Loved, But Not Thought
14 hours ago
Friday, October 14, 2011
Free-Floating Argument Fallacy
Free-Floating Argument Fallacy: Attempting to establish an absolute property of something (i.e. morality status) by comparison with something related, with no connection to an external point of reference. Free-floating arguments may sound convincing, but are meaningless on their own. They derive their perceived meaning from assumptions held by the speaker and (presumably) the audience about the things being compared. They are often stated in the form of an observation or question, with the argument only implied. They may have a very different or nonexistent meaning to someone holding different assumptions.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
In the Name of God
It's a bit staggering to realize that God has made us as Christians His representatives to the world--His image-bearers. Those who don't know God form their view of what He must be like from watching us. With all the abuses of religion that have happened in the past fifty years, it's hard to blame people who have become hostile to the church and want nothing to do with God. Obviously no one can perfectly represent God, which is why it's important to work towards developing Christlike character and to be honest about times when you fail to live up to His image.
A Tale of Two Covenants
After a few political interruptions, it's time to continue my post trilogy on the Old Testament and its relation to today, previously started in Why the Old Testament?. This time I'm specifically going to talk about what is meant by the terms "Old Covenant" and "New Covenant", which you've no doubt heard if you've spent time in theological circles. First off, what is meant by "covenant"? The word simply means a formal agreement of some kind--like a treaty or resolution today. Specifically, one between God and people. Covenants could be unilateral (basically a promise made by one party to another, requiring no action on the receiving party's part) or bilateral (some kind of conditional agreement or exchange between the parties).
There are quite a few covenants in the Bible besides the two main ones I'll be dealing with in depth. The agreement between God and Adam in Genesis 2:16-17 is a covenant of a sort; in exchange for obeying God's one command not to eat from a certain tree, Adam got eternal life and a true, personal relationship with God. (Can you believe he broke that covenant? Stupid Adam) God makes a unilateral covenant with Noah after the flood not to destroy the world with water again. (Genesis 9:11) In Genesis 15 promises to make Abram's offspring as numerous as the stars.
But there is one covenant that dominates most of the Old Testament, simply referred to as the Old Covenant or just "the law". It was made between God and the Israelites (descendants of Isaac) during their escape from slavery in Egypt. God promises to deliver them from oppression to a land of their own. (Exodus 3:7-8) On the way from Egypt to the "promised land", God gives the Israelites laws telling them how to live rightly and in relationship with God. If they keep the laws, God promises that they will be his treasure among all the nations (Exodus 19:5-6), that they will receive great material blessings (Leviticus 26:3-13), and that they will live rather than die like their ancestors. (Exodus 18:5) In short, God offered the Israelites salvation by works--if they live rightly and obeyed God's commands, they would gain eternal life. This is the essence of a system of legalism.
When I speak of the failure of the old covenant, then, it's important to realize that this has nothing to do with any deficiency in God (who is perfect) or His holy and perfect law. The deficiency is in us. Even after God spelled out the terms of His covenant with His Israelites, they continued to doubt and disobey Him. Not one of the Israelites, who had been given God's law and His blessings, was able to carry out the human side of the Old Covenant; everyone turned to sin and fell short of His standard of perfection. (Romans 3:23) Under the Old Covenant, no one is counted as righteous or worthy of salvation, we all break God's law and deserve to die. And God would be perfectly just to sentence us all for our disobedience.
If you understand this, then you are completely ready for the New Covenant, also known as "the gospel". "Gospel" means "good news", and in light of the Old Covenant it really is the best news imaginable. John 3:16 has possibly the most compact description of the gospel in the Bible:
For God: The first party of the covenant is, of course, God--the same God who lifted up the Israelites and made the Old Covenant with them.
the world: The other party--namely, us. This covenant isn't just between God and a specific group of people, but it's open to everyone.
that he gave his only son: God's end of the bargain wasn't cheap--He had to give up His beloved son.
should not perish but have eternal life.: The ultimate benefit of the New Covenant is the same as that of the Old: if we satisfy our end of it, we won't die but have eternal life in God. The best part, however, is what our part of the gospel deal is...
that whoever believes in him: That's it. We don't have to meet any standard of behavior, memorize and obey any set of laws, meet a church attendance quota, walk X little old ladies across the street, reach level 5 of Kohlberg's scale of moral reasoning, or anything like that. All we have to do is believe. It's the complete opposite of the Old Covenant. Under the Old, no one could be saved because everyone sins; under the New, everyone can be saved for free!
so loved: The New Covenant exists solely because of God's love. He would have been just to condemn us all to death and close the book on the human race after we blew it. But instead we can receive eternal life in exchange for nothing but our faith.
