Rejecting a straw god

I've been blogging for a while now; this month makes nine years. My online discussions with critics, however, go back over 20 years to the old, AOL chat rooms. I've been on FaceBook and many online forums like CARM where I've engaged atheists head to head – not just answering the comments left on my blog. I read other people's blogs, watch their videos, and listen to their arguments. Suffice it to say, I've heard about every reason there is that people use to reject God. Yet in all that time, all the different arguments I've heard can be grouped into just a few different categories.

Before I get into the categories, let me just say that I have my doubts that these are the real reasons why people reject God; they are merely the excuses they give. I think, deep down, they ultimately reject God because of their sinful, prideful, rebellious nature. They would prefer to continue in their sin rather than submit to God. They want to live life how they please and simply are trying to convince themselves there will be no judgment at the end of it. But since these are the excuses they give, they are what I will use.

Keep in mind that critics will seldom limit themselves to just one of these categories. Usually, it's only one of these things that will first cause someone to doubt, but once he has rejected the idea of God completely, he always embrace the other things as well. Here are the categories I've seen.

Some people claim to reject God because of the “bad things” they see in the world. It's common for people to say things like, “Why does God allow bad things to happen?” This includes not only people doing bad things but also natural disasters like earthquakes, plagues, famines, or tsunamis. Sometimes, there will have been a personal tragedy in the persons life, like the loss of a loved one or maybe a divorce or abuse. They believe that God doesn't act at these times because there is no God.

Other people claim to reject God because they reject the biblical standards of morality. They will point to passages like 1 Samuel 15:3, where God commanded Saul to destroy the city of Amalek and describe it as genocide. They say a loving God wouldn't condemn things like homosexuality. Dan Savage once said that the Bible was “wrong” on slavery so how can we trust it on things like sexuality? They also question the “fairness” of God forgiving really bad people or condemning “good” people who reject Him. They aren't just questioning why God let's bad things happen, but claim God Himself is bad. Critics believe if there were a God, He wouldn't act like this.

People also claim to reject God because they see no evidence that He exists. I can't tell you the number of times I've heard people ask, “If there is a God, why doesn't He just show Himself?” These critics see the universe operating according to fixed, physical laws and we don't really need to invoke a god to understand them. Just a few months ago, I blogged this quote: Why is God so stingy with direct evidence?... [T]he supposed miracles that attest to a supernatural power all happened in ancient, pre scientific, times, in which there existed no means of reliable verification. These supposed miracles are not being duplicated today so that we could see that such things are possible.... A loving God would not erect such high barriers to belief and then further compound the difficulty in believing by providing us with such strong evidential circumstances against the supernatural, such as the inviolability of the laws of nature. These critics believe if there were a God, He would make Himself known in an obvious way.

I could include people who reject the Bible on the grounds that they claim it contains contradictions and so can't be divinely inspired. This is more of an argument for agnosticism than atheism. That is, they may still think there could be a god, they just don't believe it's necessarily the Christian God of the Bible. This category isn't really relevant to my point today. I just raise it in case people later try to claim I didn't think of it.

As we review this short (but nearly exhaustive) list of reasons, we see a theme begin to develop. These people aren't merely searching for God and not finding Him. Instead, they've imagined how they think God should act but they can't find a god that acts like that! In other words, they aren't really rejecting God, they're rejecting a straw god, one they've created in their own imagination.

If we look at these reasons objectively, we can see they're non sequitur. Take the first excuse, for example: bad things happen so there can't be a god? How exactly does that follow? It's sort of like saying, “doctors are supposed to heal sick people but, since there are still sick people, doctors must be imaginary.” You can see how that doesn't work. The second point suffers the same way. It makes no sense to say, “I don't think homosexuality is a sin so if God thinks so He must not be real.” Finally, no one can seriously claim that God can't be real because He won't appear on the evening news and tell us He's real. OK, maybe they do claim that but it still doesn't make sense.

There is a God. He is loving but He is also just. The bad things that happen in the world are His judgment for our sins but He has made salvation available to all who believe. He has redeemed His people by shedding His own blood and He will restore His creation where there will be no more death. He also has made Himself known through His prophets, through His word, and through His Son, who became flesh and dwelt among us.

It's no wonder some people can't find God. They're looking for a capricious god who loves sin. They're not rejecting God; they're rejecting an imaginary god who doesn't exist.

