Isn’t the Law of God weird?

Question: Aren’t the laws in the Law of Moses outdated and weird? Is there any value is studying them?

Reasonable: The Law of God that He gave through Moses is not weird. Read, for example, Exodus 21 and 22 and see how reasonable these laws were. These laws reveal a society that could order its behaviour by God’s design.

Dealing with Failure: The laws recognised that the Sin in men or women would mean they offended or harmed other men or women and so guidance was given how to deal with such things. Where the sin was expressly against God, the sacrificial law gave a way for the Israelite to approach God through a prescribed way to receive His forgiveness. Guidance was given to maintain health and a healthy life.

Practical Reasons: Sometimes the laws were very obvious in the practical outworking. Sometimes they were to keep Israel from becoming like their pagan neighbours. On a few rare occasions the reason for a law was unclear and we await scientific evidence to clarify what we don’t see at the moment. Some of the ceremonial law is repetitious as it seeks to convey the details of what needed to be done to restore a broken relationship with the Lord. For that reason it may not be the most edifying reading, and because it no longer applies to us (because Jesus has come and fulfilled the Law – see the New Testament) that should not deny value in our studying it to see how it worked in the lives of this embryonic people.

Variety: Some of the laws we find integrated within our own modern laws. Some of them fly contrary to the philosophical position we have taken today in the West (e.g. death penalty) and some of them would no longer have any relevance in our modern Western societies (e.g. laws on slavery, or the ceremonial or sacrificial laws).

Value: These were God’s laws for that society at that time. The Ten Commandments span history in their ongoing application but it is difficult to apply laws for a primitive agricultural society to our modern, highly technological society. The value in examining them is twofold: to see God’s wisdom for that nation and to observe principles that should under gird any society on this world that belongs to God.

(The above is abstracted from the book “God’s Love in the Old Testament” referred to on the blog. Use the link to go to the book for a detailed working out of this answer)

A New Approach

Since adding the last post, I have added a new link to a new book.

Possibly the greatest number of  questions I receive are about God’s love in the Old Testament. To that end I have written a book covering this subject from an apologetics stance. Please see the website link on this page if you are a serious seeker of the truth and would like to think about this subject more fully..

A Killer God – update

Over the time that this blog has been in existence, one of the greatest source of questions and comments has been the subject of how a loving God can possibly require the wiping out of a nation or nations, as in the case of Israel being required to ‘remove’ the inhabitants of Canaan.

How can God require the deaths of men, women and innocent children, the questioners ask. My original assumption that my answers on this blog were sufficient has been proved to be false. People still ask the same old questions.

Now one of the things that does need to be said is that very often I find people are  selective in their reading and so don’t take in parts of what I have said. It is also quite clear that prior bias often blinds people to be open to consider alternatives, and so for these reasons hostile questions flow.

However, I am concerned to meet the needs of genuine seekers and to that end I have produced a three part booklet entitled “Taking Canaan” which can be found by following the following link: CLICK HERE

I hope this will prove more satisfactory for genuine seekers. It seeks to review what the Old Testament teaches about God and justice, then reflects on what justice is, and finally examines exactly what took place when God  instructs Israel to take Canaan. Hopefully the truth will shed fresh light in worried minds.

There is no truth?

Question: Surely there is no such thing as truth?

Some simple thoughts that confront our intellectual dishonesty

Modern Western cultures have come to think about ‘truth’ as something that in reality probably doesn’t exist.

A. A Starting Point:

Assertion 1: Everyone is concerned with truth until it comes to morals or religion.

Now IF that is so then we have to ask why, to which we have another assertion:

Assertion 2: Our rejection of moral or religious truth is on grounds of our will and not our intellect.

i.e. we choose not to believe in moral or religious truth because it makes demands on us.

Let’s check it out.

B. Observe Everyday Life Situations

Observe this conversations or part conversations:

Example 1:

“Mummy, it’s not fair. Alice had more sweets than me!”

i.e. an appeal to the truth of what happened, for justice to be done! Even at age 5!!!!