This, quite simply, is the best news in human history. My church has a slightly longer, but comprehensive statement of the gospel:
This is a theological point on which some well-meaning and thoughtful Christians disagree. Particularly, the Dispensationalist view (which I still don't claim to really understand) apparently distinguishes itself by its view on the relationship between God's covenants. But in Romans Paul gives us plenty to go on to find an answer. He hits this topic repeatedly in chapters 4-8. The core thing that makes the New Covenant work is our identification with Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Somehow, when we believe, we are united with Christ in His death and resurrection. (Romans 6:5). Our symbolic death with Christ sets us free from the law as explained in Romans 7:1-6 and by His life we receive life apart from that provided by the law under the Old Covenant. Romans 8:1-4 is a great summary:
So the answer is that the law of the Old Covenant is still in place, and if it were possible to go through life without sinning then we could be saved by our works. But this is impossible; faith in Jesus is the only way to salvation. By faith Christ's righteousness is attributed to us and the law's demands on us are satisfied. In Matthew 5:17-20 Jesus explains that He has come "not to abolish [the Law or the Prophets] but to fulfill them". At the same time He says that "unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of Heaven". God's standard of perfection has not been lowered, it is Christ who lifts us up to meet it.
So that's plenty of theology for now. In the next and final post in the series, I'll explore a practical implication of all of this: what exactly is the relation of the OT law to Christians today, if we aren't saved by obeying it.
There are quite a few covenants in the Bible besides the two main ones I'll be dealing with in depth. The agreement between God and Adam in Genesis 2:16-17 is a covenant of a sort; in exchange for obeying God's one command not to eat from a certain tree, Adam got eternal life and a true, personal relationship with God. (Can you believe he broke that covenant? Stupid Adam) God makes a unilateral covenant with Noah after the flood not to destroy the world with water again. (Genesis 9:11) In Genesis 15 promises to make Abram's offspring as numerous as the stars.
But there is one covenant that dominates most of the Old Testament, simply referred to as the Old Covenant or just "the law". It was made between God and the Israelites (descendants of Isaac) during their escape from slavery in Egypt. God promises to deliver them from oppression to a land of their own. (Exodus 3:7-8) On the way from Egypt to the "promised land", God gives the Israelites laws telling them how to live rightly and in relationship with God. If they keep the laws, God promises that they will be his treasure among all the nations (Exodus 19:5-6), that they will receive great material blessings (Leviticus 26:3-13), and that they will live rather than die like their ancestors. (Exodus 18:5) In short, God offered the Israelites salvation by works--if they live rightly and obeyed God's commands, they would gain eternal life. This is the essence of a system of legalism.
When I speak of the failure of the old covenant, then, it's important to realize that this has nothing to do with any deficiency in God (who is perfect) or His holy and perfect law. The deficiency is in us. Even after God spelled out the terms of His covenant with His Israelites, they continued to doubt and disobey Him. Not one of the Israelites, who had been given God's law and His blessings, was able to carry out the human side of the Old Covenant; everyone turned to sin and fell short of His standard of perfection. (Romans 3:23) Under the Old Covenant, no one is counted as righteous or worthy of salvation, we all break God's law and deserve to die. And God would be perfectly just to sentence us all for our disobedience.
If you understand this, then you are completely ready for the New Covenant, also known as "the gospel". "Gospel" means "good news", and in light of the Old Covenant it really is the best news imaginable. John 3:16 has possibly the most compact description of the gospel in the Bible:
For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.Allow me to break this verse down and put it in terms of a covenant (sorry about messing with the order):
For God: The first party of the covenant is, of course, God--the same God who lifted up the Israelites and made the Old Covenant with them.
the world: The other party--namely, us. This covenant isn't just between God and a specific group of people, but it's open to everyone.
that he gave his only son: God's end of the bargain wasn't cheap--He had to give up His beloved son.
should not perish but have eternal life.: The ultimate benefit of the New Covenant is the same as that of the Old: if we satisfy our end of it, we won't die but have eternal life in God. The best part, however, is what our part of the gospel deal is...
that whoever believes in him: That's it. We don't have to meet any standard of behavior, memorize and obey any set of laws, meet a church attendance quota, walk X little old ladies across the street, reach level 5 of Kohlberg's scale of moral reasoning, or anything like that. All we have to do is believe. It's the complete opposite of the Old Covenant. Under the Old, no one could be saved because everyone sins; under the New, everyone can be saved for free!
so loved: The New Covenant exists solely because of God's love. He would have been just to condemn us all to death and close the book on the human race after we blew it. But instead we can receive eternal life in exchange for nothing but our faith.
