I've been watching the TV show "Charmed" recently...and although I can't say that I agree with the majority of the shows' message, I do find it entertaining. Condemn me if you will.
The main symbol used by the girls is called the triquetra, and most of them have it tattooed somewhere. Then I picked up my Mother's Max Lucado Bible, and there was one on the cover. I was confused. So, apparently, are these people. I went online to look up the symbol, and yes everyone, it is also the Christian symbol for the Trinity...interwining shapes forming a circle in the middle. It has also become a pagan symbol. However, it is NOT as that article above claims, the mark of the beast.
So for anyone out there planning on refuting the New King James Version Bible on the basis of the symbol on the cover just because it happens to be used by someone other than us...get over it. C'mon people! What are we really worried about here? Big huge doctrinal issues like Faith, Salvation, and the Godhead? Or are we going to stand around arguing over niggling little details....
There are lots of Christian symbols, rituals, and other assessories that were borrowed, changed, or assumed by the early Christian Church. We just went through another year of the big "Christians are all dumb because they celebrate Christmas in December and EVERYONE KNOWS it happened in April, or November, or whatever month they've decided it happened in .... and not in 0BC either. Probably 4 BC, or 3AD...but wait, we can't call it that either now can we. Political correctness and not offending the large masses of non Christians in the country...."
Think it through people. Yes, Christmas was celebrated at the same time as a large Roman holiday. What better way to hide your Christmas celebration when any second someone could come bursting through your door, haul your whole family off, and have you tortured to death for drawing a little fish symbol in the dirt. How many Jewish people in the Holocaust do you think celebrated during Christmas to keep the Germans from finding them out? And Easter, I don't know where the chocolate and bunnies came from....Fertility symbols...but I don't imagine early Christians or the puritans dyed easter eggs so it must have been added with the commercialization of all the rest of the holidays. And for those out there wondering...we also know that the wise men took a while to get there. So long that Mary was in a HOUSE by then ... no, she did not hang out in a stable for three years waiting for them to show up with rent money. And sorry people, Jesus had brothers and probably sisters, so Mary probably was not immaculate after Jesus was born....all my Catholic friends please don't disown me.
I really got off track here. Where was I....oh yes, misused and borrowed symbols.
How many people do you see wearing cross necklaces on a velvet ribbon that probably wouldn't step foot inside a church? Are we going to get rid of all Bibles with THAT symbol on it because a lot of people out there use it irreverently? And check your FACTS before you publish a web page telling everyone to throw out your bibles because someone put one out with a pagan symbol on it. With all the years of work that went into checking every greek verb for the best possible translations (because in Greek, you know, sentence order makes little or no difference...) they would neglect to research what went on the front? C'mon people! Lets think this through!
Stuff like this really drives me up the wall....