Is the Bible Immoral? Part 2: Did God Order a Genocide?

Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. (1 Samuel 15:3)

As we consider critics' claims that the Bible is immoral, one of the most cited examples comes from 1 Samuel where God commands King Saul to destroy the city of Amalek along with everyone and everything in it. Critics typically use words like “genocide,” “atrocity,” and “infanticide” to describe the account. It's a clever use of loaded words to make God seem capricious.

Critics usually quote verse 3 out of context. 1 Samuel 15:2 says, “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt.” Critics don't include verse 2 because they intentionally want to omit God's motive for His command to Saul. Israel's encounters with Amalek began back in Exodus 17. After their flight from Egypt and during their wandering in the desert, the Jews were a nearly helpless people. They had no city, no walls, and no forts. They had to rely upon God daily for food and water. Deuteronomy 25:17-18 described it this way,

Remember what Amalek did to you along the way when you came out from Egypt, how he met you along the way and attacked among you all the stragglers at your rear when you were faint and weary; and he did not fear God.

At one point, while they were camped at Rephidim, the Amalekites came and attacked them. Moses told Joshua to lead armed men to resist the Amalekites and God gave the Jews the victory after a hard fought battle. Afterward, God made a promise to Moses:

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Write this in a book as a memorial and recite it to Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” Moses built an altar and named it, The LORD is My Banner; and he said, “The LORD has sworn; the LORD will have war against Amalek from generation to generation.” (Exodus 17:14-16)

God could have rained fire down on Amalek just as He had done with Sodom and Gomorrah, but it was many generations later, after the Jews settled in the Promised Land and Saul had become the king, that God fulfilled His promise.

So God's command to destroy the Amalekites wasn't arbitrary but rather was His judgment on that city for their crimes against Israel. Critics call the event “genocide” because that sounds more effective to their cause than calling it “justice.” Here's something that might put this into perspective: we need to consider the attitudes of Americans right after 9/11. Do you remember the calls that we should bomb Afghanistan and the Taliban back into the stone age? Were we interested in genocide or justice?

Of course, some people aren't satisfied with this explanation. Some have asked, “Why would God command the babies to be killed?” There are a couple of other points we need to keep in mind.

First, we have to remember that not only did all the people of Amalek die but Saul also died. Every one of Saul's soldiers died too. Every Jew in Israel died. Every prophet mentioned in the Old Testament has died. The Bible says that it is appointed unto a man to die and then he is judged (Hebrews 9:27). Some die old; some die young; some die violently; some die quietly. The mortality rate among people is 100%. Death has reigned since the Curse and just like it came to the Amalekites, it will also come to all of us. To say that God was cruel in His treatment of Amalek is to deny that God judges all of humanity fairly.

There is still another point we must consider, a point which relates to God as our Creator. Read this passage from Jeremiah:

Then [Jeremiah] went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something on the wheel. But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make. Then the word of the Lord came to [Jeremiah] saying, “Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.” (Jeremiah 18:3-6)

No one can credibly deny that the vessel a potter makes belongs to the potter. If the potter doesn't like how the vessel turns out, it is his right to scrap it and start over. In this haunting passage, we are reminded that we are created by God and so are subject to His will.

Words like “genocide” and “atrocity” are misleading characterizations of God. The Bible gives us a complete picture of Him. He is not a tyrant who smites innocents on a whim. He is not a pacifist who will shower grace on vile, unrepentant sinners. He is Holy and Just. We all face the same fate – a grave. We all have the same opportunity – eternal life through Jesus. I will have to stand before God and give an account for my sins; my only plea will be the shed blood of His Son. Critics are welcome to tell God He's not being fair.

Is the Bible Immoral? Part 1

Some people criticize the Bible with the claim that it is immoral. That is, they believe the history recorded in the Bible and the commandments of the Mosaic Law offend our sense of right and wrong and so are evidence that the Bible is not the revelation of a good God. It's an excuse to not be a Christian or believe in God.

Critics who use this argument will also sometimes accuse Christians of picking and choosing which parts of the Bible we want to believe. If a Christian, for example, speaks out on the political issue of gay marriage, a critic might ask why doesn't the Christian also believe in executing homosexuals as commanded in Leviticus 20:13? This is an obvious attempt to undermine the Christian's credibility, claiming he appeals to the Bible when condemning homosexuality but ignores other parts of the Bible. If Christians feel we can ignore parts of the Bible with which we disagree, then how can we condemn the critic for doing the same?