This, quite simply, is the best news in human history. My church has a slightly longer, but comprehensive statement of the gospel:
Through faith in Jesus Christ, we have been forgiven of our sins, welcomed as sons and daughters, and empowered by His Spirit to live lives that reflect His goodness and love.There are so many directions I could go exploring the depth and riches of God's grace in light of the gospel, so many different angles by which to look at it, all of them pleasing. This is what most of the letters in the New Testament, particularly Romans and Ephesians, like to do. But for now I'm going to stay focused on the Old Testament. So to close this post I'm going to tackle the question that would have been on the mind of any first-century Jew grasping the gospel for the first time: "How does this fit in with the the law?"
This is a theological point on which some well-meaning and thoughtful Christians disagree. Particularly, the Dispensationalist view (which I still don't claim to really understand) apparently distinguishes itself by its view on the relationship between God's covenants. But in Romans Paul gives us plenty to go on to find an answer. He hits this topic repeatedly in chapters 4-8. The core thing that makes the New Covenant work is our identification with Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Somehow, when we believe, we are united with Christ in His death and resurrection. (Romans 6:5). Our symbolic death with Christ sets us free from the law as explained in Romans 7:1-6 and by His life we receive life apart from that provided by the law under the Old Covenant. Romans 8:1-4 is a great summary:
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.God's law, though good and holy, cannot save anyone because we all sin and fall short of its requirements. By taking our sins upon Himself and giving us His righteousness in exchange, Jesus allows sinners to be justified before God by the standard of the law, not by works but by faith.
So the answer is that the law of the Old Covenant is still in place, and if it were possible to go through life without sinning then we could be saved by our works. But this is impossible; faith in Jesus is the only way to salvation. By faith Christ's righteousness is attributed to us and the law's demands on us are satisfied. In Matthew 5:17-20 Jesus explains that He has come "not to abolish [the Law or the Prophets] but to fulfill them". At the same time He says that "unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of Heaven". God's standard of perfection has not been lowered, it is Christ who lifts us up to meet it.
So that's plenty of theology for now. In the next and final post in the series, I'll explore a practical implication of all of this: what exactly is the relation of the OT law to Christians today, if we aren't saved by obeying it.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
A Modest Proposal to Improve Political Debate
In a bit of the same vein as my previous post, here is a list of word which I think, if banned from public discourse, would tremendously improve the American political conversation, at least in the short term until people come up with new ones.
- Wall Street
- Main Street
- Elite/Elitist
- Fat Cat
- Take America back
- Barack Hussein Obama
- Agenda
- _____gate
- Sarah Palin
- Death panels
- Obamacare
- The 1%
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Us Versus Them
If you're been following the news much lately, you've surely heard about the "Occupy Wall Street" protest that's ongoing. Thousands of people are taking to the streets of Manhattan to protest...something or other. I wasn't sure of their goals until I read their statement. A related trend is stories from "The other 99%" from people struggling to get by in life, implicitly contrasted against the luxury the top 1% of America's wealthy presumably live in.
First, a quick aside from what I remember from economics class. Much of the protest is about decrying the perceived selfishness and greed of "Wall Street". (A convenient geographical metaphor for faceless corporations) The OWS statement specifically mentions "corporations which place profit over people, self-interest over justice..." They expect too much from businesses. We expect businesses--and individuals--to act in their own self-interest. The purpose of businesses is, first and foremost, to make money, not to improve their community or the environment or anything. (Unless this is what they're making money for doing)
Obviously there are countless ways for this to go wrong, as we've seen, which is why business needs regulation, so that we can expect corporations to also behave ethically and legally, which is often not the case. But the simple pursuit of profit is to be expected from businesses, not decried. Companies aren't beholden to public opinion but to their stockholders and their profit margin--the best way to make a statement to a corporation isn't a protest, but a boycott.
