BibleIssues

Testimony of Rachel Barkey

2009-05-26T19:08:00.000-07:00

To watch a video in which Rachel Barkey, diagnosed with terminal cancer, explains why the Bible is important for everyone, click here.

Ignorance is Not a Virtue

2009-02-09T17:15:00.000-08:00

Suppose the God who is revealed in Scripture actually exists, and that everything the Scriptures say about Him is true. Would believing that make a difference in your life, especially since the Scriptures say that God will hold us accountable for knowing what they say?

"But wait--", you may say, "don't I get a 'pass', since I'm very ignorant of what the Scriptures say, and surely God will not hold someone like me accountable for knowing what is in His word?" The fact is, however, that this is exactly what the Scriptures say He will do. "But what about all those people in various parts of the world who do not have access to the Scriptures?", you may ask. If you knew what the Scriptures say, however, you would know that this apparent problem is resolvable, and that it is not an excuse for those who do have access to the Scriptures for being ignorant of them.

"What about all the people involved in other religions", you may ask. After all, if you are to accept the Bible as true, it means not only that they are wasting their time, but that they're in fact increasing their own guilt. "How can that be the case, when so many deserving people are involved in other religions?", or "How can that be fair when so many people don't have the same opportunity?", you may ask. If you knew what the Scriptures say, however, you would know that they do provide an explanation.

"Even if I were to get serious about knowing what the Scriptures say, what hope would I have of making any sense out of them if so many churches and denominations have different interpretations of what they say about important issues?", you may ask. You may then claim this is justification for you to refuse to even show any interest in what the Scriptures say. Again, if you knew what the Scriptures say, however, you would know that this apparent problem is resolvable. To give you a hint, historically all major Christian traditions have agreed on certain major teachings of the Scriptures, and where differences exist regarding certain issues, the choices are very limited and are well documented. If you keep in mind that the Scriptures do not instruct people to belong to a particular church or denomination or tradition, and that instead we are called to believe what the Scriptures say and to learn from them how we can be reconciled to God and have fellowship with Him, I submit to you that the existence of many churches, denominations, and traditions does not pose an insurmountable problem. The question is, are you willing to do the work?

Of course, you may have in the back of your mind that if you embrace certain truth claims, you will incur the disdain of the world around you, a world which you may want to always love you and give you it's approval. It may be too unbearable for you to countenance the thought of falling out of the world's favor and to no longer be invited to it's parties. Maybe you're willing to sacrifice your eternal well-being in exchange for being in the world's favor. Maybe you've thoroughly convinced yourself that keeping yourself as ignorant as a brick about ultimate issues will allow you to experience a nice, warm, friendly relationship with the world, as well as allow you to avoid accountability for your shortcomings, and by default give you a guarantee that you will have a blissful existence in eternity if in fact some kind of afterlife exists.

This approach will not solve anything for you, of course. The only things it will accomplish is prevent you from discovering what your greatest need is, how it can be met, and what life is all about. You will have no basis for comfort in life or in death other than yourself, and you will be forced to keep yourself distracted from thinking about any kind of ultimate meaning. And if you live in an industrialized society, you may have a huge selection of entertaining pursuits that can easily take up all of your time and energy and thus enable you to succeed.

No Excuse

2007-09-22T17:06:00.000-07:00

If people do not even want to consider what the Scriptures say or the mountain of evidence which corroborates them as a whole, how can they possibly have an excuse for not knowing exactly what is in store for them on the Last Day? The fact that they may have churches or religions is irrelevant in such cases. Furthermore, I submit that people who think they are more informed, more sophisticated, or superior to those who take the Scriptures seriously, including all that they say regarding our greatest need (as summarized in the Heidelberg Catechism, for example), could not be more mistaken. They have a fundamental flaw in their concept of ultimate reality which exacts a terrible price when carried to completion.

Reasons Why People are Ignorant

2007-07-16T13:07:00.000-07:00

To read A Critique of Ten Reasons Given for Why People are Ignorant of What the Scriptures Say about the Most Important Issues in Life, click here. Feel free to post your comments below.

Just a Note

2006-11-22T06:37:00.000-08:00

Feel free to add a comment to any of the posts in this blog. For a more complete presentation of Bible issues, click here.

The Origin of Scriptures

2005-11-03T18:42:00.000-08:00

If you believe anything at all about the origin of the Scriptures, you believe something extraordinary. This is because many of the writers of Scripture said they were eyewitnesses of various miraculous events about which they wrote. If they were all involved in a conspiracy to propagate falsehoods, they seemed to have pulled it off without a hitch. What an amazing feat considering the public nature of some of the events! If they were all misled or deluded, how amazing it is that their stories are all consistent with each other and they got all of their verifiable facts straight! Of course, if their accounts of what happened are accurate, they are extraordinary in that we don't see many of those things happening today.

What is the Bible?

2005-10-24T15:07:00.000-07:00

In a nutshell, the Bible is a collection of books which were written by many authors over many centuries. A number of different kinds of literature are found in these books, such as poetry, wisdom, apocalyptic, etc. Among these different kinds of literature, the most common, no doubt, is the record of past events. The question is, should the Bible’s account of history be viewed as history, or should it be viewed as something else?

To really be able to answer this question, we need to know something about the intentions of the writers of the books of the Bible. What were their intentions? I only know of three basic hypothetical possibilities.

