"This is the chief aim of an unbeliever's assaults: to get rid of Christ, to get rid of the Atonement, to get rid of His suffering in the place of men! They say they can embrace the rest of the Gospel, but what 'rest' is there? What is there left? A bloodless, Christless Gospel is neither fit for the land nor the dunghill; it neither honors God nor converts the souls of men." - Charles Spurgeon 1894.

That sermon just came to mind Dean. I do appreciate you "brother" and your enthusiasm for wrestling. I mean no disrespect just as you mean no disrespect with your literalist comments. In my opinion, if we wind up picking parts of the Bible that we "like" and other parts we take out of context and claim we don't "like" it, we are then guilty of fashioning a god in our own image. He becomes the grandpa upstairs that is all accepting. That is a tragic minimizing of the God that we all will stand before in judgement, just one hearbeat away. Take all of scripture as authority and truth or call it a paperweight.