Example 2:

“Jack, have you been sleeping with your secretary?”

i.e. a wife’s demand for the truth about her husbands unfaithfulness

Example 3:

“Doctor, I want to know the truth. Have I got cancer?”

i.e. a patient’s demand to know the truth about their health

Example 4:

“Mr. Jones, as our lawyer, can you explain the small print in this contract we’ve been given, please.”

i.e. a client’s demand to know the truth about the implications of an agreement.

Example 5:

“Geoff, will you give this car a look-over for us please. The guy who’s selling it says it’s perfectly OK but something about him makes me wonder.”

i.e. appealing to a mechanic to determine the truth about a car’s roadworthiness.

Example 6:

“Excuse me, Mr. Brown, but I understand Janet is getting £3 an hour more than me for the same job.”

i.e. an appeal to an employer for the truth about pay differentials.

Example 7:

“We will be setting up an independent investigation as to the cause of the rail crash.”

i.e. a requirement to find the truth about what caused an accident.

Example 8:

“Well, yes, the producers did choose the winners, and it wasn’t anything to do with the phone-in”

i.e. confessions of abuses which offend our desire for truth in TV games-show management, of which there were a large number in 2007 in the UK.

Example 9:

“Well yes, I’m afraid your pension plan hasn’t left you with as much as we thought.”

i.e. confession of insurance salesman trying to appease our demand for the truth as to why original projections were wrong. Again, familiar in the early years of the 21st century.

Example 10:

“Well the label on the bottle didn’t say anything about additives that my child is allergic to!”

i.e. demand for the truth of labelling on bottles

Example 11:

“You’ll see a gritting sign on the southern road, but don’t worry, they’re not doing gritting; it was just left there after they did it three weeks ago.”

i.e. acknowledgement that some road signs don’t always tell the truth – but we want them to!

Example 12:

“The Secretary for State was required to appear before the House this afternoon to say why he had denied they had been any misdoings in his department.”

i.e. recognition that we demand truth be told publicly by our senior government ministers.

C. Claims of a Modern Cynic

These are the things that are so often said today:

“Truth does not exist.”

“What’s right for you may not be right for me.”

“It’s all a matter of opinion.”

“You shouldn’t judge.”

“Religion is about faith, not facts.”

“Religion is all right in private, but shouldn’t be brought into the public arena.”

D. Look at the truth about these

1. We don’t live like we say

The twelve examples above challenge these cynical statements.

“What’s right for you may not be right for me.” Really? Try telling the police that?

“There’s no such thing as right or wrong.” Really? I’m not sure you’ll still think that when your house is burgled or if a loved one was raped or murdered!

“You should be tolerant of different people’s behaviour.” Really? Even when that behaviour is evil?

2. We speak self-defeating statements

“There is no such thing as truth”   Really, so is that true?

“All truth is relative. There are no absolutes.” Really? So that’s not an absolute statement and it’s not true? Are you absolutely sure?

3. Contradicting Beliefs cannot both be true

This is why all religions are NOT the same, in just the same way that all political parties are not the same.

E. Why these silly ways of speaking?

Going back to the beginning we said that “Our rejection of moral or religious truth is on grounds of our will and not our intellect.”

The main reason we say these silly things that are not true (the claims of the cynic above) is because we don’t WANT a belief system that makes demands of us. We don’t like being told we’re wrong. We like to be able to do what we want, even if it is self-destructive.

F. To Summarise

• we do all believe in truth
• we deny it when it is inconvenient
• we uphold it when it serves our purposes
• yet we do all believe in truth, whatever we say!

This, therefore, is simply an appeal for intellectual honesty.

God and Satan

Question: Why in the Bible does God allow Satan to do what he does? If God is all powerful why didn’t He just destroy Satan?

