You have come to put your trust in Jesus as your Saviour and Lord. You know your sins have been forgiven, and you want to follow Jesus in every part of your life. You are all excited about this, and as you begin to tell your friends what the Lord has done in your life, you meet with mockery, ridicule, scepticism, etc., because according to your friends you are following some stories cooked up by religious fanatics. For example, they tell you that science has shown that all that you are and see are just a random collection of molecules. Some of them tell you that Jesus never died, let alone rose from the dead, and the disciples took Him away from the cross and hid Him somewhere till He recovered. They say they can point out so many errors in the Bible that it is only old people who still believe in it. Some say that all religions are essentially the same, telling people to be good, even though they call God by different names and describe different paths to reach Him. Questions like these rattle you, because they hit at the core of your beliefs and you don't have any valid answers. Some older believers just tell you to stop thinking about such things and only believe!

But you need answers, and there are answers. God has created us in His image, and His ways must make sense for us. Our faith in God must be based on facts, and not on blind assumptions. God who has created us as thinking creatures knows that we need real answers. So here is an attempt to address these basic, core issues. Once you are convinced about these fundamental truths, you know you are on the right path even if there are a million things which you don't understand, because you know you have the major issues clear.

It is not a sin if we don't know everything. Only God is omniscient, knowing all. As creatures with many limitations, we will never have all the answers, otherwise we will be God. But once we have the knowledge of the core matters, and as we experience more of reality as time goes on, they will give us the stability to face new questions. One major mistake people make when they try to 'deconstruct' their faith is to expect to find all the answers, and they conclude they cannot trust in God if something seems to be wrong according to their understanding.

Question: Which parts of the Bible are applicable to us?>

Many people are confused about this. There are even some pastors who teach that we don't need the Old Testament any more. Some others wonder if the God who is revealed in the Old Testament is the same as the One in the New Testament. There are many Christians who are confused about which of the commandments or instructions are to be followed, and if we should adapt to the times. It is very important that as young people who have just come to faith in Jesus, you should know how to address this matter.

In one sense, the whole Bible is relevant for us, because there is something for us to learn from every part. We must believe that when God gave us His word as a gift, there was a reason why God placed each part there. We can learn about who God is, what kind of a Person He is, what He loves and hates, what He has done for us, what we have done wrong and how it has affected us, what He has prepared for us to get back to Him, what He has prepared for us in the future, etc. In some places we get direct instructions from God to us, but many other times we learn about God by observing how He has dealt with different kinds of people in different situations. The Bible is plainly honest about the people it describes, not trying to cover up their faults or mistakes or painting up an impressive picture of its heroes. We can see how heroes too had their struggles just as we have, and we can take encouragement as well as warnings.

So, when we see historical narrations, we must remember that just because they are in the Bible, they are not automatically to be imitated. Some of them may be good examples to follow, but some of them are bad examples we must learn from and avoid! Just because Abraham and Isaac lied about their wives saying they were their sisters, we cannot take it that telling lies is OK! Just because God forgave David who committed adultery with Bathsheba and killed her husband Uriah, it does not mean that we can go ahead and sin, expecting forgiveness in the end! The early church met in houses and broke bread together each time, but later, when they became more organised they started breaking bread on the Lord's day, that is, once a week. This is just a record of what they did and not an indication for the frequency of breaking of bread that we must follow. (When Paul teaches the church about it, he tells them only to do it in a certain way whenever they broke bread together, and not how frequently they should do it.)

One of the 'rules' of hermeneutics, which are the guidelines for interpreting scripture, is to ask ourselves some questions whenever we read the Bible. Who wrote this? Who is this addressed to? What is the background? What lesson can we learn from this? In what way can we apply that lesson to our life? When we ask these questions, we need to see if what we have read is directly applicable to us, or whether it is only some general observations for us to make. To reiterate it, we must not blindly take every verse we read and imagine that we need to do it.

There is a special case to consider here. In order to establish His testimony on earth and to show a model to all other nations, God raised up a nation called Israel. Here, God was to be the head of the nation, and He was the One to set up laws and judge them. (Of course, later on they wanted their own human kings to rule over them.) In that role, God has given a lot of laws for Israel to keep, which are all described in the Old Testament. Now we Christians are not all part of Israel. So the question is which parts of all the laws are applicable to us.