But that's just a minor correction. What really troubles--even frightens--me is the "us versus them" mentality I see behind both of these protests. It's an incredibly explicit, even objectively decidable division--"us" is the bottom 99% of earners in America, "them" is the top 1%. As history has shown over and over, painting the situation like this is one of the best ways to motivate people. Forget trying to learn and understand the complicated economic truth behind the recession--the super-rich are bleeding this country dry!
Occupy Wall Street is an example of the anger that blaming your problems on an external source can foster. I'm afraid of how ugly having all these disgruntled people in one place could become. If you're concerned about the direction America is going like the OWS protesters, know that positive change can only come if people start thinking rationally, compassionately, and above all, constructively. As one wise Jedi Master said, "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."
First, a quick aside from what I remember from economics class. Much of the protest is about decrying the perceived selfishness and greed of "Wall Street". (A convenient geographical metaphor for faceless corporations) The OWS statement specifically mentions "corporations which place profit over people, self-interest over justice..." They expect too much from businesses. We expect businesses--and individuals--to act in their own self-interest. The purpose of businesses is, first and foremost, to make money, not to improve their community or the environment or anything. (Unless this is what they're making money for doing)
Obviously there are countless ways for this to go wrong, as we've seen, which is why business needs regulation, so that we can expect corporations to also behave ethically and legally, which is often not the case. But the simple pursuit of profit is to be expected from businesses, not decried. Companies aren't beholden to public opinion but to their stockholders and their profit margin--the best way to make a statement to a corporation isn't a protest, but a boycott.
But that's just a minor correction. What really troubles--even frightens--me is the "us versus them" mentality I see behind both of these protests. It's an incredibly explicit, even objectively decidable division--"us" is the bottom 99% of earners in America, "them" is the top 1%. As history has shown over and over, painting the situation like this is one of the best ways to motivate people. Forget trying to learn and understand the complicated economic truth behind the recession--the super-rich are bleeding this country dry!
Occupy Wall Street is an example of the anger that blaming your problems on an external source can foster. I'm afraid of how ugly having all these disgruntled people in one place could become. If you're concerned about the direction America is going like the OWS protesters, know that positive change can only come if people start thinking rationally, compassionately, and above all, constructively. As one wise Jedi Master said, "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Why the Old Testament?
I'm super exited, interblag. This post is the beginning of what I plan to turn into a 3-part series in the next week or so. (Yeah, I'm moving up in the blogosphere) I'm going to pour out my thoughts on what has become a surprisingly thorny issue for Christians: the Old Testament. Yes, the first four-fifths of the Bible that so often get skipped over for the New Testament. This series was inspired partly by a conversation I had with my church's head pastor a few weeks ago (actually mostly just the third and final post) and partly by conversations I've seen between uninformed Christians and semi-informed atheists. A common pattern in these conversations I've seen is that atheists like to cite some...shall we say, "difficult" passages from the Old Testament in order to mock (no offense, but that really is what you're doing, and it's not very nice) them and demonstrate how absurd the Christian faith really is. Passages like these:
First, though, I want to explore some of the purposes of the Old Testament (OT hereafter). God's purposes for revealing Himself as He has are obviously beyond anyone's understanding, but I'll share the things that I've gotten from the OT.
First, the OT obviously provides a good deal of historical context. It really is a bunch of helpful stories--it's also much more than that, but it certainly isn't less. It teaches us that God created the heavens and the earth, the amazing stories of faith in the patriarchs' lives (Genesis), how the Israelites claimed (Joshua) and lived in the land God promised to them (Kings and Samuel), the decline and captivity of Israel (later in Kings), and how they came back afterward. (Ezra and Nehemiah). This is an incredibly quick summary and I skipped a lot, but the historical context provided by the OT is value. But if that's all you have, it isn't necessarily integral to our faith today--it's understandable that people who view the OT as "a collection of stories" are so willing to let it go.
But that isn't all the OT is. The main character of the OT isn't Abraham, or Moses, or David, or Isaiah, or even the Israelite nation as a whole--it's God. God is the one who got everything started, God who calls Abraham and promises to make him into a great nation, God who saves Joseph from his family and his family from famine, God who delivers the Israelites from Egypt and leads them for 40 years in the desert, God who enables their string of victories in claiming the promised land, God who leads and judges kings, God who casts the disobedient Israelites out of their land and brings them back again. In literary terms, God is the driving force behind the entire plot of the OT. And through it we get a picture of a God who is the same everywhere in the Bible--unbelievably holy and unable to tolerate evil, but loving, merciful, and compassionate nonetheless.