Two of the most often cited examples of the Bible's immorality are probably God's command to the Israel army to kill the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15) and the Bible seeming to condone slavery (Leviticus 25:44-46, et al). I intend to discuss these two examples in more detail in my next two posts. In this post, I intend to discuss the weakness of these criticisms in general.

When responding to arguments like this, there are several points that should be kept in mind. The first, and probably the most significant, is to ask by what standard does the critic judge these acts to be “wrong”? If there were no God, then the universe is empty of morality. Everything that happens is nothing more than matter acting on matter. One man killing another is no more “evil” than a lion killing a zebra. When a person says it's “wrong” for God to command the Israelites to kill the Amalekites, it begs the question: wrong according to who? Obviously the Universe doesn't care what happens. The Israelites didn't believe it was wrong. What makes the critic's opinion on the subject the “correct” one? No one can call anything “wrong” without first acknowledging an absolute standard of right or wrong exists. There is no such standard in an impersonal universe. Objective morality exists only if God exists.

Moving on to my second point: We can see that the critic can't ever objectively say the Bible is wrong. At best, he can only say his sense of morality differs from how he understands the Bible. Ok, then what is the critic's point in raising this criticism? Is he trying to say there is no God because the Bible records things he finds offensive? You can see how that doesn't work. It would be sort of like me saying the Holocaust didn't happen because no dictator could be that cruel. This is a logic fallacy known as an argument from outrage.

Noted apologist for atheism, Richard Dawkins, wrote in his book, The Greatest Show on Earth, “Even if it were true that evolution, or the teaching of evolution, encouraged immorality that would not imply that the theory of evolution was false.” This is one of the few things on which Dawkins and I can agree. I would never try to attack evolution by saying Darwin was a racist. By that same token, though, someone claiming the Bible is immoral is not evidence that the Bible is not true.

We can see already that these criticisms of the Bible are built upon shaky foundations. Yet there are still a couple of more points we must consider. One thing is that God established the Law specifically for His people. When God established the Nation of Israel, it differed from other nations in that it did not have an earthly ruler – God was their ruler. The Jews lived their lives according to the Law and Judges were appointed to interpret the Law whenever a dispute arose.

Eventually, the people demanded to have a king like other nations. God relented and gave them Saul. Since then, we are subject to earthly rulers and laws during our lifetimes. The Law commanded that adulterers, for example, should be stoned. In the US, adulterers aren't executed but God is still the final Judge and someday we still must stand before Him to give an account for our sins. We are still judged according to the Law. However, the punishment for our sins is no longer necessarily at the hands of earthly rulers.

Finally, the Law was given to a fallen world. Some of the things it contains do not represent God's perfect will but rather are allowances God has made for sinful people who live in a corrupt world. Consider this passage from Mark 10:

And the Pharisees came to him, and asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? tempting him. And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. (Mark 10:2-9)

We see in this passage that when Jesus was asked about divorce, He explained that it was God's intentions that people never divorced. The Laws governing divorce were only written because of the hardness of our hearts. So even if the Bible seems to allow certain things, it does not necessarily mean the Bible “endorses” that thing.

I'll talk more about specific examples in my next couple of posts. For now, suffice it to say these are weak criticisms of the Bible.

Praise God this New Year!

And this man went up out of his city from year to year to worship and to sacrifice unto Jehovah!
1 Samuel 1:3

David and Goliath Like You Haven't Seen It

I was turned on to the band, Apologetix, when Cowboy Bob posted one of their videos on his blog, Stormbringer's Thunder. I've since watched several of their videos on YouTube. Their schtick is to parody popular songs with Biblical lyrics. Here are some examples of their clever songs:

A parody of an Eagle's song that talks about Mary and Joseph being turned away at the inn: “The Hotel Can't Afford Ya.”

A parody of a Boston song that talks about the redeeming power of Jesus' sacrifice: “More than a Healing.”

A parody of a Simon and Garfunkle song that talks about the missionary works of Paul in the book of Acts: “The Sound of Silas.”

