One of the strangest things I encountered.
I grew up in an old denominational setting, where there was liturgy that included the reading of scripture, and where there was a training for the youth that I went through, to be confirmed in membership. There was no interest in scripture otherwise. No one read the bible every day. No one got any significance from it that they were not given by a speaker.
A lot a real lot of things were very very different when I came back to church during the 90s, in a nondenominational, charismatic setting. Certainly at first the biggest difference was the relationship with scripture. It is important, true, dictated to men by God, not a metaphor, descriptive of the past, predictive of the future. It also contains a whole bunch of ideas that I had never, ever even heard of. Even whole sections of the story were there that must have been considered irrelevant. The best example I can think of is the Babylonian exile. I totally missed that part as a Methodist.
The strangest thing, though, was the Blood of Jesus.
The first time that it really came up was strange, too, which made the whole thing more interesting. There I was on a set of choir risers, getting ready for a Friday night singles meeting, and learning a new song. Just One Drop. Over the months, I had never heard any teaching on the supernatural power of the shed blood of Jesus to redeem mankind, and I was being taught lyrics to sing that night about the central idea of the power of blood sacrifice and the replacement of OT animal sacrifice with the Last Lamb, the last sacrifice ever needed to put man right with God. No time to study.
But there was time later. Nothing but the blood. The blood will never lose its power. Oh, the Blood of Jesus. It washes white as snow.
Thanks for the Blood of the Lamb, Father. I plead the Blood of Jesus over myself. I plead the Blood of Jesus over my family. I plead the Blood of Jesus over my community. Thanks for the Blood, Father.
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