Dear Ginny,
You wrote: If God is trying to communicate a clear message, I’d think that over time that message would become apparent.
It has. The message preached by Christians for nearly 2,000 years is the same one preached by Paul and the other apostles. And it is very simple and very clear. Paul said, "We preach Christ crucified." In fact, Paul said that in his ministry he had "resolved to know nothing" "except Jesus Christ and him crucified." (1 Cor. 1:23, 2:2) The message the apostles preached, and that Christians have always preached, is that if people will only believe in their hearts that Jesus Christ's sacrificial death was a sufficient payment for all their sins, God will forgive them completely for all of their unrighteousness, and He will then give them the gift of eternal life.
You wrote: I am willing to overlook the little niggling contradictions. What bothers me most is that I cannot piece the three synoptic gospels together in a cohesive whole. I thought I was very familiar with Jesus’ life story as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It wasn’t until after I left that I attempted to familiarize myself with his story directly from the sources. There are all sorts of difficulties. At what time did Jesus die? What were his last words? Who first saw him after his resurrection and when and where? From where did Jesus ascend into heaven? What did Judas do with the thirty pieces of silver? How did Judas die? Those are just a few of the problems that leap to mind.
All of which have been resolved long ago and are all explained quite well in books such as When Critics Ask, by Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe, and Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, by Gleason Archer. These books can be purchased at most Christian book stores or checked out of many Church libraries.
You wrote: I find it hard to believe that all of the people who knew Jesus fell into either a love or hate category, that there weren’t a group of people who weren’t quite sure, who were undecided.
Obviously, when Jesus spoke the words we are here discussing he was speaking in very general terms. People sometimes do that. Certainly there were exceptions to his sweeping statements. Certainly Jesus knew that there were people on earth who had not yet decided if they were for or against him. But, most likely, at the time Jesus made such statements, judging from the crowds' reactions to him, you would hardly know it.
You wrote: Yes, God forgives, as long as there is shedding of blood. (Heb. 9:22) How very big of him!
You scoff at this idea. Maybe you do so because you don't understand the message of Christianity. Or maybe you just consider it foolishness. In case you fail to understand why, in Old Testament times, God required the shedding of animal blood for the temporary forgiveness of sins, and ultimately Jesus Christ's own death for the total and permanent forgiveness of our sins, I will here explain it to you.
Why did God require the shedding of blood for the forgiveness of sins in Old Testament times? Christians believe it was to emphasize the fact that sin is responsible for death. And we believe God did so to point forward to the time when he would give the life of his own son in order to offer all of us his forgiveness for all of our sins, and along with his forgiveness also offer us eternal life.
You see, God's standards are very high. He long ago decreed that only those who are perfectly righteous are worthy of eternal life. Of course, this meant that God had in effect also decreed that all who are not perfectly righteous must die. But despite God's extremely high standards, like many loving parents, God has always wanted to give his children more than they deserve.
So, God was confronted with a dilemma. On one hand, he had already decreed that only those who are perfectly righteous are deserving of eternal life. Thus he had, in effect, demanded that a very high price be paid for billions of unrighteous human lives. That price was billions of eternal human deaths. On the other hand, God wanted to give every human being the gift of eternal life, even though none of us deserved it, and even though his own high standards prohibited him from giving us that gift. But fortunately for us all, God found a way to offer all of us the gift of eternal life without violating his own high standards pertaining to who is deserving of that gift.
The Bible tells us that God did this by allowing his only begotten son to pay for the unrighteousness of billions of human beings with his own life. But how could God consider only one death, a death which only lasted from Friday afternoon until the following Sunday morning, to have equal or greater value than many billions of human deaths, deaths which would last forever? He could do so because he considered the three days of life which his only begotten son, Jesus Christ, gave up to be more valuable than many billions of eternal human lives. Why? Because God knew that Jesus Christ was far more than a human being. God also knew that Jesus Christ was far more than "a perfect human being," or "Adam's equal" as some of the cults like to call him. God knew that Jesus Christ, as his only begotten son, was also God. And because Jesus Christ was also God, his father considered his death, and his three lost days of life which followed his death, to be worth far more than many billions of eternal human lives.
God's requiring the life of his own Son to pay for our sins was not an example of some kind of "primitive thinking," as some contend. No, it was an example of God's perfect justice, his great mercy and his amazing love. For the Bible tells us that God loves us all so much that he was willing to buy us all eternal life, even though to do so he had to pay for it "with his own blood." (Acts 20:28)
You wrote: Now you imply that you feel you’ve been thrown to the lions.
I'm sorry if my comments gave you the impression I was comparing anyone here to lions. I was actually referring to some I have discussed the Bible with in the past. As I said, "When I first got on the Net." All here have actually treated me quite well.
Mike