were sometimes small, but sometimes they were very big ones. So I was left with drawing my own conclusions anyway. I did what JB suggested, but I also ended up going back to the beginning to put my own flavor throughout all the questions.

As a result of this process, when you read through each of these issues that I will be describing to you, please remember that the timeline from the original questions that I posed through my discussions with JB, my comments on the research that I found, and finally to my own take on it could have been years.

My feelings often started out as indignance or even anger about the perceived unfairness of the issue I was raising. Things then progressed to my curiosity about what both JB and my research sources would say on the topic. And, finally, I was usually able to settle in on my own thoughts about it. I really never knew what I was going to write on any of these issues. I just started typing, referring to my sources, and giving an opinion as I went along. So my point is this. Each question needs to be read considering the timeline that has elapsed, and it may show the changes in my thoughts over that period of time as I better understood the issues that were involved. In short, my mental process went from indignance to curiosity, to a calmer and more settled conclusion, at least most of the time.

One housecleaning item that I should mention before I begin with my discussion of the Bible issues I had. When I list Bible verse quotations, they are from the New Living Translation or NLT. If I might occasionally list one from another translation for some reason, I'll mention the source translation.

Part 2

The Old Testament

Chapter 7

Why Did God Threaten Moses's Life?

Moses first appeared in the second book of the Bible, Exodus. Moses was a really big deal in the Old Testament. He was the one person to meet with God face-to-face and live to tell about it. As far as I know, Moses was the only biblical character to be able to do this. But then, suddenly the Bible said that God wanted to kill Moses (Exodus 4:24). Say what? This is very confusing to me. What's the story here?

Moses had escaped from Egypt after he had killed an Egyptian who was severely mistreating some of his fellow Israelites. He left because he was in fear for his life. After Moses had spent many years in another land, in Exodus 4:19­–23, God told Moses to go back to Egypt and confront the Pharaoh, demanding that he let the Israelites leave Egypt. He was to perform in front of the Pharaoh several miracles that God had empowered him to do. These miracles included turning his shepherd's staff into a snake and then back into a staff; giving his own hand a severe skin disease (most likely leprosy) and then making it healthy again; and turning some water from the Nile river into blood. But despite these miracles, God told Moses that the Pharaoh would still not let the Israelites leave Egypt.

Then in Exodus 4:24–26, it says that God confronts Moses while he was on his way back to Egypt and is about to kill him. But then his wife, Zipporah, circumcises their son, and Moses's life is saved because after that, God left Moses alone. What is going on here? God had just told Moses to go to Egypt and deal with the Pharaoh's mistreatment of the Israelites, and now he wants to kill him when he is obediently on his way to Egypt? This makes no sense, unless Moses failed to do something pretty serious (like circumcise his son?), that the Bible doesn't mention.

JB said that it was indeed the lack of circumcision of Moses's son that caused God's anger with Moses. In those times, circumcision was the sign of the Israelites' covenant with God, the thing that was the visual evidence of their being Jewish. It was a big deal. How could Moses possibly go to Egypt and be the one to lead the Jewish people to the promised land if his own son wasn't even circumcised? These days, circumcision clearly isn't as big of a deal as it was in those times.

Still, in my mind, God's wanting to kill Moses for not circumcising his son before going back to Egypt still seems to be just a tad over the top for this offense, unless Moses had absolutely refused a direct order from God. In an online reference by John Myers, he said that Moses knew at his son's birth what he should have done to his son but that he may have met up with resistance from his non-Jewish wife Zipporah at that time.

So, if that's true, then in a way, Moses had refused an order from God in order to please his wife. But when faced with the possible loss of her husband's life, Zipporah herself took action and, in so doing, saved her husband's life. For Moses to go back and try to lead the Jews out of Egypt, they would most likely not have accepted his leadership due to this one thing, his not circumcising his son as demanded by Jewish law. Since God had charged Moses with the task of leading his people out of Egypt, he wouldn't have wanted anything that Moses did or didn't do to impact the success of that mission. So I guess it was quite a serious offense by Moses as the trickle-down effect of that one miscue could have had a seriously negative impact on God's plans for the Israelites.

Chapter 8

The Egyptians and the Pharaoh

The next question on my list was also from Exodus. The word exodus is defined as a mass departure of people, which is exactly what is