One possibility is that the biblical accounts of past events were simply made up in a deliberate attempt to promote the writers’ agendas. If this were the case, one would naturally expect to find factual errors and inconsistencies in the text. Also, since many writers were involved, one would expect to find evidence of collusion. Finally, due to the controversial claims by many of the writers, one would expect intense persecutions to have led to the confessions of at least some of them and their supporters that the books contained fabrications.

The main problem with this scenario is that no evidence of such a conspiracy exists. Although the text of the Bible has undergone centuries of scrutiny, no one has shown that the original text contained provable errors. Neither have the writers been shown to have engaged in collusion, and none of them confessed to have been a part of any kind of conspiracy despite intense persecution even to the point of death.

Another hypothetical possibility is that the biblical accounts of past events were not intended to be taken as history, but rather as parables designed to teach various principles, etc. After all, if other ancient writers engaged in this kind of practice, why couldn’t the biblical writers have done the same?

The problem with this view is, again, a lack of evidence. If the accounts of events were never meant to be taken as historical, why such detail in so many instances? Also, major events, such as the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians (II Kings 25:1-10; II Chronicles 36:15-19) and the conquest of Babylon by the Medes and Persians (Daniel 5:25-31) are clearly historical. Furthermore, writers of New Testament books make it clear that they were careful to present the facts of history. In Luke 1:1-4 we read, “Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed.” In II Peter 1:16 we read, “For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty.”

Clearly, then, we are left with one reasonable possibility: the writers of the biblical accounts of events in the past intended to record history accurately. Admittedly, this by itself does not prove that the biblical accounts of past events are accurate. Are these accounts mistaken in any of the details? Without any provable errors in the text, we have no basis for such a conclusion.

Exactly Who is Going to Heaven, Anyway?

2005-04-17T13:44:00.000-07:00

I realize not all people believe in the existence of an eternal state of well-being known as Heaven. If you are one of these people who do not, I invite you to consider the possibility for a few moments, and ask yourself if the view presented here is in agreement with the text of Scripture, even if for no other reason than to be better informed. If you do not think it is worth your time to learn what the Scriptures say about anything, I suppose all I can do is to ask you to consider the possibility that you are mistaken. After all, what do you have to lose?

Many people may think we need not be concerned with this issue since it is commonly believed that we all start out as objects of God's love, and if we are generally nice people, we will surely go to Heaven when we leave this life. Furthermore, it is often suggested that because so many people think this way, this view cannot possibly be wrong.

If Scripture is truly the authoritative word of the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, however, we must base our understanding on what it says, not our sentiments or a general consensus of the world around us. And the Scriptures are not silent on this subject.

One of the noblest of characters in the Bible, King David, had this to say about himself: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.” (Psalm 51:5) Why did he say this? Was he unique in this respect? No, he was not unique. In fact, this is how we all start out in this life—as Scripture says, we “...were by nature children of wrath...” (Ephesians 2:3)

According to the Scriptures, the human race began with the creation of our first parents, Adam and Eve. They were created good and perfect. Then they disobeyed what God had commanded, and as a result they lost their inherent goodness, and became subject to the curse of decay and death. Not only were they plagued with this condition, but their descendents would likewise be plagued. We read in the Scriptures: “…through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men…” (Romans 5:12); and, “…by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners…” (Romans 5:19)

Given this universal starting point for all human beings, what then is our status before God while in this state? Is God neutral towards us? Here is what the Scriptures say: “…through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation…” (Romans 5:18) You may say to yourself, “That isn’t fair! I had no choice in the matter!” And you may wonder if you could have done better.

Let’s suppose, hypothetically, that you were created first, exactly as our first parents, under exactly the same conditions. Then you would not be you—you would be one of them. So then we are right back to Adam and Eve.

You may argue that things would be different if our first parents had obeyed God perfectly. Then we would not be in our present predicament. Since that is not how things happened, however, let us not waste any more time speculating about it.

But the story does not end here. We have one remedy, and only one remedy, for our predicament. This remedy is the removal of our guilt by and the imputed righteousness of the Son of God, and it is applied to us through a certain kind of faith in Him. As the Scriptures say, we need to be “…justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith…” (Romans 3:24-25), and that His righteousness “…shall be imputed to us who believe…” (Romans 4:24)

And this faith is not to be equated with something we do. Neither is it being a member of a particular church or denomination. Faith is something invisible to us, even if it is within ourselves, and it manifests itself in various ways and at various times, although at its core it involves a willingness to know, understand, and submit to the word of God, all of which are the result of a work of grace in our lives (see my article at http://pages.sbcglobal.net/dcrow/dave/work.html). This is not to say that anyone reaches a state of perfection in this life. The Scriptures make it clear that those who manifest true faith at various times are still plagued with sin. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (I John 1:8) “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.” (I John 1:10)

In short, we don’t have any way of directly knowing who is going to Heaven. Our best indicators are a professed faith in the Son of God alone as one’s all-sufficient Savior and a demonstrated willingness to know, understand, and submit to Scripture. Though it may not always be clear whether or not someone has manifested these characteristics, we can be sure that if these characteristics are continuously absent in a person’s life, that person cannot possibly be bound for Heaven.

It is important to have scriptural assurance of a positive relationship with the Creator and Judge, as it enables us to have comfort in life and in death, that no matter what happens, it will work out for our good, and that in eternity we will experience constant blessing without suffering. Apart from such a relationship with God, we are under His wrath, and face an eternity of constant suffering without blessing.

If you have questions on this or other biblical subjects, you can contact me via www.megaquestions.com. You can also post a response via this site (by accessing the link to this blog on the lower left, then clicking on "comments" immediately below this post).