For many who read the Bible, they read it through figurative church-made glasses. These glasses have a special filter that consists of the Bible interpretations they’ve heard in church. As they read the Bible, the words they read go through this filter. In some cases, the words are modified by the filter so that what reaches the mind conveniently matches up with what they’ve heard in church.

Yet if they notice a conflict between what they’re reading and what they’ve heard, they may attribute the conflict to their apparent inability to understand the “complex” messages in the Bible, messages only seminary-trained pastors can understand, or so they may have been told.

Nagged by the conflicts I’d noticed while reading the Bible—conflicts between what I had heard in church and what I was reading—I gradually removed those church-made glasses and, for the first time, read the Bible with clear eyes. That’s how I came to find true Christianity, the Christianity that Jesus lived and taught. You can read about what I found in my book, Beneath the Graffiti: A De-churched Christian’s Search for Christianity.

https://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Graffiti-churched-Christians-Christianity-ebook/dp/B0DK7VD71B