Another role the OT plays in the gospel message is that the Israelites are God's ultimate proof that it is impossible to be saved by works. (More on this concept next post) The Israelites are given an elaborate law and promised that anyone who does the things written in it will live (Leviticus 18:5) rather than die by the curse man lives under because of his sin. (Genesis 3:19) God performs countless signs and wonders in front of the Israelites, calls them "my people" (Exodus 7:16), turns them from a nation of slaves to a mighty nation, and continues to speak to and guide them through prophets for hundreds of years. They get a temple where God's presence resides and where they can actually come into His presence (1 Kings 9:3-4) and worship Him. It seems like a great deal; obey God and He will bless you (Deuteronomy 6:3) and you won't die. But even with all these things going for them, the Israelites pretty much act like whiny toddlers. After seeing God perform ten miraculous plagues on the Egyptians so they can escape, the Israelites complain that they've been brought out of Egypt to be killed (Exodus 14:10-12). When He delivers them from the Egyptian army by parting the freaking Red Sea, they complain that He did it so they could just die of hunger. (Exodus 16:3) When He miraculously provides food for them, they complain that they're going to die of thirst. (Exodus 17:3) And on it goes. The constant pattern throughout the books of history and prophecy is that the Israelites keep turning from the God who did all these things to worship other nations' gods, dumb idols that had done nothing for them and could do nothing. If the Israelites who had the words, presence, and mind-blowing miracles of God failed so miserably to keep the law and live, what chance do we have?
Finally, one other reason the OT is critical is the prophecies it gives, especially the messianic prophecies (those pertaining to Jesus). Isaiah 52-53 is the densest bit of messianic prophecy in the OT, telling us of God's "servant" who will be "exalted" despite being horribly scarred and disfigured, who will be "wounded for our transgressions", die "like a lamb that is led to the slaughter", who will die despite being innocent, yet who will live and see offspring, and will "make many to be accounted righteous, and...shall bear their iniquities." That's the gospel in the Old Testament. Other prophecies predict other details of Jesus' life, like that He will come out of Bethlehem (Micah 5:2) and Egypt (Hosea 11:1), that He would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14), and that He would enter Jerusalem on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9)--all of which are fulfilled in the gospels. These prophecies give us context for the New Testament and help us appreciate the coming of Christ all the more.
Enough for now on some of the virtues of having the Old Testament--what happens when we casually abandon it, admit that it might not be scripture or just ignore it? Well, the most important thing is that we also deny the New Testament and the Christian faith. (You didn't care about those either, did you?) The gospels refer to scripture quite a few times; the Greek root γραφή (graphē) used to mean the Old Testament is also used by Peter in 2 Peter 3:16 to refer to the letters of Paul. Keep in mind that as the letter was being written the only "scripture" the Jews would have had was the Old Testament (the "law and the prophets"). In Matthew 4 Jesus rebukes the devil by quoting from the OT; in context, the "word that comes from the mouth of God" He mentions in verse 4 is understood to mean the scriptures He is quoting from. Earlier in Matthew 1:22 an angel specifically says that God spoke through the words of Isaiah. Finally, in 2 Peter 1:19-21 reminds his readers that no "prophecy of scripture" (again with graphē) came about "by the will of man", but "men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." In light of these verses, if the Old Testament isn't the very words of God, what is it? And why did everyone treat it with such reverence? It's ludicrous.
You also lose all the context I talked about above. Without the OT, particularly the messianic prophecies, we have no idea who Jesus the "son of man" is, or why He is going around healing people and claiming to be God. Why did He ride a donkey, for goodness' sake? And why did God have to die!? Sure, the epistles explain it, but we lose the firsthand reasons for it all--Jesus just comes out of the blue, no context. We lose the origin of the Israelite nation and the significance of Jerusalem and the temple. We lose the lineage of Christ--Matthew 1 becomes just a boring list of names rather than a testament to how God worked some of the most amazing and unlikely people into the story of His redemption. The entire OT is ramping up the excitement to the arrival of Christ.