It is clear from the Bible that God USES Satan for His own purposes. The following are some of those purposes as shown in the Bible (you will need to look up each of the references in your own Bible to catch the full meaning):

1. To reveal men’s hearts

• 1 Chron 21:1 Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel – he was to reveal David’s underlying sin of pride – in the parallel verses (2 Sam 24:1) it is seen as God who was behind it (to deal with the sin)

2. To bring judgement on unbelievers

• Rev 9:11 They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon. (both names mean “Destroyer”)

3. To bring discipline to believers

• 1 Cor 5:5 by putting this sinful believer out of the church’s protection, it enabled Satan to come against him and humble him and bring him to repentance

4. To subjugate unbelievers

• 1 Jn 5:19b the whole world is under the control of the evil one
• Satan is allowed to rule where there is unconfessed sin, i.e. over unbelievers

5. To maintain humility in our lives

• One of the key things God does with his children is to seek to develop character in them.  As pride is always lurking, sometimes God allows us to be attacked so that we maintain our reliance upon Him and realise that of ourselves we are nothing.

• 2 Cor. 12:7 Because Paul received wonderful revelations from God, to keep him from getting puffed up, he was given a thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment him and keep him from getting proud.

6. To develop faith & righteousness in our lives

• Faith is one of the key elements God wants to develop in our lives, and so often He does this by allowing us to encounter trying circumstances where our faith is both revealed and developed.  Similarly, such testing times are to reveal and bring about greater righteousness within us.

• 1 Peter 1:7 – trials are testings, and testings reveal our faith – such revelation of our faith brings honour in heaven

• 1 Peter 5:8-9 – Satan seeks to attack us, but we are to learn to resist.

• 2 Peter 1:4-8 – the testing of our faith develops our lives in many ways

7. To bring about trials whereby we can be rewarded

• These trials, that involve Satan, make us rely upon God, His word and His Spirit and so the outcome of the battles we fight is that we appreciate Him, His word and His Spirit more and more.

• James 1:12 God blesses the people who patiently endure testing – testing develops us and God blesses through it

• 1 John 2:13,14 – it is a battle with Satan which we can win with God’s word, as we battle we rely on that word more and more

• 1 John 4:1-6 – our battle is also with Satan’s agents; we are to overcome in the mind and we overcome by the Holy Spirit within us, as we overcome we realise the wonder of who it is within us more and more.

• Rev. 2:17 – our reward, as we overcome Satan’s attacks, will be intimacy with Christ

• Rev. 2:26-28 – as we obey Jesus and have the victory so he is preparing us to take authority, both in this world and the next.

8. To teach us how to fight

• As we face such trials we learn how to overcome.

• Judges 3:2 God did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience.

• Israel grew in their knowledge of the Lord and how to fight as they opposed the enemy. We do the same in the spiritual sphere.

9. To demonstrate God’s power over the enemy

• We need reminding who is who in the battle. Jesus IS Lord!

• Eph 3:10 His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made  known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.

• As we triumph God is glorified in the heavens.

• Mk 1:21-27 As Jesus cast out a demon God was glorified.

• Acts 13:6-12 As Saul triumphs over Elymas God was glorified.

Conclusions:

Although Satan was apparently not created for these express purposes, God takes and uses his rebellion for His purposes.

As Joseph once said, (Gen 50:20) “You intended to harm me but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

Thus it is that in this fallen world where sin dominates, Satan is allowed access for the sake of God’s overall purposes.

We, therefore, need to maintain a right perspective so that we see:

• Where the enemy is being allowed activity because of man’s unrighteousness, and therefore the unrighteousness is the thing to be dealt with.

• Where the enemy should be resisted because he is simply seeking to expand his arena of control, and here we need to look to seek what God is wanting us to learn or develop in resisting the enemy, so we can co-operate with Him.

(J8) Discipline & Judgment

Question: What is the difference between God’s discipline, correction and judgment?