One video has been especially popular On YouTube. Many people have posted dramatizations of their parody of Queen's song, “The Bohemian Rhapsody” that talks about the shepherd boy, David, fighting the giant, Goliath. David, of course, was from Bethlehem and the song is “The Bethlehemian Rhapsody.”

All of the videos are a little campy but here's one that I found entertaining.

Enjoy!!

Who is reading the Bible “literally”?

I sometimes wonder if some critics of the Bible are intentionally being dishonest or if they are genuinely uninformed. Often times, criticism of the Bible is so weak that I'm sure it cannot be sincere. I came across just such an example online recently.

This person was posting on FaceBook under what I assume is his real name so I won't mention it here. He claimed to have been raised in a Christian home but later rejected the faith because “logic no longer allowed [him] to consider the bible to be more than a fiction.” He listed a few of his concerns, namely that he felt the Bible taught that the Earth is flat, that it sits on top of four columns, and it does not move. The person who posted this did not give any scripture references but I suspect he is referring to the following:

Psalm 104:5, “He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved. ” (NIV)

1 Samuel 2:8, “...for the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and he hath set the world upon them. ” (KJV)

There is no verse in the Bible that states the world is flat (even figuratively). However, another poster in the same discussion offered this curious reference:

Isaiah 40:22, “It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:”

I'm not sure how that equates to the earth being flat; perhaps there is some implied notion that He sees everything from such a vantage point thus an implication the world is flat? It's a stretch but I'll include it for the sake of argument.

As a young-earth creationist, I'm often accused that I'm wrong to read the Bible “literally.” I've written before (here) that I don't read it “literally” but rather understand the ordinary meaning of the words. Anyone who reads the above passages should be able to identify them for what they are. This person online claims to have rejected the Bible and Christianity because he couldn't believe verses like these! Incredible! Certainly this person has rejected Christ because of his own sin nature and not because he could not trust the Bible.

It hardly needs to be demonstrated how the above statements are not literal but the question could be raised: how can we tell which parts of the Bible are literal and which are not? Usually, literary devices are immediately apparent wherever they are used. If a single verse is ambiguous, then examine the entire context. Consider Isaiah 40:22 above. Do you notice the use of the word, “as”? The inhabitants are “as” grasshoppers; the heavens are stretched out “as” a curtain. The words “like” and “as” are key words frequently used to denote simile so we can see that the verse is not intended to be literal.

Also, one characteristic of Hebrew poetry is that certain words or phrases are repeated. In Isaiah, the heavens are stretched like a curtain and spread like a tent. Do you see the repetition? We can see here, then, that we are also dealing with a poetic passage. So the Lord sitting upon the circle of the earth is a metaphor. The Lord is not literally sitting upon the earth. It's a poetic reference to the fact that the Lord reigns over the earth and the heavens.

Of course, there are people at the other extreme who see every word in the Bible figuratively. For example, some Christians view much of the book of Genesis as poetry, allegory, or metaphor. I will talk about the literary genre of Genesis in a future post and conclude the point at hand.

The idea that the Bible if rife with errors stems in part from a tortured understanding that every word in the Bible is meant to be “literal.” It's a straw man of our understanding of the Bible. Critics use this to try to paint Christians into a corner: does the earth rest on pillars? No? Then the Bible must not be “literal.”

It's a false dichotomy. We are not forced to decide between all literal or all figurative. How's this for a dichotomy: anyone who presents this as an argument is either being disingenuous or cannot read.

How Long Were the Days in Genesis?

There are some Christians out there who believe evolution to be true yet also claim to believe the Bible. Since the Genesis account of creation contradicts evolutionary theories concerning origins, there are various methods these people use to “reconcile” the two. There are various ways people do this but one way is to claim that the “days” of the creation week weren’t ordinary days but represented long periods of time. Each day was an epoch or era in which God performed a different creative act.

To bolster their claim, they point out the obvious fact that the word “day” can mean different things. It does not necessarily mean “24-hours.” To them, it could mean millions or billions of years. Well, it’s true that the word can mean different things, but then again, it can also mean 24-hours. So even though it could mean something other than 24-hours, that alone is not evidence that is does mean something other than 24-hours. As with any word, context should determine its meaning.

Look at the following sentence:

“Back in my grandfather’s day, people would play the banjo every day, but only during the day.”

