Posted in Bible • Continuity & Discontinuity • Natural Man • Uncategorized

Contradiction – A Loving God Executes Judgment

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There are no contradictions in the Bible. Yeah, I know, if you’re a believer you get the contradiction thing thrown at you all the time, but it’s just not true. The word contradiction literally means (from Latin) “to speak against” and includes “assertion of the opposite” or “direct opposition between things compared.” It is asserted that the Bible contradicts itself, therefore it cannot be believed. But it’s not the Bible that is contradictory, it is the person viewing it.

 

Usually the reason for the contradiction is all in the head. A contradiction is perceived because of limited understanding, limited information, or limited willingness to do what God says. Mostly it’s the lack of willingness. You can tell this by the extra tag on the alleged contradiction such as “I can’t believe in (or follow) a God who says He’s a God of love but would wipe out an entire race of people.” The “I can’t believe” statement gives them away. What they really mean is “I don’t want to do what God says and I’m using this as an excuse to do it.”

 

God is all love, but He is also all justice. He doesn’t stop being loving in order to be just, nor does He stop being just in order to love. He is always good, right, and holy. His love and justice go together. By definition whatever God does is good, right, holy, loving and just. We may not see it, or agree with His actions, but that does not mean that God contradicts Himself.

 

Have you ever heard it said, “You haven’t done what I’ve done” or “You wouldn’t understand what I’m going through because you haven’t been through it yourself” or similar statements? It’s wrong (do we have to hit a finger with every kind of hammer out there to know how it hurts with all of them?) but let’s go with the thought for a minute. People who trot out the contradiction thing judge the Bible without actually doing what it says. They haven’t “been through it themselves” so they will not understand. Their “natural minds” refuse God’s living oracles which affects understanding. They have no intention of doing what God says, therefore they think a contradiction exists in the Bible when it only exists in their head.

 

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14, ESV)

 

So if you are accosted by a person who insists on contradictions, just tell them they don’t understand because they haven’t been through what you’ve been through!

Posted in Church • Daily Living • Love • Marriage • Natural Man

Suicide Silence

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I’ve been quiet for a while (no pun) because I’ve been struggling with writing an article about suicide. Recently a nephew went out this way, and this brought back memories from a few years ago when an acquaintance went out by her own hand also. It has taken some time to put down my thoughts on paper (okay, a word processor) and arrange them in a readable format. The article has some very personal testimony, and is very blunt. The connecting subjects of divorce, homosexuality, depression and anger are part of it, so exercise caution in reading. There will be many who do not like the truths I included, and I will be attacked. Here are some of the opening paragraphs, and there’s a link at the bottom for the whole article on wholebible.com

 

Her name was Theresa, a woman who killed herself at the end of December 2004 by jumping from a cliff on a hill near my home. She left behind eight kids, a broken marriage, and saddened friends. I knew Theresa a little because a few years before she died I answered an ad she placed at a local music store for people to form a band. We played together a couple of times; she was gifted with writing songs and playing keyboard and guitar. It didn’t work out for us to keep playing together because she lived in a town about 45 minutes away, so I mostly lost touch with her except for a couple of emails. Once she attended a Bible study we had in our home but as I remember the distance again was too great so she didn’t keep coming. I was reacquainted with her when I saw the newspaper article telling of her death.

 

I thought at first that she could not possibly have committed suicide, because the last I knew she seemed to be well adjusted if melancholy and bitter over her divorce. She had, I heard, solid relationships with a Baptist church she attended after she moved to our town, loved her kids, and had various friends. I suspected foul play; she couldn’t have jumped; she must have been pushed. But as the details were related to me, they found her footprints at the top of the cliff showing she was running towards the edge, and she had to jump far enough to clear a ledge just below the lip of the cliff. What sort of pain and anger, I wondered at the time, drove her to run toward her own destruction like that?

 

More recently a nephew of mine also decided to end his life. I didn’t know him at all, really, because he lived in another state and he’s the son from a previous marriage of my sister-in-law’s second husband. I met him a couple of times when he was a teenager. He was a likable, quiet kid who was into computers and was an amateur astronomer. According to friends he was smart and had two astronomy magazine articles written about some of his work. Like Theresa, he also seemed stable and there was no warning that he was feeling suicidal. Neither left a note, so we can only guess at the final straw that caused them to self-depart this physical plane.

 

As I understand it, for a few days before Theresa killed herself she wore duct tape over her mouth. One of her kids asked her why, and she said “no one was listening to her anyway.” She was right, in a way. We don’t want to hear it when someone is contemplating their own demise. After they’re dead we wonder why they didn’t seek help, but before they go it’s too uncomfortable to consider. Even if they did talk people have difficulty with answering. We can’t even talk about it very well after our loved ones are gone, so how much harder is it when they’re alive?

 

Read more online at www.wholebible.com

Posted in Holy Spirit • Humility • Law • Natural Man • Relevance • Whole Bible Christianity book

The Natural Man and Spiritual Relevance

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From ‘Whole Bible Christianity’ chapter 4 ‘The Natural Man and Spiritual Relevance’

For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:11–16, ESV)

The “natural person” does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him. The Word (the Law) looks foolish, so he refuses to do anything God says. God’s Law is spiritual (Romans 7:14) so a natural man does not think it is relevant. It is as if a starving man were at a banquet but refusing to eat because it isn’t served on china. All he has to do is reach out his hand and partake of God’s blessings, but he won’t because it is served on wood plates. Only when we humbly submit to God do we see that His knowledge is not foolish. When we reject the knowledge of God given in the Law, it shows that we are not spiritual. A new heart of flesh written with the Law by the Spirit recognizes the blessings in the Law freely given us by God.