These three concepts occur many times in the Old Testament and again, they are often confused or misunderstood. The wise person examines the Bible before making rash comments about God and exposing their own lack of understanding.

1. Discipline

Discipline means training that develops self-control and character.

Reminding Israel what had happened to them, Moses said, “You were shown these things so that you might know that the LORD is God; besides him there is no other. From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you.” (Deut 4:35,36).

In other words God’s intention, through speaking to Israel, was to train them to become His people who lived according to His design-laws. [The Laws that God gave to Israel simply reflected the way He has designed humanity to ‘work’ best.]

Indeed later in Deuteronomy He reminded them that part of their training was observing how He had moved in power on their behalf to save them out of Egypt (Deut 11:2-7).

We often think of discipline as punishment, but God always views it as training. It is not destructive but formative.

In the New Testament, the writer to the Hebrews was to comment about God’s discipline:

“No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” (Heb 12;11)

Note God trains for a good outcome.

2. Correction

The concept of correction is very similar – action taken to bring about change of behaviour.

“The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother.” (Prov 29:15)

The whole point of God’s relationship with Israel was so that He could train them, correct them and bring them into a place of understanding where they could see that God had designed the world in a particular way and that He had designed us to ‘work’ in a particular way.

When they ‘worked’ or lived like that, then blessing flowed, partly because God brought blessings, but more simply because they were operating or working (if you will excuse the mechanical sense) as they were meant to, i.e. according to design. Because God is good and God is love, that way meant it is enjoyable and for our pleasure and benefit.

Yet, the truth is that Israel displayed the same sinfulness that is seen in all of mankind and foolishly turned away from God, rejecting all the goodness that is available when we live as designed!

In Leviticus we find God challenging Israel: “in spite of these things you do not accept my correction but continue to be hostile toward me.” (Lev 26:23). The “these things” had been a variety of punishments which were being used as forms of discipline to bring correction (change of behaviour)

3. Judgment

Judgment refers to an act of judging. When it is God bringing judgment there are always two aspects to it:

i) the act of assessing wrong or determining wrong and rendering a just verdict, and

ii) the act of bringing the decreed punishment, where there was an ongoing, established wrong.

Now there is nothing strange about this because we are very much aware of the law enforcement aspects of our own nations:

• lawmakers who decree the Law,
• police who apprehend apparent lawbreakers,
• judges who determine the truth of the situation and determine punishment, and
• prisons that implement the punishment (or whoever is involved in whatever other form of punishment is applied).

In respect of God, He is lawmaker, judge and executioner.

Executioner is in fact NOT the right word but we use it for the moment because it is what many think!

We need to observe, therefore, that punishment can be one of two forms:

i) death – where God sees and knows the person or group are so set in their ways that nothing

will change them,

ii) painful activity not involving death (often another hostile, godless nation) – where God sees that this will act in a corrective manner to bring about good change in them.

God’s Righteousness

Something to be noted along the way is the description of God that occurs again and again in the Bible: that God is righteous and everything He does is righteous.

This simply means that everything about God – His thoughts and His actions – are always exactly right. Because He has total knowledge and total wisdom He never ever makes a mistake.

Now obviously that is a faith statement which is in line with the Scriptural teaching and if you say, “Can you prove that?” I have to reply, “Yes, but only when you die and face God.”

However with a little thought and consideration, understanding can be gained from the study of the Bible in a far greater way that is usually found in people. Mostly we prefer to read little, study even less, and then make shallow comments that only reveal our lack of understanding.

Our difficulty is that we do not have total knowledge and we are so often motivated by self-centred emotions, so that our ‘judgment’ is often wrong – but God’s isn’t!

If we don’t understand the grounds on which God declares judgment (and He always does make it clear in Scripture WHY He is bringing punishment), it is simply that we don’t understand the awfulness of an attitude or action of an individual or group. Instead we foolishly blame God for what we assume (wrongly) is injustice.