The word “day” appears in that sentence 3 times – each time with a different meaning. Do you have any trouble determining what each occurrence means? Most second graders can figure it out. I did a quick search on Biblegateway.com and saw the word day appears in the KJV 2,263 times. Why is it that ordinary people can figure out the meaning of the word everywhere else in the Bible except Genesis?!

An ordinary reading of Genesis 1 immediately suggests that the word day means an ordinary, 24-hour day. If we pause to carefully consider if this is correct, we can find several reasons to believe the ordinary reading is the correct one.

First, I would direct you to Exodus 20:9-11:

“Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work,… For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”

Here, when the LORD gave the Commandments, He gave us a formula to interpret the creation days. We are to work for six days and not work on the rest on the seventh in the same way that God worked for six days and rested on the seventh. This passage can only make sense if the days are understood to mean ordinary, 24-hour days. If the day meant “millions or billions of years,” then what are we to do? Work 6,000,000 years then rest for 1,000,000 years? The early readers would have obviously understood these to be ordinary days and we should do the same.

Furthermore, remember that Adam was created on the 6th day. So if the 7th day of the creation were millions or billions of years long, then Adam should have been millions or billions of years old. Yet the Genesis 5:5 says that he only lived 930 years.

A second clue that suggests these are ordinary days is because each occurrence of the word “day” in Genesis 1 is modified with the term “evening and morning.” Outside of Genesis 1, “evening and morning” appear with the word “day” three times (see list here). In all three instances, the word can only mean an ordinary day. For example, there is 1 Samuel 17:16, “And the Philistine drew near morning and evening, and presented himself forty days.” How else could this verse possibly be interpreted except to mean 40, ordinary, 24-hour days?

Consider also the reverse: if the days were meant to represent long periods of time, then what would be meant by the term “evening and morning”? Would it be millions of years of darkness followed by millions of years of daylight? That could hardly be true. The presence of the term seems to demand the word “day” to mean an ordinary day to the exclusion of all other possible meanings.

Still a third clue is that the word “day” is also modified by an ordinal number (i.e. first day, second day, etc). This construction occurs many times in the Bible. In the example from 1 Samuel 17:16, Goliath presented himself for “forty days.” From Genesis alone there are many examples of this construction: Genesis 7:17 explains that the Flood was upon the earth for “forty days.” Genesis 7:24 says, “the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.” In Genesis 17:12, God commanded that Jewish boys be circumcised when they are “eight days” old. Genesis 22:4, Abraham lifted his eyes on the “third day” and saw the place where he was to sacrifice Isaac. In fact, in every occurrence, when the word day is modified with a number, it means an ordinary day.

We have seen that when “day” is modified with “evening and morning” it means an ordinary day. We have seen that when “day” is modified with a number it means an ordinary day. In Genesis 1 the word “day” is modified with BOTH the term “evening and morning” AND a number. What else then can it mean but an ordinary day?

Still, well meaning people will point to verses like 2 Peter 3:8 where Peter said, “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years” and then use that as a type of formula (i.e. One “Lord’s day” equals 1,000 years). There are a few problems with this. First, if it were meant to be a straight conversion, then the creation week would still only be 7,000 years long - not millions or billions of years. Of course, there is the same issue of Adam’s age as described above. 2 Peter 3:8 merely means that God is outside of time. The same verse continues “a thousand years as one day”. There is also Psalms 90:4 which says a thousand years are like a “watch in the night” in His sight. Verses such as this are merely to demonstrate the timelessness of God. To Him, 1,000 years, a day, an hour, all have no meaning.

Since the days of Genesis 1 are so obviously ordinary days, one must wonder why people seek to find a different meaning. I believe the reason is obvious: they have trusted the finite knowledge of fallible men over the infallible Word of the infinite God. They believe scientists have “proven” the earth is much older than the Bible suggests so they project their old age beliefs onto their understanding of the Bible.

I say instead we should use the clear meaning of the Bible to help us understand His creation. The Bible says that the heavens, earth, and everything in them was made in six days. We need not look for a different meaning to what is perfectly clear.