The first thing here we need to recognise is that some laws were only applicable to the nation of Israel, but that there are also laws of God that were originally given to Israel that are universally applicable to all people. Let us attempt to make that distinction clear for us. This will clear a lot of questions people have.

The laws God gave Israel can be grouped into civil and criminal laws, hygienic laws and religious laws, and religious laws may be split into ceremonial or ritualistic laws and moral laws. We can understand that out of all these laws that applied to Israel, only the moral laws are universally applicable. The ceremonial and ritualistic laws are no longer applicable to us because God gave them to Israel to serve as pictures to understand what the Messiah would finally provide for a relationship with them. For example, Jesus became the sin offering, and now animal sacrifices which pictured the shedding of blood for forgiveness are obsolete. The Tabernacle which pictured three different levels of access to God has now become irrelevant, because now full access to God is available to all His children, and He dwells within them.

Moral laws are timeless, because they are related to the character of God and do not change with time. These are also laws that we know instinctively within our heart. This is what we call our conscience which shows that God's laws have been written into us. (Rom.2:14,15). But since it is possible for us to ignore the warnings of our conscience and allow it to become insensitive or hard, all of us have consciences acting at different levels. God judges people according to how they responded to their conscience.

So, when we read the Bible, especially the Old Testament, look for the moral laws. Those who do not make this distinction try to make fun of Christians by claiming that Christians conveniently cherry-pick commandments from the Bible. Christians are actually picking up moral laws from all over the Bible, and avoiding binding themselves with other laws that are not relevant to them. For example, Christians recognise that homosexuality is an abominable sin in the sight of God, while, as constantly pointed out by their opponents, setting aside the instruction to the Israelites of the ancient days not to wear clothes made of two different fabrics (Lev.20:13)(Lev.19:19).

Another distinction we must make is between the Old Testament and the New Testament. We are used to these terms referring only to the two sections of the Bible. But they are two different covenants God made with Israel. When God made the new covenant, He made the old one obsolete (Heb.8:13). Now that we Christians have been grafted into the olive tree, Israel, (Rom.11:17) it is the new covenant that defines our relationship with God. We must learn to make the difference between the old covenant which applied only to Israel and the new covenant which is open to all people. At the same time, we must remember that the new covenant was given on the top of the foundation of the old covenant. Without understanding the old covenant, we cannot fully understand or appreciate the new covenant. (So, the Old Testament part of the Bible is also precious for us.)

Why did God make a new covenant? It was because Israel broke the old covenant by not walking according to it. In a sense, when God gave them that covenant, He knew that they would not be able to keep it, and that He would need to make a new covenant with them. The new covenant was made through the blood of Jesus Christ for our redemption. In fact God had this mind even before He created the world. God knew man could not keep all His commandments and that only another arrangement that would provide him help would work. He demonstrated it through the failure of the old covenant.

Practically all religions of the world suggest certain things man must do to win favour with God. The old covenant which was the Law given to Israel through Moses, set out a set of laws for Israel to keep. If they kept the Law, they would receive a blessing, and if they broke it, a curse. You can notice that the Law asked for a certain external behaviour that could be observed and judged. The blessings were also external in the form of prosperity and health. But the new covenant addressed the inner thoughts and motives of man, because God's final goal is to restore man to the original state of becoming away from sin and partaking of godly nature. While the old covenant could lead to a good name before people who the external behaviour, the new covenant brings about an inner transformation that makes us more and more godly – behaviour versus life.

Jesus illustrated the difference between the two covenants in His Sermon on the mount. Under the old covenant, someone who had not physically killed someone or committed adultery would be considered innocent. But under the new covenant, God wants us to be pure in our heart and mind of hateful or lustful intentions, which can lead to murder or adultery if we allow them. In the new covenant, God gives us the Holy Spirit to dwell within us to empower us to live that life.

In a nutshell, when we read the Bible, let us focus on the way of life, that can make us more and more like Christ.