Difficult Things in the Word of God Explained

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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