Palm Sunday – The Triumphant Entry

"And the disciples went, and did as Jesus commanded them, And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon. And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way. And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest. And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this? And the multitude said, This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee." Matthew 21:6-11

When Jesus entered Jerusalem on what is now known as Palm Sunday, He received a hero’s welcome. After all, He was looked upon as a deliverer, the one who would rescue the Jews from their Roman oppressors. They called Him the son of David and expected Him to take the throne that David once held. As I read the account in Matthew, I’m reminded of a similar scene when David was welcomed after defeating Goliath:

And it came to pass as they came, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet king Saul, with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of musick. And the women answered one another as they played, and said, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands. 1 Samuel 18:6-7

David was their deliverer then and they wanted Jesus to be their deliverer now. His entrance into Jerusalem to the accolades of many is sometimes called The Triumphant Entry. He was the long awaited Messiah. However, Jesus’ plan wasn’t the same as those receiving Him.

The Jews were looking for a conqueror – someone who would break the yoke of Rome’s tyranny over the nation. They wanted the Messiah to overthrow Caesar’s kingdom and establish His own kingdom. It’s true that Jesus will one day return as the Conqueror; One day, He will come as the Lion – but first He had to come as the lamb.

The Bible says there were times that people wanted to make Jesus their king (John 6:14-15, et al) but Jesus rejected the idea. His plan was to seek and save that which was lost (Luke 19:9-10). He was the Lamb of God, the perfect sacrifice that would take away the sins of the world (John 1:29). When He stood before Pilate, He didn’t proclaim Himself to be king; instead, He stood silently as a sheep before the shearer (Acts 8:32).

I can imagine the disappointment of the people less than a week later when they saw that Jesus was a prisoner of Pilate. The one in whom they had put their hope was now standing before them mocked, beaten, and humiliated. At the coaching of the Pharisees, they chose Barabbas (who had led an insurrection against Rome) for clemency over Jesus. Just a few days before, they hailed Jesus as the son of David; now they were crying, “Crucify Him!”

People are fickle. Some people want God to serve them rather than the other way around. They have a picture of who God is and how He is supposed to act. These people wanted God to rain fire down on their enemies but instead Jesus said, “Father forgive them” (Luke 23:34). They wanted Jesus to lead rebellion and Jesus said to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44). They wanted the Messiah to be a conqueror – not sometime in the future but now! And when Jesus wasn’t, they didn’t want anything to do with Him. They wanted Him to be their king – next they wanted Him dead.

I hope to live to see the return of Christ. I long to hear that trumpet sound and be delivered from this world. I want to see the Lion of Judah. But I’m more glad for the Lamb! We sometimes want God to do things our way; I like God’s plan better.

Taking the Bible Literally

A complaint often leveled against believers in the Genesis account of creation is that we are hyper-fundamentalists that read the Bible “literally.” Usually, the people who make this claim call themselves Christians and even claim to believe the Bible. They just believe that Genesis is an allegory for creation given to the ancient Jews in a language they could understand.

Why do people believe Genesis is allegory? It’s because they have trusted the opinions of certain scientists over the word of God. Now remember, these “scientists” believe in a brand of science that dismisses the possibility of a miracle a priori on the grounds that miracles cannot be verified by science. In other words, they have dismissed the Genesis account because it’s not “scientific.” And if you look at the evidence determined to only find a natural explanation, you’re guaranteed to find one. Their natural-only explanations are theories like the Big Bang and evolution.

But not all people who believe in these natural explanations want to reject the Bible so they reinterpret the Bible to fit their personal worldview. Genesis says God created the universe in 6 days? No problem! It’s just a metaphor for what really happened. It’s a story meant to teach that God is the Creator. That’s all! There’s no need to take the Bible “literally”!

To back up their claim, they point to passages like 1 Samuel 2:8 that says, “for the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and he hath set the world upon them.” Obviously, the earth doesn’t rest upon pillars so the Bible must be using a metaphor. Furthermore, some people will haggle over the meaning of the word “day” in the text. "A day can mean any number of things," they often say.

So, is there any merit to their arguments? In short – no! You see, the complaint that we read the Bible “literally” is really a straw man picture of what creationists believe. We don’t read the Bible “literally”; Rather, we read it as we do any other piece of literature (with the caveat that it was written by God). And yes, it uses literary devices like metaphor, analogy, simile, and personification. But just like any other book, most people don’t have trouble identifying what is what.

Consider the following sentences:

“I could eat a horse.”
“I rode a horse.”

