Question:
Dear Greg,
Why
is there so much in the Bible that is wrong? I was researching on the worldwide web to understand more about Satan and
in the process I happened to find the church
of
1.
Is God good to all, or just a few?
Psalm
145:9—The Lord is good to all and his tender mercies are over
all his works.
Jeremiah
13:14—And I will dash them one against another, even the
fathers and the sons together, saith the Lord.
I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them.
2.
War or Peace?
Exodus
15:3—The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is his name.
Romans
15:33—Now the God of peace be with you all.
Amen.
3.
Who is the father of Joseph?
Matthew
1:16—And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom
Luke
3:23—And
Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being
4.
Is Jesus equal to or lesser than?
John
10:30—I and my Father are one.
John
14:28—Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come
again unto you. If ye loved me, ye
would rejoice, because I said I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater
than I.
Thank
you—sorry for making this such a long question.
Richard
Answer: Dear Richard,
Time
prevents me from giving you a detailed response for each of these apparent
discrepancies. If you want to think
through these claims, then you need to engage in a little basic logic.
Classes in logic, in literary criticism (secular) as well as hermeneutics
(theology) teach that there are ways to twist and distort what authors say
(secular) as well as what the Divine Author says (the Bible).
But these methods do not follow accepted rules of reading and
understanding any kind of literature—secular or Divine.
The claim of the Bible is that Satan is a liar.
The evidence of that is in the questions you supply.
Lies
are not always outrageous, they are subtle—again, such as the claims you
mention. The technique is to
juxtapose two statements that seem to be contradictory.
The usual method is to ignore the context of the passage or ignore the
kind of literature that is being compared (for example, a letter with history,
poetry with law). An example in
everyday reading would be to take a comic strip and compare it with a story in
the sports page or take a classified ad and compare it with a news story on the
front page of the newspaper. Of
course such words and concepts can be made to conflict—it doesn’t take a
genius to twist and distort if we ignore all accepted ways of understanding
literature and to ignore all laws of sound thinking and logic.
I
cannot give a class in such methodology here but I can refer you to books that
will help you understand where these claims are coming from—“How to Read the
Bible for all It’s Worth” by Fee and Stuart and “Scripture Twisting” by
James W. Sire. A Christian bookstore
can help you locate these books, which will give you some grounding in basic
methodology that enables you both to understand the Bible and see through the
sad and pathetic attempts to twist and pervert its message.
May God bless you as you seek him.
In
Christ,