Teachings in Gorinthian, Holy Bible

It's not Gorinthian, it's Corinthian. The books in the Bible known as Corinthians are a series of letters written to early Christians in Corinth by St. Paul.

The early Christians believed in all manner of things that are no longer considered part of mainstream Christianity

Don't put a sock in a toaster. Don't put jam on a magnet.

Gorinthian:

I do like Eddie Izzard. I saw him last year when he was doing a stand up for the EU tour. Very approachable, came and talked to us all afterwards.

There are Christian groups that still have women wear head coverings. Christianity has always been a very fractured religion. Even when it was started there were competing groups of Christians with wildly different sets of customs and beliefs. If you read the letters of St. Paul, you will see that he was in the middle of a fight with at least two competing Christian groups. In the Bible, St. Paul makes arguments against Christians who wanted to follow Jewish customs, and he rebuffs the Gnostics.

In the 21st century it is much the same, you can find all kinds of Christian groups, equally "devoted" to their version of Christianity. A few of them still have women cover their heads, especially during worship.

You might think that if Christians all followed the Bible that they would all believe the same things. Unfortunately this isn't the case, the letters of Paul are only part of the New Testament. The gospels were written by different people, and the Letters of John the epistle paint a different picture.

The Bible acts as a Rorschach test, each Christian group interprets their favorite scriptures to support their particular set of customs and beliefs. Maybe that is the point.

Thank you for your answers, everyone.

- So, what are the common norm or standard of Christians? I realise some teachings, especially from the Old Testament, are not practical nowadays, and so are some of the New Testament. Is there left to believe the God which become the common faith among different Christian schools or branches or individual faiths?

- Do different churches teach different things according to the understandings and interpretation of individual pastors? For the churches, I refer to the churches of the same branches, but in different locations.

- If some of the Holy Bible are not practical for the mainstream of the Christians today, would any of you suggest how I should read it efficiently, and understand the common values which are acceptable to mainstream of Christians?

There is no "common norm" in modern day Christianity. In the U.S. the two biggest groups are Catholics and Protestants. Protestants (and to some extent Catholics) are divided by politics (conservatives have different interpretations than liberals) and by race (majority Black churches are very different than White churches).

It is not so much individual Pastors... there are denominations, and most churches are part of a large organized group of churches with very similar beliefs.

Strangely the Bible doesn't have very much to do with Christianity. Most denominations claim to follow the Bible, but it is pretty easy to find Scriptures that each of them contradict. Conservatives ignore the parts about helping the poor and immigrants. Liberals ignore the parts about homosexuality being a sin. No one is truly following the whole Bible, or even the whole New Testament.

Of course, the Bible was written almost 2000 years ago in a very different time. Following the Bible literally in modern life would be quite impossible. The Bible accepts slavery, tells women to be silent, is against democracy and says that homosexuality is evil.

The best you can do is pick parts of the Bible you like, and ignore the rest of it. That is what everyone does (although no one admits it).

This is a joke.... but it also explains modern religion pretty well.

Thank you very much for your help again.

The core tenet of the christian belief is that Jesus was the son of God, and he came to earth to die for our sins so that those who believe in him could go to heaven. Furthermore, that he returned from death and then ascended to heaven. That's the core of the New Testament I'd say.



I reckon they do. Mind you, Christianity is spread worldwide, and it's not easy for people in certain countries to get a bible of their chosen denomination, or even any bible, in their native tongue. In those parts of the world where Christianity was long considered the state religion and has been around for centuries, there are guidelines for the more mainstream variants of Christianity, such as Reformed, Protestant or Catholic, such as a catechismus.



Since max has already made it clear that the christian church is heavily fragmented, with many different interpretations of key sections, this is not all that easy. It might be most efficient to not first concentrate on the bible itself, but perhaps get some literature that explains the differences between the major factions in Christianity, and only read the Bible afterwards.

Thank you very much for your advice.

This is very good book on the early Christians and how their beliefs differ from mainstream Christianity today.

Thank you for your recommendation.