Prevarications

Working Out Karma

But the [Holy] Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude; for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.  (1 Timothy 4:1-5 NASB, emphasis added)

I typically do not pay any attention to Bible "commentaries" written by people.  I prefer to let the Holy Spirit teach me and counsel me as I read and think about what The Bible says.

The fourth book I obtained was The Second Coming of Christ, The Resurrection of the Christ Within You by Paramahansa Yogananda, a two-volume set.  It focuses on "the teachings of Jesus," which are contained in the first four books of the Greek writings (New Testament):  Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  Although there are a few references in the footnotes to the Hebrew/Aramaic writings (Old Testament), the commentary focuses only on what Jesus said when he walked the earth with his guys.

Here is a graphical representation of the number of pages in each book of the Bible (printed version of the New American Standard Bible, 1997).  Not all of the books are listed on the left, but the number of pages of all 66 are represented by horizontal bars...

Click to enlarge.

The green bars in the middle are the pages considered by the author of the commentary.

He did not study the rest (blue).  Of the 876 pages, he only considered 10%.

This is taking things out of context.

The entire Bible is about Jesus.  The early parts explain why he needed to come and contain predictions about his coming; the later parts explain his impact.  Focusing on just a small part in the middle does not tell the full story.

 

Karma is a euphemism for sin.  According to some religious beliefs, people "work out" their bad karma by doing works.  The Bible says that is not possible.  People need a savior, not a guru (teacher).

Despite the author's best efforts, the idea that the Bible and the Hindu scriptures are equivalent and say the same things is a gross prevarication.

 

All glory to God.