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Now many people do not want to be “preached to" or for others who believe to quote the bible to them. They really do not understand they are quoting principals we can all live by, believers or not. So I offer this not as preaching, because I am not a minister, I am just another average person, but for your consideration.
I will not deny being a believer and quoting the Bible at times when I feel it is appropriate to enhance the subject content. That is not to force my will on anyone but just in the context of what I am writing about. The choice is, as always yours to accept or discard. But as a believer I place my trust and confidence in what the Lord has said. Frankly, you can omit everything to do with religion and contemplate just what has been said and I suspect if you followed those guidelines you would turn out to be a good person.
Rhetorically, why are you so offended when you hear it? Is it from whence it came? Needless to say you wouldn’t be if from some other religious source, lets say Buddhism whose beliefs are very much in keeping with the Bible. Yet there is no threat of Evangilization or forced belief from the Buddist. In my opinion there is where the conflict lies.
So let us reason. The seven deadly sins as I have listed previously any logical thinking person can ascertain can lead to problems of all sorts. These seven things are, Pride, Greed, Envy, Hate, Lust, Gluttony, and Sloth. These actions bring out the very worst in people.
Now the key emphasis should be in loving one another. Those are certainly not spawned from love. Also when we speak of love we must be careful so that the abusers not scron what we are talking about, which is not physical love but what the Greeks call agape love . That is a spiritual love.
Ok lets look at the Biblical "you shall love of your neighbor as thyself . " So would any sane person hurt themselves or do harm to themselves? The answer is no. If you love someone you only want to do good toward him or her. If you apply this to all does one not think they chances of the same being returned to you might be greater then not? If you try to harm of hurt or destroy one another, you can certainly realize no one wants to be destroyed by another and most likely would not the other strike back?
So what do you think is the results of your actions if your mind is fixed on something higher? Do you not think you will be able to overcome that of the fleshly wants and desires and turn from it? Your mind is not thinking of the body but of more fruitful things and therefore has no need of it physical gratification. Now things that can be considered bodily things are things like adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, reveling, vengance. Can one truthfully say any good comes from these actions? One can say nine out of ten times or most of the time they lead to problems, many times severe problems of all kinds.
Yet what of these gentleness, goodness, mercy, compassion, faith, meekness, tolerance, understanding, patience? Do not these produce the opposite? Do not these produce good interactions with people? Do not they produce peace, joy and happiness?
So one does not have to be a believer to understand that the things spoken of in the Bible are actually everyday positives we should live by. Call it the golden rule if you are not a believer, or anything you wish but they are the truth about how to live life.
Now in my opinion when one assumes they are being "preached to" they are suddenly not of the disposition of tolerance. It can be a simple quote to highlight something that turns the situation from calm to anger. They are in effect reacting in anger to a form of a bodily response. Soemthing deep in their being which produces the result of rage, conflict, separation, and conflict. How else can it be? “Don’t preach to me’. Certainly when one feels this way, as I have stated, they are open to discard that which they want to or contemplate what has been presented for consideration. It comes down to choice. Is that not the road of life?
However, in doing such do they close the door to that which perhaps should be considered and simply because they do not wish to hear it or have drawn their own conclusions.
So when someone who wishes to evangelize me approaches me, I listen politely and then I ask them certain things, like have you read this, or what versions of information are you presenting to me, or that is interesting, i did not know that. I will certainly research that? Then I provide what I believe in, without force or demands and I offer additional information for them to contemplate. But my interentions are to never force it upon them or to present in a critical conflicting manner. If I do it is not intentional.
Certainly the world is full of any number of beliefs with each one stating they have the true belief. Oh, the folly of man. Yet, only at the end will it all become known. So if we implement love of neighbor, kindness, compassion and reasoning and above all mercy, we listen with a kind ear and we chose our road we will come to the answer. We part not as enemies or in anger; we part as fellow human beings who just happen to have a different view. However, we can still live in pace and brotherhood with that view.
To me that is the total essence of what God would want and what good people everywhere would want?
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