Belief
"For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible." - Stuart Chase
God said that we could know before we believe. Isa 43:10 Ye [are] my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I [am] he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.
Jesus said that if it is popular, there is something wrong with it. Mt 7:13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide [is] the gate, and broad [is] the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
There is proof of God, not merely evidences. He said to taste and see. Ps 34:8 O taste and see that the LORD [is] good: blessed [is] the man [that] trusteth in him.
But tasting is not a warm fuzzy casual reading of scriptures. He said to seek and search. De 4:29 But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find [him], if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul. Joh 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
Elohim אלהים means 'God אל separated from man ים by ignorance ה. He want you to know him.
One way to begin the path of knowing is to accept the Ge 2:21 challenge. Use a concordance and substitute each word for another possible meaning until there is a picture of Christ. Most of it is simple. There is one riddle requiring correlation with the seed of the woman and Jacob wrestling.
This is only the beginning. The whole of scripture speaks of Christ in great detail in prophetic riddle like this. The Hebrew alphabet is a message from God before creation. The message of the cross is built into the language before they used the language. This is not free-for-all allegory, but is reproducible and verifiable.
Those who say the scripture is merely literal-historical define Christ out of the scriptures. It is a remnant hostility toward the Word from the Nicolaitan (conqueror of the laity) who lost his first love by deifying Mary: Augustine. When Jesus read the scriptures he did not read of Adam and Noah and Abraham. He saw himself in it all.
So obviously there must be something more than a dead history. You think you know the answer to the riddle "Why did the chicken cross the road?" is "To get to the other side". The real answer is "To get to the other side" where "the other side" is a euphemism for dying and going to heaven. When you see a dead chicken in the road, you ask the riddle.
The same is true for the Bible. If you only read the literal-historical, you miss the Son revealing the invisible Father. When you are asked to believe first... you are being set up for manipulation. Know... then believe (trust).
