*DON'T FEAR NEW INFORMATION:

Those of us who refuse to read material that we think we might not agree with are no better than those who can't read at all. - T. K. Kennett

It's amazing how fear of the unknown is keeping many folks from making ground breaking discoveries. We have been taught to "stick to the Bible" and reject any other writing for the fear of being 'lured away from God'.

We usually reject or accept things because our famous  preacher rejects or agrees with them. We have been taught to follow some persons with blind loyalty such that we seldom read a material without bias and prejudice. However, Paul demonstrated the need to be objective when he said...

*[[Gal 2:6]] T4T* The leaders in Jerusalem, whom your new teachers respect, did not add anything to what I preach. And I would add that what status those leaders had did not influence me, because God does not favor certain/important persons more than others.

You see, even Jesus and Paul read the literature of their time. Paul went to Athens and he quoted Aratus, a Cilician Philosopher. He never quoted the Bible in his sermon. See...

*[[Act 17:28]] BSB* ‘For in Him we live and move and have our being.’ AS SOME OF YOUR OWN POETS HAVE SAID, ‘We are His offspring.’

Paul acknowledged that they were ignorant. Yet he shows to them that they have always had an idea of God.

For the 3 years i stayed in a Catholic school, i  only heard them read from the apocryphal but i never attempted to read it myself because I was told the canons are the only acceptable books. But in recent years, when i started studying the apocryphal for myself, i have really enjoyed the glorious presence and love of Abba and received deeper insight into some of the things in the canon.

Martin Luther King Jr said that it was after he read the life and works of Mahatma Gandhi that he began to lose his own skepticism about the power of love. When fundamentalist Christians criticized him because they thought King's association with the Gandhian was an indictment on Christ, this is what Martin Luther King said,...

'While I firmly believe that God revealed Himself more completely and uniquely in Christianity than any other religion, *I cannot make myself believe that God did not reveal Himself in other religions.* I believe that in some marvelous way, *God worked through Gandhi, and the spirit of Jesus Christ saturated his life*. It is ironic, yet inescapably true that the greatest Christian of the modern world was a man who never embraced Christianity. *This is not an indictment on Christ but a tribute to Him--a tribute to his universality and His Lordship.* When I think of Gandhi, I think of the Master's words in the fourth gospel: *'I have other sheep that are not of this fold.''*

Like Paul, I encourage you to study to show yourself approved unto God. One thing you need to know is that the Bible doesn't give life, Jesus does. The Bible doesn't have all the solution to this world's problems, Jesus does. And He sometimes reveals Himself through other cultures,  traditions, songs, literature, people and even religions. Selah!!!

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