PDF Difficult Things in the Word of God Explained

[Pages:197]Difficult Things in the Word of God Explained

(Plus: Innovative Answers to Commonly Asked Questions)

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Table of Contents

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Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Difficult Passages Examined

Chapter 1

The Bible (Some have difficulty accepting its authority) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter 2

The Gap Theory (Does the Bible tell of a previous human race?) . . . . . . . . . 12

Chapter 3

Creation of the Sun (How could there be light before the sun was created?) . . . . . 18

Chapter 4 The Great Misquote (Matthew quotes the wrong prophet) . . . . . . . . . . 22

Chapter 5 The Offering of Isaac (Did God desire human sacrifice?) . . . . . . . . . . 26

Chapter 6

The Words of a Fool (More Evidence concerning human sacrifice) . . . . . . . 31

Chapter 7 Joshua Makes the Sun Stand Still . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Chapter 8 The Song of Solomon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Chapter 9 Was Jesus Crucified on Good Friday? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Chapter 10 How Did Judas Iscariot die? (Why are there two different accounts?) . . . . 62

Chapter 11 The Maniac of Gadara (Again, two different accounts) . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Chapter 12 Jonah in the Whale (Is this actually possible?) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Chapter 13 The Voice (Why are there two accounts of Paul's experience?) . . . . . . . . . . 74

Chapter 14 The Priest Melchisedek (Who was this great man?). . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Chapter 15 Who Was Cain's Wife . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Chapter 16 Will There Be Night in Heaven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Innovative Answers to Difficult Questions

Chapter 17 That Man of Sin (Who will the Anti-Christ be?) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Chapter 18 Hell (Is there such a place? Where is it?) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Chapter 19 The Unpardonable Sin (What is it? How can we know?) . . . . . . . . . . 135 Chapter 20 Dinosaurs (How does the Bible address this topic?) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Chapter 21 UFOs (Does the Bible mention them?) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Chapter 22 Heaven (Heaven may be a surprise for you. ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 Chapter 23 Setting the Record Straight on Eve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 Chapter 24 Christmas (So you think you know about Christmas? Take a quiz.) . . . . . . . 172 Chapter 25 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

F o r e w o r d ______

Typically, Christians avoid discussing passages that appear to be too difficult to explain. This is not an indictment of their devotion to the Lord, their love for scripture, or their commitment to fulfilling the great commission. It simply is a factual observation that most Christians are not thoroughly equipped to address the more difficult issues of scripture. Most Christians are not theologians, nor do they aspire to be.

The average Christian is concerned with knowing the basic teachings of the Bible so that they might share them with others. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, their faithfulness is laudable. They faithfully attend their place of worship, sit under good teaching and preaching, read their Bibles daily and have a regimen of prayer. They support their local assembly and exercise their spiritual gift(s). If all believers did this, the world would be a better place.

Even those who commit themselves to regimental, quantitative study of the Word of God seldom pause long enough to find the meaning in certain difficult passages. They move past those verses, confident that while they may not fully understand what is being said, God made no mistake in including it, and accept it as being accurate. There is really nothing wrong with this either. For me, rather than viewing this as lackadaisical, I see it as evidence of faith. The basis for all that a Christian believes is faith. We take God at his word and believe him. Accepting the passage that we do not understand is the purest exercising of that faith, and very commendable.

That notwithstanding, this book is offered to assist those who would gain a better understanding of some of the greater and lesser difficult passages in scripture. I felt the need to compile these entrees because my personal experience has been that when I have asked others for answers, they either could not provide one or avoided the question altogether. Indeed, even when consulting some of the more renowned commentaries available, I have found that the authors themselves skipped over the difficult verses and passages.

This was most frustrating during my formative years as a young Christian. But it was also motivational. The inability of others to explain, or their unwillingness to do the work so that others could benefit from their effort, provoked me to perform my own research and study.

