God doesn't save us to perpetuate a particular Christian sub-culture. He saves us to advance a supernatural kingdom that is not of this world.

God doesn't save us to perpetuate a particular Christian sub-culture. He saves us to advance a supernatural kingdom that is not of this world.

It's important for people in the Church to realize that the way they talk and think about the Bible isn't the way Bible scholars talk and think about it - and I'm including "Bible-believing" scholars there. There is a wide gap between the work of biblical scholars, whose business it is to read the text of the Bible in its own worldview context, and what you hear in church.

Angels can fail because God allows them to make decisions and they are lesser beings than the perfect God. They can go astray, but the task is legitimate. God never tells they aren't allowed to instruct people - "just shut up and babysit them".

God wants the world to function in an orderly way, not a chaotic way, so teaching humans to do what's right and what will make for the happiest life isn't going to be off limits.

We're on safe ground to presume that self-interest and hubris are at the core of the rebellion.

We impose our modern worldview on the Bible to make it conform to our intellectual happy place. But we deceive ourselves into thinking this works or is legitimate. We fail to realize that the supernatural things we want to avoid are no more supernatural (or "weird") than the things that define the Christian faith. What's so "normal" about the virgin birth, the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the bodily resurrection of Christ, the hypostatic union of the incarnation (Jesus was 100% God and 100% man)?