(J7) Is God hostile & judgmental

Question:  Various crusading atheists portray God in the Old Testament as angry, hostile and thoroughly unpleasant. Is this what the Bible says about Him?

It is important to observe how God is described in the Bible because the misunderstandings about God and judgment appear again and again in the works of today’s crusading atheists. The truth is exactly the opposite to what is often declared.

See the following description of God in the Old Testament:

“The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. ” (Ex 34:6).

God who is compassionate is also referred to in: Ex 22:27 Ex 34:6, 2Ch 30:9, Neh 9:17, Ps 86:15, Ps 103:8, Ps 111:4, Ps 145:8, Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2

God who is gracious is also referred to in: 2Ch 30: 9, Neh 9:17,31, Ps 86:15, 103:8, 111:4, 116:5, 145:8, Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2, with many other references to His gracious acts.

God who is slow to anger is also referred to in: Num 14:18, Neh 9:17, Psa 86:15, 103:8, 145:8, Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2, Nah 1:3

God who is abounding in love is referred to in: Num 14:18, Neh 9:17, Psa 86:5,15, 103:8, Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2 with multitudinous other references to God’s love.

Now the point is that these descriptions are repeated by many different writers in the Old Testament, and yes the above words often go together and are often repeats of the original, but they go to show that the writers at least had this opinion of God. The above references are strictly those with those exact phrases but the sense of each is repeated many, many more times right the way throughout the Old Testament.

The writers would not use these descriptions if they felt otherwise about God.

Why does God allow babies to die?

Question: If God is a God of love, why does He allow babies to die?

Answer:

a) Our Expectations

Well first of all, the question is rather limited. It might have been, why does God allow anyone to die prematurely, because surely the thought of premature death is what is behind your question.

We somehow expect everyone to live on into ripe old age, but so often we don’t. People do die of heart attacks in their 30’s 40’s or whatever other age we consider ‘premature’. Why do they, and why do babies die prematurely? More often than not it can be put down to what theologians call this ‘Fallen World’.

b) The Existence of a Fallen World

The reference to ‘a Fallen World’ means the world is not perfect like it was when God first made it, because the first man and woman (the first real humans) ‘fell’ from their state of perfection by going against God’s design and in so doing, introduced what the Bible refers to as ‘Sin’ into the world. In its most simple description, ‘Sin’ is ignoring God and living contrary to His design.

It is a very simple and straight forward analogy, but if you try running a car contrary to the maker’s design, it will soon breakdown. The effect of humanity living contrary to God’s design, the Bible reveals to us, was that it created strife between human beings, fear in animals, and a general breaking down of the way the world ‘works’. Thus we now have sickness, illness and infirmity as common experiences and ultimately they all exist because of humanity’s decision to live contrary to God’s design. Those working with genetics talk about faulty genes, but these aren’t accidents, they are the ultimate result of our living contrary to God’s design.

c) Why doesn’t God intervene?

This was a key part of the original question. If God is all-powerful and loving, why doesn’t He intervene, why doesn’t He step in and stop babies and adults dying prematurely? The answer is terrible: respect! God respects and honours our free will choices which most of the time, for many people, could be summed up as ignoring or rejecting God, His presence and His design and His will.

God gives us the right to live our lives just as we want and so most of the time He will not force Himself upon us (on occasions He does impose on us in measures that demand our attention). As soon as we take note of Him, respond to His calling and surrender our lives to Him and ask His forgiveness for our folly, and ask Him to lead us and help us, then He is there and will willingly intervene as we request and when He sees that would be best. Thus when ‘life goes wrong’, although it grieves Him (for He longs to help) He will stand aside and allow us to lead our lives as we will and cope as we will with the upsets of life.

Why doesn’t He intervene and stop all premature death and illness? Because He’s given us ‘the car’ to ‘drive’, and allows us to wreck it. To stop that happening, He would have to either change the laws of science or turn us into robots that would always use ‘the car’ perfectly according to His design. Once He gave us free will, He gave us the right to misuse ‘life’ and the only alternative to what we experience today, would have been to remove that free will and that would mean we cease to be human beings and all that that means.

