Don't you love hypotheticals?

[AreYouReady?]

Originally Posted by Timmy

No, not everyone does. Especially my hypotheticals! But this one's different. It's actually not hypothetical. It only looks like one. But it has already happened! You'll see what I mean as we get into it. Here:

You are approached by a stranger. He is holding a book. He shows it to you and says to you, "This is God's Word. It is perfect. God requires you to believe that it is His Word. He requires that you obey it."

What do you do? How do you deal with this stranger and his strange claims? (Or not so strange, to some! ) Do you just believe him? Become a follower of his religion (or "relationship", as he prefers to call it)?

Notice that I haven't said what the book is. It could be the Bible, or the Book of Mormon, or the Quran, or The Lord of the Rings. In this (non)hypothetical, it shouldn't matter. Your answer should (ideally!) include a methodology for testing the man's claims, no matter what the book actually is.

OK. That's it. Discuss.

Ha.

My coming to Christ was not an instantaneous act. I've had a couple of experiences like this that you described above. No. I did not instantly obey any of them. When the mormons came and gave me the book of Mormon and told me to read it and suggested that if I did not come to the same conclusion that they did about the book, then I got the feeling that they would consider me to be wrong.

The next time they came, I hid. Yeah...I'm was a coward, but they got the message.

The same with the JWs.

I do feel that the Holy Ghost was drawing me to God though. I just knew...by feeling I had when something felt right. That's all I had to go by.

Can't always go by feelings...feelings will betray you. But in this case for me, it was right.

Nobody told me to read the bible. I just felt it was right over all the rest of the books. This happened many years before I actually started looking for a church to visit. I did not truly understand what I was reading though at the time.