...but you don't understand

The story of Isaac and Abraham is one of my favorites in the Bible. There are a lot of details along with it, but the gist is that God wanted to test Abraham's faith and asked him to sacrifice his only son. He was willing, but only moments before, God didn't make him.

As soon as I read this post's topic, I immediately thought of this clip from The Bible series... please watch it for a little more emotion in your posts. Helen described my thoughts (as a Christian) perfectly. This is a little bit of a rant and share in my own faith. There are so many people, who never having read the Bible before, have no sense of what these stories mean. That's okay...I'm seriously not saying anything about anyone who hasn't read the Bible before. But what makes me frustrated is that is ACTUALLY someone's faith. This is what I've dedicated my whole life to living out, so when I see people that have only taking an ounce of what they think and turning it into a whole post of making fun of the Bible, it hurts me. This text that you're taking out of context are the the basis and soul of my being. I've read the Bible my whole life, and seeing things that take an ancient line and turn it into what someone wants to say really gets me going. Sure, that's what interpretation, analysis, and opinion is, and I'm fine with that. I'm open to that, and I'm open to talking about what each of us thinks it means, because goodness knows that I'm no Bible scholar.

So what does this story mean in the context of the Christian religion? Faith. That's what it means. It doesn't have anything to do with crazy fathers, murder, or God overall sucking. I promise. Because when you really look into the background and the emotion of why this story was put into the Bible, it's proving a point about having faith and showing true sacrifice. The ENTIRE basis of Christianity is God sacrificing His only son, which also happens to be extremely similar to this story. The Bible is based around a whole set of parables, not necessarily a thorough historical analysis. This didn't happen all the time.. God did this so that people today could read about how He made the point of being a completely selfless, serving disciple of Christ. If you look into the story, it's not about Abraham just being like, "Yeah, sure God, I'll kill my son!"...it was a true sacrifice that he didn't want to make. But Abraham was serving as an all-faithful leader that was living his life out for Christ, so he went along with it. He was willing to sacrifice the thing that meant the MOST to him because he knew that it was God's plan. It's a parable because God's trying to show that we, as followers of Christ, need to act in ways that glorify Him and are with His plan. 

God's not a murderer.

I never thought that I'd be defending Christianity like this...I just can't get over how sacred of a text this is and how my life, morals, and existence are based on something that you're just trying to get a joke out of or follow along with the crowd. Yeah, it's easy to laugh and go, "OH faith, what a silly thing! So old-fashioned!"... I don't blame you for seeing the easy way out, not one bit. What does hurt is that there are so many not willing to accept different opinions and not willing to be just a tad bit more open-minded. I'm not trying to look like a baby who can't take criticism, or an upset little Christian girl who only does what her parents tell her to (I've been called all of those), I'm trying to share that talking about Biblical references is only going to make you better as a writer if you understand what it means in an allegorical sense or in the background of the faith that it's being represented in. Think what you want to think, do what you want to do. Write what you want to write (because I clearly have), but keep in mind that when you write things that bash an entire religion, it looks a little ignorant.

And my true sacrifice? Probably my well-being in writing this post. Maybe it's my calling to share my thoughts on an AP Lit blog. Who knows? I'm sacrificing something right here.