Thinking to Believe

There is little I have less tolerance for than the person who claims they know you are wrong because God told them so. How might you respond to such a person? Let me illustrate one method in the form of a dialogue:

David: That’s not what that verse means.
Jason: Why do you disagree with my interpretation?
David: The Holy Spirit revealed to me that it means X.
Jason: That’s funny. The Holy Spirit revealed to me that it means Y.
David: No he didn’t. The Spirit cannot contradict Himself, and I know He told me it means X.
Jason: I agree with you that the Spirit cannot contradict Himself. And since I know He told me it means Y, He could not have told you it means X.
David: You’re wrong.
Jason: Ah, wait. The Spirit is speaking to me right now. … Oh, ok God. David, the Holy Spirit just told me that He did not tell you that it means X.
David: No, He didn’t tell you that.
Jason: Yes, He did.
David: No, He didn’t.
Jason: Yes, He did.
David: No, He didn’t.
Jason: Yes, He did.

Silly, I know. The reason it is silly, however, is that it is silly to claim the Spirit told you X, when you cannot justify X. Anyone can appeal to the Spirit as their intellectual justification, but that does not mean they actually heard from the Spirit, and it does not help to persuade anyone else of their view (even if they really did hear from the Spirit). It stifles the conversation, and persuades no one.

Furthermore, what do you do when two people think God told them something, and yet He said something different to each person? The dialogue ends in a stand-still in which each person accuses the other of not truly hearing from God. Not very fruitful, if you ask me.

It pays to shop around for books, rather than just ordering everything through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or CBD (Amazon is almost always cheaper than B&N BTW). I mentioned KIMbooks.org a few days ago for discount books. Their prices are so good that they even beat Amazon’s sale prices by a few bucks.

But there are other ways to find good deals on books. For instance, at Amazon has books you can buy through their site that are cheaper than the list price. The way to find it is to save the books you want to the cart, then access your cart, and hit the “save for later” button next to each book. This will move the book to the bottom of the page, and a new field will appear showing you cheaper prices for the book from Amazon sellers. Sometimes the price isn’t much different, but sometimes it is. For example, Dethroning Jesus was $15 new from Amazon, but I bought a nearly-new copy for $1.35!

My best advice, though, would be to go to bookfinder.com. Bookfinder searches for new and used books. You can save a bundle. The only potential drawback is that to get the best deal you will probably have to order through several different book distributors. That might increase your postage, but you can measure this. They include the price of postage in their quote.

To show you how much you can save, I looked up six books I want to buy at Amazon. The total cost was $123 (shipping was free). Between using bookfinder and the “discount” Amazon section, however, I was able to buy those same books for $80. That’s a 35% savings. It takes a little more time and hassle, but it’s well worth it.

Does anyone else have any boo-buying tips they would like to share?