Do you have any trouble understanding which statement is factual and which is hyperbole? I didn’t think you would. Most second graders can figure it out. So when we read the Bible, we don’t need an English professor (or Hebrew professor in the case of the original language) there to help explain to us which are factual statements and which are literary devices.

I sometimes am confounded at the mental gymnastics some people go through to deny the plain reading of the text. The danger in such a practice is the slippery slope phenomenon where everything we disagree with becomes metaphor. What’s next? Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead because that’s not scientific either? Look at these two verses:

“For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.” (Exodus 20:11).

“For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” (Matthew 12:40).

Now, from a simple reading of these two verses, what makes one factual and one allegorical? All I can say it that some people want to believe one and not the other. So they force the words to say what they want them to say.

As to the word “day,” it’s true that the word can mean different things. Look at the following sentence:

“In my grandfather’s day, a man could ride a horse 40 miles a day, riding by day.”

There are 3 meanings of the word day in that sentence. Do you have any trouble figuring out what each one means. Again, I’m sure you can. I did a quick search on Biblegateway.com and saw the word day appears in the KJV 2,263 times. Why is it that ordinary people can figure out the meaning of the word everywhere else in the Bible except Genesis?!

In conclusion, I reject the notion that I or other creation-believing Christians read the Bible literally. I say we read the Bible and understand the plain meaning of the words. It seems to me it’s the people who make the claim we’re “literalists” that have trouble reading the Bible!

Is There a Religious Case for Gay Marriage?

In the 12/15 issue of Newsweek, columnist Lisa Miller wrote an article titled, Our Mutual Joy, where she tries to make the case there are religious grounds to support gay marriage. Needless to say, her argument is a little weak. She gives a lot of “explanation” about what the Bible says but very few quotes from the Bible. You might say it’s sort of a “Gospel according to Lisa.”

She begins with the observation that Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon, and other patriarchs of the Bible were all polygamists. I thought that was odd. If she’s trying to support gay marriage, why is she emphasizing all of these heterosexual marriages? The only possible reason I can think of is to plant the seed of doubt that the traditional model of marriage doesn’t really exist in the Bible. Consider this quote from the article:

“While the Bible and Jesus say many important things about love and family, neither explicitly defines marriage as between one man and one woman.”

What?? She can’t be serious! This is an example of what I meant in saying the article is mostly what Lisa says about the Bible and not really about what the Bible says. Perhaps Lisa is unfamiliar with Mark 10:5-9. When asked about marriage (or more specifically, about divorce), Jesus said:

"It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law," Jesus replied. "But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.' 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." (NIV)

Now, this isn't what I’m telling you about the Bible. This is what the Bible says. If we read this passage, we see very clearly how the Bible defines marriage: One man married to one woman for life. It’s not a man with a man. It’s not a woman with a woman. It’s not a man and many women. It’s one man and one woman. End of story. Is that so hard to understand?

But I guess it is hard to understand because Lisa doesn’t seem to get it. When Jesus made the above statement, He was quoting Genesis 2:24. In her article, Lisa actually included the Genesis quote, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” But she immediately dismisses it by citing “Bible scholar” Alan Segal saying, “if you believe that the Bible was written by men and not handed down in its leather bindings by God, then that verse was written by people for whom polygamy was the way of the world.”

Lisa has a very strange way of making a point: She tries to use the Bible to support gay marriage; she cites passages from the Bible that support monogamous, heterosexual marriage; then dismisses the passages claiming they were written by chauvinists anyway.

Later, Lisa alludes to Romans 1 where Paul describes homosexuality as a perversion. She again cites another Bible “scholar”, Neil Elliott, who claims that Paul was referring only to the Roman Emperors. Per Elliott, “Paul is not talking about what we call homosexuality at all.” He’s not? Then in verse 27, where Paul says, “In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion,” that’s not talking about homosexuality? It sounds to me like Mr. Elliot is not much of a “scholar.”

To Lisa’s credit, she dug deep to try to find any verse in the Bible that supported her position. She quoted 2 Samuel 1:26 where David mourned the passing of Jonathan:

I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother;
you were very dear to me.
Your love for me was wonderful,
more wonderful than that of women.

So, is she trying to say that David and Jonathan were gay for each other? That’s ridiculous! Need I remind readers of David’s infamous encounter with Bathsheba? I assure you David was very much straight.

