The Christadelphians tell us that God wrote a perfect book containing his clear message for all of humankind, but they insist on helping you understand it correctly, you know, just in case.Finding a good publisher was tough in the iron age. If you were rich you might manage to pay someone who knew how to accomplish the apparently difficult task of making lines on a page. It was expensive partly because parchment didn't exactly grow on trees in those days, but mostly because of the ridiculous size of the font. It was fixed-width and double-line spacing and that's it. Then there was that jerk who came along and carved squiggly lines in red under all of your spelling mistakes. Who was that guy?
But the real clincher was that even when you had exhausted all of your life savings getting a single copy of your book published onto the dead remains of a small family of animals, less than 10% of the population actually knew how to read it. So after all your hard work you ended up with some dude with a loud voice standing in the town square yelling out his own creative interpretation of your masterpiece for everyone to hear. And all the while you're thinking to yourself, "I could've just done that instead."
And yet the Christadelphians tell us this was the time when the wisest, most intelligent being (not) in the universe, chose to get his book published. Of course it was.
If you've read the Bible, and especially the Old Testament, you may be forgiven for thinking the author appears to have had a slight obsession with the smell of burning animal flesh. This might strike you as a little weird for a super-intelligent divine author who was definitely not a human, but the Christadelphians have assured us it is all legit. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that many people living at that time thought sacrificing animals to their various fictitious gods would bring them good fortune. How silly of us to think that the Bible sounds just like most of the other writings from its time. It is clearly very different. For example, the Bible says not to eat pigs because they are "unclean", but the other books didn't say that. So there. Obviously that is something a super-intelligent, divine being would have been concerned about.
Meanwhile, if you kept on reading, you may perhaps have noticed that the New Testament sounds quite a bit different to the Old Testament, almost like it was written by a different author (or several). Someone, you might say, who seemed rather more interested in Greek and Roman customs in first century Palestine and somewhat less interested in how to treat captive women from other nations when you defeat them in battle.
The astute reader might also recall reading about superstitious accounts of bright lights in the sky, voices from heaven, zombies, demons, and other wild phenomena, most of which violate all common sense. Obviously the only plausible explanation is that these magical events really happened, because no one living in such a superstitious time period would ever be mistaken about such things, and nor would they have had any reason to write about such things if they were not true. No one, that is, except for all of the other authors around the turn of the first millennium CE who made similar claims of miracles. The Christadelphians again assure us that the only real miracles were the ones written in the Bible, and all of the other miracle stories are fictitious. Obviously.
But the Christadelphians don't just want you to read the Bible. They want you to know that it is God's word. The divinely-inspired words of the most intelligent and most powerful being ever. That this fact has escaped anyone's notice is highly surprising, but the Christadelphians are sure that everyone who reads the Bible carefully will come to agree with them. Because that has worked out so well for them thus far. Best not compare their growth to that of other religions. It's tough being the only ones who are right. If only people could see that this iron-age book full of myths and miracles and rules about what you mustn't do while naked, is actually the words of a really smart sky person.
Among the gems that Christadelphians want you to understand is that God didn't really want to flood the world and wipe everyone out in Genesis, but he had no choice. It's not that he didn't see it coming. He obviously did - he's all-knowing. And same with Adam and Eve's stitch-up in the garden of Eden. But he tried to warn them. It's not his fault they didn't listen (Except that being all-powerful and all-knowing it kind of is his fault for making people who he knew wouldn't listen at the crucial moment). God didn't want robots, which is why he made people instead. And gave them super-petty laws. And got upset and cranky when they didn't follow them. Even though he knew they wouldn't. Because they were human. Because he made them that way with those tendencies. It's complicated. But it's really not - God's word is simple. You just need to read it carefully. More carefully than 99.9% of the other Christians who read it. They got it wrong, you see.
The Christadelphians just want to help you understand what God really meant, so that you don't get it wrong as well. Because if you get it wrong... no you won't burn in hell. That's silly! If you get it wrong, you won't get to play in the magic castle when the (non-human) God's human (hybrid?), undead son beams back "down" from up in the sky somewhere. You do want to play in the magic castle, don't you?
But wait! How can you know the Christadelphians didn't also get it wrong?
My dear child, the Christadelphians are never wrong. About anything. So you shouldn't question anything they say. Because they have preserved "the truth" for 150 years since their founder, John Thomas, (re-)discovered it. This is the same "truth" that began as a product of the Restorationist movement in the 19th century along with several other religions such as the JWs, Churches of Christ, SDAs, and the Mormons (which, by the way, were all much more successful at recruiting members). Don't be deterred by the fact that each of those denominations also believes that their group discovered and preserved the real truth all this time. Or the fact that your ancestors just happened to either be descended from or randomly join a religion from that Restorationist movement. That is pretty darn lucky, to be born into the religion that just happens to be right, even though they make up less than 0.001% of the world's population! Amazing! But how unlucky for all those 7 billion other people. Maybe it is more convenient to believe they chose to be unlucky. Yes, that's it. They are evil and they got what they all deserve. But not you. You have been chosen.
Don't think about it too hard. Just believe, and keep praying for God to forgive you for doing all those things most humans do. Remember, he didn't really mean for humans to be like this. I mean, it wasn't an accident. Perfect gods don't do accidents. But it's going to be better in the future.
Just think of the magic castle.
That burning animal flesh is going to smell amazing. Amirite?