As you might have already guessed, a substantial portion of the things I found "difficult" was merely due to my being a novice in the word. Through faithful, daily study of the Word of God, sitting under good teaching and preaching, and reading what others had to say on certain topics, matured me as a believer.

Consequently, in time, the gaining of knowledge and experience brought me a spiritual renaissance and I no longer viewed many of the passages as difficult. In fact, I often

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muse over how very simple they are to understand. It was just a matter of growing in my faith and familiarity with the Bible. That is not to say that truly difficult verses and passages do not exist. They do, and in considerable number. We will discuss as many as I am aware of in the following pages and provide you with explanations and conclusions that hopefully will resonate with you and satisfy your own doubts and misgivings. I am not suggesting that God's Word is lacking in its presentation in any way. Nor am I suggesting that I have all the answers. The Word of God is perfect and the true understanding and answers are there for any believer to find. I have found many of them and am eager to share what I learned with others seeking their meaning; but I know that I am just a man and my explanations and conclusions should be prayerfully weighed. I can and have made mistakes. My purpose in this book is to give readers a short cut to the study process in hopes it will kindle in them a desire to study more. True success in life comes for believers comes from knowing and adhering to the things God has said.

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I n t r o d u c t i o n ________

Why should believers look at difficult passages of the Bible? What purpose does it serve for us to understand them? It would be very easy to simply ignore them. Who would know? Who would care?

And if the Bible was just a book written by men, Biblicists such as me might be inclined to do just that; ignore them. We would feel no responsibility to educate and enlighten ourselves, or others. We would have no passion to publish the things of God, because we would really not be certain the Bible was the word of God.

Ah, but that is the cornerstone of our faith. We believe that the Bible is not just a book; it is the supernatural revelation of truth from God, the transmitted thoughts of the Almighty. It was not written by men per se. It was written by men who were breathed upon, moved and guided by the Holy Spirit of God. It is the Word (and words) of the one who created us and the earth we find ourselves standing upon.

It stands on its own merit and in its own power. It does not need anyone to lend it credibility for it to be credible, applicable and timely. Many have tried to prove the Bible false, and in their attempts been converted under its awesome authority. Men will point out that it is full of contradictions, but are not able to show where. They will claim there are errors, but cannot articulate why they believe them to be errors. Their unregenerate bias is all the proof they need or want.

Knowing there are those who feel this way about scripture, one would think that I would be reluctant to discuss difficult and sometimes seemingly contradictory passages. It would be tantamount to airing dirty laundry, giving skeptics more ammunition in their condemnation of the Bible. But I am neither reluctant nor apprehensive. I have no problem identifying and discussing such passages, because it is not dirty laundry at all; and all are understandable.

Perhaps it would be prudent for me to qualify what I mean when I use the term "difficult passage". Simply, I use the term to identify verses or groups of verses in the Bible that are not clear in their meaning, especially when there is potential for controversy or a claim of contradiction. Let me give you an example of what I mean.

I recently completed a semester in a secular college to acquire needed credits. Though apprehensive about what the curriculum might include in a secular university, one of the courses I decided to take was Old Testament Studies.

My apprehensions proved to be apropos. The professor was a godless, self-absorbed blow hard who could not allow one session to go by without calling God a bully and using his name in vain. Oddly, he was a devout atheist (how is that for an oxymoron),

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but failed to see the hypocrisy in calling God a bully when he did not believe he existed. Nor did he see the disparity of being an atheist and teaching a course on the Bible.

I was told by other students that he represented the mainstream thinking in Biblical studies in that college. Others told me that his anti-God behavior was normal in secular institutions of higher education. Almost without exceptions, the professors and their assistants were unbelievers. Again, I wondered why they would dedicate their time to teaching on a topic they did not embrace in faith. By the end of the course (which was one of the most difficult undertakings I ever completed in my life) it was clear that their purpose was to pull as many away from religion as they could. How sad. How very sad.

During the course, the approach the Professor used to realize his objective of undermining any faith his students might possess, was to identify and exaggerate what he considered difficulties in the Bible. More accurately, he keyed on what he considered contradictions, problems and difficult passages and concepts in both the Old and New Testaments.

