Basic Scriptural Principals

Here is a nice email correspondence between L. Ray Smith and a lady
For the sake of the emailer I will not post her name.
I will highlight and bold important points!


Hi Ray,

I have been reading the 60 pages on The Rich man and Lazarus. Wow ! You sure went into detail. How long did it take you to do all this amazing research? 
I have a long ways to go yet to finish reading what you wrote but so far it looks like you have some very interesting points and it's easy to follow. I plan to get back to you later. I may have a lot of questions. Hope you don't mind.  

Is that your picture on the front page?

One question I have right now is how can the average Christian possibly get the true meaning of this Parable if it took such extensive research? 
It seems that most Christians in a life time would never go to the extent that you have. Does the Lord make things that deep and complicated? The way you break things down does seem complicated but the research and time you must have put into this is over whelming.       
-----

[Ray replies]

Dear -----:

Yes, that is my picture. Although I should probably update it seeing that that picture is about six years old.

A few words regarding the understanding of the Scriptures.

1. Almost everything in the entire  Bible is SPIRITUALLY discerned.
    
2. Jesus taught in parables so that his listeners in public would NOT understand a thing He was saying. He had to teach the meaning of these parables to His disciples in private.
    
3. Once you understand thoroughly a half dozen spiritual TRUTHS, the rest is kinda easy.

One will never ever understand the Scriptures with the mind set and carnal mindedness of the Christian tradition. You must understand a few spiritual Truths that are totally rejected in all religions of the world and atheists as well. Here are a few:

• God is totally Sovereign. That is, He is in control of EVERYTHING and ALL THE TIME. Many people actually claim to believe this, but they really really don't.

• The words "everlasting" "evermore," "forever," "for ever AND EVER[?]," and "eternal" are nowhere found even once in any Hebrew or Greek manuscript from which our modern language bibles are translated.

• Man does NOT have a "free" will that can make decisions independent of his Sovereign God. 

• Man is mortal, not immortal as Christendom teaches. Therefore, when people die, they are DEAD, not alive in a different geographical location.

• The ONLY hope for believers is that there will be a RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD.
  
  [There are unscriptural] Biblical doctrines that are of no value to Christendom. They teach that dead people go to a place called hell and a place call heaven WHEN THEY ARE DEAD!

• Hell is not the translation of any word in either the Hebrew or Greek Manuscripts.
   
• Heaven and hades (often translated hell) are not geographical locations.

• God will save all mankind, seeing that He IS THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD.

• God is a family and not a trinity.

• We are under a New Covenant, and the old is passing away.

• God is LOVE (no really, He really is, He would never torture most of His creation in fire for all eternity).

Well, there you have it. Understand those few principles and the Bible is a whole new book.
With these few spiritual Truths in mind, even you can become a Biblical scholar.

God be with you,

Ray


I will post scriptures on each of these points in future post!
Stay tuned,...........