We need to add that He doesn’t sit back and ignore our plight when tragedy hits. God anguishes with us. The Bible speaks of Him as a God of comfort and He comforts because He feels with us and for us. Jesus came to enable a closeness to come about between us and God, and in that closeness, although He usually does not step in to stop such things, He will be there for us. Ultimately the Bible indicates that God doesn’t make mistakes but we’ll have to wait until we get to heaven and see Him face to face, to know the truth about our personal circumstances. In the meantime He is there for us, even in the midst of immense anguish.

How many O.T. originals do we have today?

Question: How many Old Testament documents do we have today and how reliable are they?

Answer:

Josh McDowell in New Evidence that Demands a Verdict, categorises in detail the thousands of manuscripts we have available today around the world, that attest to the validity of the N.T.

In comparison to what we might expect, there are a limited number of such manuscripts for the O.T.

The reason suggested for this limitation is that of age – 2 or 3 thousand years is a long time to expect a document to last – and destructibility of materials.

However, beyond those two reasons, a primary reason was to do with the destruction of documents when they became damaged.

To understand this more fully it is useful to understand how documents came down us:

1. An original author wrote on clay, rock (early materials), papyrus (most common material, made from reeds), or parchments (later usage, made from animal skins) or vellum (calf skin, often dyed purple).

2. Copies would be made – and here the detail should be noted:

• So concerned were the ancient scribes over the copying accuracy of sacred documents that they wouldn’t write even one letter from memory, only from what they had immediately in front of them.
• To achieve accuracy they even counted every letter on a line and checked it with the original.
• They numbered lines and words and letters to ensure accuracy.
• If they made a single mistake they destroyed the copy and started again!
• When a new copy was guaranteed perfect, they would destroy the old one because physical damage gradually occurring might mean mistakes in reading it.

Our earliest complete O.T. manuscript comes from the 10th century AD. although we have plenty of older fragments.

Unlike the New Testament documents, it is really impossible to trace back to the originals. The finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 changed things considerably however.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of scrolls dating from between 3rd Century BC through to the 1st century AD.

To quote McDowell, “They include one complete Old Testament book (Isaiah) and thousands of fragments, which together represent every Old Testament book except Esther,” and these have been used to confirm the evidence of thousands of other documentary fragments that reveal the O.T.

What N.T. confirmation is given of the O.T.?

Question: What New Testament Confirmation is given of the Old Testament?

Answer:

a) The N.T. about history

The following is just a starter illustration of the many instances where New Testament references are made to the historical factualness of the Old Testament.

You are invited to note, as you read the N.T. the incredible numbers of supporting Scriptures:

Mt 12:-4 David eating the bread

Mt 12:40 Jonah in the fish

Mt 12:42 The Queen of Sheba coming to Solomon

Lk 4:25,26 Elijah going to the widow

Lk 4:27 Naaman cleansed of leprosy

Lk 12:29- Sodom and Gomorrah

Jn 3:14 Moses and the serpent

Jn 4:6 Jacob giving a field

Acts 7:2-50 Detailed history of Israel

Acts 13:17-23 Overall history of Israel

Rom 4:10 Abraham believing

Rom 4:19 Abraham 100 years old

Rom 9:10-12 Rebekah and children

b) The New Testament about prophecy

It is suggested by scholars that there are over 300 prophecies that Jesus Christ fulfilled.

The N.T. is full of references to the O.T. prophecies. The following is, again, merely a starter selection taken from Matthew’s Gospel, and the student is invited to go through the N.T. and note the many similar references:

1:22,23 Jesus to be born of a virgin

2:5,6 Born in Bethlehem

2:15 He would come out of Egypt

2:17,18 There would be weeping over children

2:23 He would live in Nazareth

3:3 The coming of John the Baptist

4:13-16 He would minister in Galilee