Understand

After looking at the construction of the English word "UNDERSTAND", I was amazed.

The word has two parts, "under" and "stand", mean "put in under my feet, and stand on top of it." How wonderful it is. You could only depend on something after you fully see the pros and cons of it. Walking in the muddy road, you only want to move your next step to a solid rock. Depends on something only after you fully know it, that is understand. Otherwise, for sure, you would in trouble, big trouble.

Twenty years ago, a friend of mine who was working as a truck driver told me, the first thing when you put your hand on a truck you never drove before is to speed up on an empty road, and then hit the brake as hard as possible. In that way, you will know how well its brake works. That's the first thing you must do to a truck new to you, as you don't want leave any chance for that to fail.

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But talking about Bible, how many of us is depending on it without fully understand the meaning of it. That's like standing on a piece of grass without knowing whether it's on top of a rock or mud.

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Talking about Jesus, how did he deal with it?

Everybody believe that the New Testament of Gospel is derived from the Old Testament. It's an extension of the plan and teaching of God.

Yes, I agree that Jesus built the gospel upon the Old Testament. But did he made use of every single piece of the Old Testament? How about the violence and blood bath of Israelites during the early history?

To Jesus, the Old Testament is a piece of land full of mud; upon it he built the foundation of the New Testament. But he only selectively picks the solid rocks as his support, because that's the thing he want, and that's enough. He did not take the whole testament and trap himself inside.

Apparently, the New Testament is not only meaningful to us by telling us the truth. It is more important by setting an example of establishing and exploring new truth and how to treat teachings that we don't really understand or agree.

But he doesn't fight with the mud, just leave them alone. Fighting does not really help.

How should we do then?