We also have a skewed perspective of who God is by missing out on the amazing contrast between the awesome, perfectly holy, righteous just God we see in the OT and the personal, compassionate, humble, even suffering God we see in the NT--and the promise that God does not change (Malachi 3:6). These attributes aren't exclusive to the OT and NT, but God tends to show different sides of Himself in the OT and NT. Without the OT's constant reminders of God's holiness and justice, it's understandable that many Christians blindly assert their belief in a "God of love". (A true, but incomplete view) Finally, as a teaser for next time, we lose the significance of the new covenant brought about by Christ along with the old covenant that came before it. It all seems so random and arbitrary, and without the context of the OT we're likely to become ignorant of the "big picture" of God's redemptive plan and have trouble explaining the reasons between our faith and our doctrine. (Sound familiar?) Until then, may you find joy in all of God's words.
"When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do." - Exodus 21:7
"Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death." - Exodus 30:15b
"You shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your cattle breed with a different kind. You shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor shall you wear a garment of cloth made with two kinds of material." - Leviticus 19:19Or, of course:
"And all the cities of those kings, and all their kings, Joshua captured, and struck them with the edge of the sword, devoting them to destruction, just as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded." - Joshua 11:12You get the idea. What I can't stand isn't so much this, but the common response to such attacks: many Christians are willing to abandon the Old Testament rather than defend it--admit that maybe it isn't as authoritative as the New Testament, or that it's just a collection of stories not to be taken literally, or just ignore it altogether. If I may issue a call to the church, this is unacceptable. The rest of this post will be devoted to arguing why Christians can't just abandon the Old Testament if it has parts we or others don't like, and what we stand to lose if we do.
First, though, I want to explore some of the purposes of the Old Testament (OT hereafter). God's purposes for revealing Himself as He has are obviously beyond anyone's understanding, but I'll share the things that I've gotten from the OT.
First, the OT obviously provides a good deal of historical context. It really is a bunch of helpful stories--it's also much more than that, but it certainly isn't less. It teaches us that God created the heavens and the earth, the amazing stories of faith in the patriarchs' lives (Genesis), how the Israelites claimed (Joshua) and lived in the land God promised to them (Kings and Samuel), the decline and captivity of Israel (later in Kings), and how they came back afterward. (Ezra and Nehemiah). This is an incredibly quick summary and I skipped a lot, but the historical context provided by the OT is value. But if that's all you have, it isn't necessarily integral to our faith today--it's understandable that people who view the OT as "a collection of stories" are so willing to let it go.
But that isn't all the OT is. The main character of the OT isn't Abraham, or Moses, or David, or Isaiah, or even the Israelite nation as a whole--it's God. God is the one who got everything started, God who calls Abraham and promises to make him into a great nation, God who saves Joseph from his family and his family from famine, God who delivers the Israelites from Egypt and leads them for 40 years in the desert, God who enables their string of victories in claiming the promised land, God who leads and judges kings, God who casts the disobedient Israelites out of their land and brings them back again. In literary terms, God is the driving force behind the entire plot of the OT. And through it we get a picture of a God who is the same everywhere in the Bible--unbelievably holy and unable to tolerate evil, but loving, merciful, and compassionate nonetheless.
Another role the OT plays in the gospel message is that the Israelites are God's ultimate proof that it is impossible to be saved by works. (More on this concept next post) The Israelites are given an elaborate law and promised that anyone who does the things written in it will live (Leviticus 18:5) rather than die by the curse man lives under because of his sin. (Genesis 3:19) God performs countless signs and wonders in front of the Israelites, calls them "my people" (Exodus 7:16), turns them from a nation of slaves to a mighty nation, and continues to speak to and guide them through prophets for hundreds of years. They get a temple where God's presence resides and where they can actually come into His presence (1 Kings 9:3-4) and worship Him. It seems like a great deal; obey God and He will bless you (Deuteronomy 6:3) and you won't die. But even with all these things going for them, the Israelites pretty much act like whiny toddlers. After seeing God perform ten miraculous plagues on the Egyptians so they can escape, the Israelites complain that they've been brought out of Egypt to be killed (Exodus 14:10-12). When He delivers them from the Egyptian army by parting the freaking Red Sea, they complain that He did it so they could just die of hunger. (Exodus 16:3) When He miraculously provides food for them, they complain that they're going to die of thirst. (Exodus 17:3) And on it goes. The constant pattern throughout the books of history and prophecy is that the Israelites keep turning from the God who did all these things to worship other nations' gods, dumb idols that had done nothing for them and could do nothing. If the Israelites who had the words, presence, and mind-blowing miracles of God failed so miserably to keep the law and live, what chance do we have?
