I wanted to share a link to a good introductory page about Zoroastrianism at http://members.tripod.com/~Emmaus1/zoroaster.html . It seemed to be one of the few I could find that admitted there were serious limitations with the evidence that there was direct influence of Zoroastrianism upon Judaism and/or Christianity. It also questions whether the latter two could have affected the former instead.

By far most web sources seemed to hold it as a foregone conclusion that Jewish and Christian beliefs were in part formed by this pre-dated religion, as if much of The Bible, including the New Testament, is mythical. To buy what some of these scholars say, one must call the resurrection of Christ and many other tenets of our faith mere fabrications. As Pastor Bill put it in our last meeting, about "messin'" with such tenets, "Now you're really messin'!"

I must admit that I see in myself some unfortunate tendencies. For example, I had quite a bias against reading much within articles that seemed to deny the reliability of Christian beliefs or scripture. And I am still thinking dichotomously, that things are either black or white. If something threatens my belief system, I tend to jump up and cry, "False!"

I would like to believe that God was giving people hints, both through His people and in other ways, that led them to some bits and pieces of truth along the way, which people mixed in with human-inspired religious ingredients for the sake of palatability, expediency, profit, or whatever. In my mind, I make a case that God's directness with the people in the Old Testament, and the way things went, and the way things turned out, indicate that he was telling them about Himself more plainly than the rest of the world, much as Jesus did with the twelve. So even if others had fragments of spiritual truth, Israel, its ancestors, and now the Church, are blessed with the most clear communications, as well as with the mission to finish the communicating.

For some reason, I have begun to get a little nervous about one other thing: do I, or do all of us, need to become real and respectable bible scholars just to understand what we believe, and to communicate it well to people? If so, am I willing to do it? I was always hoping for a much more easy and comfortable relationship with God than that!

Perhaps part of the message of the Spirit to the Church for today is, "If the light burden I give today is too much for you to choose, how then can you rule with me in glory?"