The purpose of the series, “One Bible verse at a time” is to examine each biblical word or idea that is used to construct a rule-based and shame-based Christianity that I summarize as sex-negative. And, it is clearly impossible to flourish spiritually within such a belief system.
In order for us to flourish we examine the not-very-sexy-word, “belief” and learn its meaning in the original Greek (pisteuo) does not set up another rule to obey that separates the Christians from the sinners as it is commonly used. Rather than setting us up as fleshly humans with an asexual Jesus it opens the door to a very different way of viewing our relationship of the heart.
I first realized this different meaning in Christianity After Religion, The End of Church and a New Spiritual Awakening (2013) by Diana Butler Bass.
The academic paper that informs this video blog is, “The meanings of pisteuo in the Greek New Testament: A semantic-lexicographical study by J E Botha” in Neotestamentica 21 (1987), 225-240.
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