Finally, one other reason the OT is critical is the prophecies it gives, especially the messianic prophecies (those pertaining to Jesus). Isaiah 52-53 is the densest bit of messianic prophecy in the OT, telling us of God's "servant" who will be "exalted" despite being horribly scarred and disfigured, who will be "wounded for our transgressions", die "like a lamb that is led to the slaughter", who will die despite being innocent, yet who will live and see offspring, and will "make many to be accounted righteous, and...shall bear their iniquities." That's the gospel in the Old Testament. Other prophecies predict other details of Jesus' life, like that He will come out of Bethlehem (Micah 5:2) and Egypt (Hosea 11:1), that He would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14), and that He would enter Jerusalem on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9)--all of which are fulfilled in the gospels. These prophecies give us context for the New Testament and help us appreciate the coming of Christ all the more.
Enough for now on some of the virtues of having the Old Testament--what happens when we casually abandon it, admit that it might not be scripture or just ignore it? Well, the most important thing is that we also deny the New Testament and the Christian faith. (You didn't care about those either, did you?) The gospels refer to scripture quite a few times; the Greek root γραφή (graphē) used to mean the Old Testament is also used by Peter in 2 Peter 3:16 to refer to the letters of Paul. Keep in mind that as the letter was being written the only "scripture" the Jews would have had was the Old Testament (the "law and the prophets"). In Matthew 4 Jesus rebukes the devil by quoting from the OT; in context, the "word that comes from the mouth of God" He mentions in verse 4 is understood to mean the scriptures He is quoting from. Earlier in Matthew 1:22 an angel specifically says that God spoke through the words of Isaiah. Finally, in 2 Peter 1:19-21 reminds his readers that no "prophecy of scripture" (again with graphē) came about "by the will of man", but "men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." In light of these verses, if the Old Testament isn't the very words of God, what is it? And why did everyone treat it with such reverence? It's ludicrous.
You also lose all the context I talked about above. Without the OT, particularly the messianic prophecies, we have no idea who Jesus the "son of man" is, or why He is going around healing people and claiming to be God. Why did He ride a donkey, for goodness' sake? And why did God have to die!? Sure, the epistles explain it, but we lose the firsthand reasons for it all--Jesus just comes out of the blue, no context. We lose the origin of the Israelite nation and the significance of Jerusalem and the temple. We lose the lineage of Christ--Matthew 1 becomes just a boring list of names rather than a testament to how God worked some of the most amazing and unlikely people into the story of His redemption. The entire OT is ramping up the excitement to the arrival of Christ.
We also have a skewed perspective of who God is by missing out on the amazing contrast between the awesome, perfectly holy, righteous just God we see in the OT and the personal, compassionate, humble, even suffering God we see in the NT--and the promise that God does not change (Malachi 3:6). These attributes aren't exclusive to the OT and NT, but God tends to show different sides of Himself in the OT and NT. Without the OT's constant reminders of God's holiness and justice, it's understandable that many Christians blindly assert their belief in a "God of love". (A true, but incomplete view) Finally, as a teaser for next time, we lose the significance of the new covenant brought about by Christ along with the old covenant that came before it. It all seems so random and arbitrary, and without the context of the OT we're likely to become ignorant of the "big picture" of God's redemptive plan and have trouble explaining the reasons between our faith and our doctrine. (Sound familiar?) Until then, may you find joy in all of God's words.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Biblical Contradictions
It's no secret that skeptics have found plenty of contradictions in the Bible. If you were unaware of this, I'll help get you started with a few examples:
- Jesus is human (Luke 2:7) and God. (Romans 9:5)
- Jesus grew weary (John 4:6), but God does not grow weary. (Isaiah 40:28)
- Jesus "grew in wisdom" (Luke 2:52), but knew all things. (John 16:30)
- Jesus died (Luke 24:36), but God is immortal. (Romans 1:23)
- There is one God (Deuteronomy 6:4-5) in three persons (Matthew 28:19), each of whom is fully God (John 17, Romans 9:5, Psalm 139:7-8).