His ideas of difficult passages do not match mine. Most of what he discussed was unfounded, undocumented, pre-fabricated misconceptions. Indeed, in some instances he ignored historical documentation and made-up his material; or propagated the erroneous teachings found in the atheist handbook (class textbook) he used.

It was most unsettling to me; to see these erroneous, baseless ideas being taught to young, unsuspecting minds. No doubt most of the students took this particular course to learn something about the Old Testament. What they got instead was an introduction or rather indoctrination to atheism.

Some of the things he taught were outrageous. For instance, the textbook completely eliminated the term "BC" or "Before Christ" and replaced it with "BCE", an acronym for "Before the Common Era". It is important to note that the most successful deception is falsehood that closely resembles the truth. By using the acronym "BCE" one perceives that the change to "BC" is merely an update and is therefore acceptable. It is not. It is an outrageous and egregious assault on the deity of Christ.

The deception also included changing the Red Sea to Sea of Reeds, which is a swampy area near the Fertile Crescent area of the Mideast. This body of water, if you can call it that, is very shallow and easily crossed. No divine intervention was needed in order for Israel to cross, so this deception was tailor made for a class like this.

In another class session, he refused to accept that God used what modern Christians refer to as "successionism" in his revelation. In other words, God would say something and then later on expound on it in another passage or book in the Bible. A good example of this is creation. In Genesis 1:1 we are told "In the beginning, God created the heaven and earth". We are not told why or how in that passage. But later on in scripture he tells us the exact details of what he created each day. Even later we are given other details about the how and why.

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He presented the progressive revelation of creation as separate and conflicting accounts. They are not. There is no contradiction of facts in any of the passages he referred to in class, but he would not hear counter arguments. Class participation was allowed only if you agreed with him.

I do not wish to belabor this point. Suffice it to say that these are not my ideas of Bible difficulties. The only difficulty here is the difficulty that resides in the hearts of those who would attack the Bible and the God who wrote it. My purpose in this book is to discuss actual difficulties that may hinder those who have adopted a regimen of study of the Bible; not to refute those imagined by those who reject the Bible.

Additionally, I am going to pass on discussing many misunderstood doctrines of the Bible, such as tongues and being filled with the Spirit. No doubt these are topics where newer believers sometimes have difficulty grasping or discerning. But they are not in and of themselves difficult; they are just new to the reader. So like me, they will have to go through the process of growing on a daily basis as the Bible directs. Eventually their understanding will come.

The Apostle Paul spoke of the milk and meat of the Word of God. Infants in the faith can only handle so much, doctrinally speaking. There is a wealth of life-altering information in the Bible, enough for more than several lifetimes. One must start with the milk, or the easier to understand things. In time, Paul said, they will be able to stand the weightier things or strong meat.

An example of this might be the concept of wine. There are many young (in the faith) Christians who read that Jesus turned the water into wine and think it is therefore okay to drink wine. The problem is that other places in scripture denounce drinking wine and strong drink. So there is a dilemma, or at least an imagined one.

In these cases, the rule that must be applied is never, never, never does the Word of God contradict itself. If there is an apparent contrast in the conclusion you arrive at with other portions of the Word of God, then the interpretation is wrong and you must start over again until every verse on the topic aligns with the others. It is really that simple.

In the case of wine, it is not for me to tell anyone what is right or wrong. It is for them to discern. If they will take the time and prayerfully research the topic, they will find that it is a matter of fermentation. Sometimes the Bible speaks of fermented wine and other times it speaks of grape juice. Both are often referred to in scripture as "fruit of the vine". It takes time and considerable effort in study to arrive at the conclusion that God never encourages strong, fermented drink. But try telling that to a new Christian who reads that Jesus turned the water into wine.

There are a host of such things in scripture where simple research will lead the inquirer to an answer. So I do not want to address those here. Rather, I want to look at passages and

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