In concluding her article, Lisa penned these words:

“My friend the priest James Martin says his favorite Scripture relating to the question of homosexuality is Psalm 139, a song that praises the beauty and imperfection in all of us and that glorifies God’s knowledge of our most secret selves: ‘I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.’”

Huh? How exactly does that verse relate to homosexuality? And that’s the “priest’s” favorite Scripture on the issue? That seems to me de facto evidence of the lack of Biblical support for gay marriage.

In short, Ms. Miller’s article was little more than opinion, out-of-context quotes, and misrepresentations of the Bible. The Bible outright condemns homosexuality and specifically limits marriage to the monogamous union of a man and a woman. If Ms. Miller doesn’t agree, then she’s welcome to disagree. But please don’t resort to the absurd notion that the Bible actually means the opposite of what it clearly says.

Further reading: Is there a “Right” to be Gay?

Is God Cruel?

It’s brought up all the time: "Look at the atrocities ordered by God in the Old Testament." One passage often cited is 1 Samuel 15:2-3, where God said to Saul (via Samuel):

“Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”

Wow! That sounds mean. Why did God have to order every man, woman, and even every infant child to be killed? He even killed the animals to boot! This is one example yet there are other passages like this. Critics will latch onto these passages as evidence of the cruelty of God. But is there any merit to their argument?

There are a few logical fallacies in arguments like this. First, even though God did these things, does that somehow prove the Bible isn’t true? Hardly. This is what is known as an “appeal to emotions” or the "argument of outrage." That is, God can’t be God because He’s so mean. Even if God were “cruel,” that’s not automatic proof that He’s not God.

But this does raise the issue of God’s character. Is God guilty of murder? Is God worthy of worship? The answers respectively are “no” and “yes.”

It started back in the Garden of Eden where God commanded Adam not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. God explained the consequences to Adam:

“And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Genesis 2:16-17

You know the story – Adam did that which God commanded him not to do. When he did, he exchanged his immortal body for a body of flesh; he went from a body that would never die to a body that would die. We are the children of Adam and we have inherited his body of flesh.

According to the Bible, there is precisely one penalty for sin - death (Romans 6:23). All have sinned; all die (Romans 5:12). The mortality rate among people is exactly 100%. Some people die in their sleep; some people die at the point of a sword; some people die very old; some people die very young; but everybody dies!

God is the author of life and He decides when it ends. He is like the potter and it's His right to shape clay however He wants (Jeremiah 18:1-6). The Bible says it is appointed to man to die (Hebrews 9:27). We are not in a position to say to God, "This person's death is OK but this other death is murder!"

My grandfather died when he was 90 years old. My father died when he was 50 years old. I had a nephew that died at birth. Is that "fair"? Are we going to say that God "murdered" them? Is God not God because we think He's cruel?

We all have the same destiny - a grave. We all also have the same opportunity - salvation through His Son. When we stand before God in judgment (and we all will), I'm going to receive mercy because I have believed in His Son. Others are welcome to tell God you think He's a murderer and that He's being unfair.

1 Samuel 8:11-18: You Asked for Him

Is it blasphemous to believe that God has a sense of humor? Sometimes I think God, in His providence, has a funny way of reminding us how wrong we can be.

When God delivered His people out of Egypt, He established an unusual form of government. They did not have an earthly king; instead, God was their ruler. He gave them the Law through Moses and appointed judges whose job it was to interpret the Law. This lasted from the time of Moses until Samuel.

Now when Samuel was old, his sons had turned away from God (1 Samuel 8:3). Since there were no other judges, the people came to Samuel and asked him to give them a king like other nations (1 Samuel 8:5). It grieved God that they rejected Him as their ruler and He gave some stern warnings about what it would be like having an earthly king:

“… This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants.” [God ended with this most dire of warnings:] “And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day.” (1 Samuel 8:11-18)

The people persisted and God appointed Saul as their king. Sure enough, everything God had warned them about came true.

So where is the humor? The name “Saul” is a Hebrew word meaning, “asked for.” Every time we read about the failings of Saul, God reminds us that this was the king the people asked for.

A lot of people call Jesus, "Lord" but won't let Him be Lord of their lives. They think they know what’s best so they live their lives however they want – not how God wants. When things don’t turn out like they planned, they sometimes blame God. I think God, in His own gentle way, reminds them, “Don’t blame me - this is what you asked for.”