- We are saved by our decision of faith alone (Ephesians 2:8-9), but God predestined those who were saved, to be saved before we existed. (Romans 8:29)
- Paul permits women to pray and prophesy in church (1 Corinthians 11:5), but does not allow them to speak in church. (14:35)
- From this past May: no one knows when the Son is coming back (Matthew 24:36), but we need not be surprised by His coming. (1 Thessalonians 5:4)
- Jesus loved Lazarus and his family (John 11:5), but He purposely allowed him to die when he could certainly have healed him. (11:6) Even more interestingly, the ESV uses "so" instead of "yet" here.
- The creation order in Genesis 1 appears to clash with the creation order in Genesis 2.
- God gives His people specific laws on what they can and cannot eat (Leviticus 11, others), which He later (in a dream) tells Peter to disobey. (Acts 10)
And of course I'm only pointing out internal contradictions of the Bible, not times where it appears to contradict science, history, or common sense.
I could go through these one by one and offer my current understanding on how they fit together (except the creation order thing...ideas appreciated). But perhaps because of my CSci habit of finding patterns and rules, I'm instead going to talk about what I've learned from learning of and working through Biblical contradictions like these and others.
So, obviously if you go looking for contradictions in the Bible, you're going to find them; I've seen several sites run by skeptics with lists far more exhaustive than mine. But if you were looking for Biblical contradictions from the start, you probably didn't have a very high view of it to begin with and your views weren't changed, only perhaps reinforced.
But if you're wondering if the Bible might in fact be true (or if, like me, you believe it is), what do you make of scriptural difficulties? Well, if the whole Bible is true, then clearly these contradictions can't really be contradictions--not on the deeper, meaning level. The challenge then becomes: to find a way to interpret the Bible that resolves all the apparent contradictions, so that every verse, every word is true. I think this is the essence of what is meant by the saying, "scripture interprets scripture"--dynamically pitting apparently contradictory passages against each other in the context of the understood parts of scripture to find a way to make sense of them both.
For example: much of what we know of the nature of Christ can be gleaned from the first four contradictions, the fifth is the doctrine of the Trinity, and the interpretation of the sixth leads people to either side of the predestination debate (already covered in detail). The contradiction about knowing when Christ will return tells us that we ought to be ready for Christ's return, rather than unprepared and thus surprised, and Jesus' curious treatment of Lazarus offers a challenging new perspective on how He loves us. In all these examples the knowledge we gain from resolving the apparent contradiction is greater than what we find in the bare passages. Being forced to reconcile two seemingly at-odds concepts forces us to search for a narrowly defined middle ground between them, with little room for speculation in the end.
In fact, beyond this idea of using contradictory passages to interpret each other, I would go even further to say that I think it works better than if God explicitly spelled everything out for us. This would make obsolete the responsibility we have to love God with all our mind by seeking an increasing understanding of Him; masters of theology would not write theological books (what would be the point?) but would simply refer back to the appropriate passage for everything (from a Bible that would likely be at least the size of an encyclopedia and that most people couldn't imagine even holding, much less reading). Memorizing scripture has a valuable place in believers' lives, but I'm thankful that there is much, much more to loving God with all my mind than that.
But this is all rather foolish speculation, because God is infinite and far above us (Isaiah 55:9), not able to be fully comprehended even when we see Him face to face. Even in the finite amount of Words He has spoken to us, which necessarily contain a dumbed-down description of who He really is, we should expect there to be difficulties, confusion, even apparent contradictions. But as I've attempted to explain above, this should not daunt anyone really set on knowing God. Christianity is not anti-intellectual--God transforms and renews our minds (Romans 12:2)--but we should be careful not to let our opinions and conclusions get in the way of Who really matters. If He is who He says He is, then He is much smarter than you and me.
If you look for contradictions in the Bible, you will surely find them. But, if you're willing to look past the difficulties you see in the Word to the One who spoke it, He will work with you to overcome them. This is taking up saving faith--setting aside arguments of doctrine and "religion" (whatever that entails for you) and running into the arms of a God who loves you enough to die for you.
If you look for contradictions in the Bible, you will surely find them. But, if you're willing to look past the difficulties you see in the Word to the One who spoke it, He will work with you to overcome them. This is taking up saving faith--setting aside arguments of doctrine and "religion" (whatever that entails for you) and running into the arms of a God who loves you enough to die for you.
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