Quaking for Easter

I've been visiting a quaker group for about 6 weeks.

They have no leaders, no preachers, no collections, no rituals, or sacred ground, objects,or sacraments. They sit in silence mediating for about an hour. If someone feels inspired to speak, they share what's on their heart. Then they have a finger foods lunch together.

It's very nice to be in silence with a group for an hour. Usually every group I've been in, some loud mouth is up front telling us how to live.

This Easter (I prefer to call it Resurrection Day because Easter was a pagan goddess) after the lunch they had a Bible Study.



I don't like Bible Studies.

I have rarely been in one that didn't have arguments (usually they were arguing with me).

It started off badly as the leader said he was going to assume dominance and when he raised his hand, we had to stop the discussion and move on. Phil objected immediately to this heavy handed approach.

I should have left then, but I didn't.

We were studying Exodus.

The first conflict came when they read the part where Yahweh is mistranslated as saying "I Am what I am". I tried to explain that it was a mistranslation and that Yah's name was Yah or Yahweh and not "I am".

The leaders wife got angry and said you can call him anything you want, and that his name was not important. You can call him love if you want.

Then they read what the world calls the Ten Commandments, I read Deut 10:4 which lists what the Bible calls the "Ten commandments". It ends with number 10 "thou shalt not boil a kid in his mother's milk". The leader and his wife both became unglued and refused to admit that what they were calling the ten commandments is not what the Bible calls the ten commandments.

I left feeling somewhat wounded. So now I am resolved to avoid Bible Studies.

That doesn't mean I will stop studying the Bible. I will just study it alone.