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Greetings!Rev. Scott Jones has been an American Baptist minister since 1997. He was born in Des Moines, Iowa, growing up in Iowa and South Dakota. He received his Bachelor of Arts in vocal music at Iowa State University in 1994 and earned a Masters in Divinity from Northern Seminary in 1997. He was ordained in 1997 in the Mid-America Baptist Churches (Iowa and Minnesota). Scott is the 21st minister of the First Baptist Church of Greensburg.
Scott first responded to Jesus in faith as a young child and was baptized at age 13. He has been blessed throughout his life with wonderful role models in his parents, ABY youth group, and ABC summer camp, where he was invited to say “yes” to the Lord’s call on his life. His ministry is about worship, preaching, teaching, evangelism, and relationships. He uses his musical background to lead people into the presence of God. He is involved in our Region as instructor of New Testament with the Academy of Christian Training and Service (ACTS), our lay-pastor training institute. He also sings with the Irwin Male Chorus. |
Pastor's Newsletter
We continue, this month, to lay out reasons for our confidence in the authority of God’s Word. We’ve covered a wide range already, but this time, I’d like to begin addressing lingering questions we may have when we discover passages we don’t quite understand. Two of the Gospel writers’ accounts of an event may seem at variance with one another. The timing might be different, the reports of people present may seem to conflict, or Jesus’ words and deeds might seem to have discrepancies between them. In other places, God may seem passive in the face of something described as wrong in the Bible. Israel is sometimes commanded to do things (e.g. “holy war”) that would seem to conflict with God’s commands elsewhere. Events take place which appear to contradict our modern conclusions from science or history. The list of other questions in reading the Bible is quite large; I could never canvass them all in the format of a church newsletter. I have a few, large, hardcover volumes that address difficulties such as this. I’d recommend Gleason Archer’s Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (Zondervan), or Geisler and Howe’s The Big Book of Bible Difficulties (Baker) as excellent additions to your own collection; they are written clearly and are great helps in your personal Bible study. In the next few articles, however, we can look at some of the types of problems people experience with the Bible, list a few examples, and explain the proper contexts from which to view them.
Before we address specifics, however, we need to address the mindset with which people approach the Bible. Some people come to Scripture with a bias toward belief, others with a bias toward skepticism, and anywhere along the spectrum. The bias toward skepticism, however, has been the default option for a couple of centuries. It has grown since the dawn of the Enlightenment, which thrived in the late-17th and 18th centuries. This was a philosophical movement that placed human reason as the center from which all things are to be judged. For a thing to be true, it had to be comprehensible and reasonable to our minds. It had to be scientifically provable. Anything outside those frameworks was suspect or denied. It represents a radical shift from the prevailing mindset that existed for millennia before, which placed God, and the teachings of the Church, at the center of all things.
The skeptical bias poses a problem where it comes to God’s interactions with our world. The Bible records many instances of God’s miraculous interventions in our lives. Through the whole of human history, up to the past couple of centuries, divine miracles weren’t simply accepted; they were expected. Biblical accounts of miracles brought joy and encouragement. Modern culture, however, doesn’t accept the reality of anything beyond what you can observe with your senses. The Enlightenment assumption is that the world has always proceeded at the same pace and in the same way. One only needs to look at the way things happen today to understand the way things have happened through all of history: by regular, natural processes. In our day, scientists have had to acknowledge that some events must have accelerated changes in the world, but they must have been limited; after them, the world continued at its normal pace. They call this “punctuated equilibrium,” but they certainly don’t admit a deity could have written the punctuation marks. All things have happened by unassisted, natural processes. To a naturalist, the supernatural is a non-starter. People assume (incorrectly) that miracles do not happen today, and therefore, miracles could never have happened in the past. The antisupernaturalistic assumptions of Bible skeptics lead them to a number of predictable objections to Scriptural authority. To be clear, it’s not that honest questions are wrong – but some skeptics aren’t honest, in that they have already decided to foreclose on any notion that God can work supernaturally in this world.
In his second epistle, the Apostle Peter characterizes the mindset of those who turn their backs on God as Creator of this world, who works supernaturally in it, and who will hold us to account for living the righteous lives He commanded.
2 Peter 3:3-7 (NKJV) -- ...3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. 4 They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, 6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. 7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
Note how accurately Peter describes the mindset of people who do not want to accept God’s supernatural rule over earth: they insist that the world continues at a regular pace, unaltered by divine intervention. The Biblical accounts of things like God’s special creation and the Flood are dismissed out of hand. The question is, what is their true motive for dismissing them? They do it, not because the scientific data leads them elsewhere, but because they are “following their own sinful desires.” (v. 4) They wish to continue in their wickedness without accountability. So, why would they reject a thing like the Flood of Noah’s day? It’s because the Flood is evidence that God has judged evil in the past by washing it from the face of the earth. It is also the harbinger of a future judgment, in which the wickedness of the world will one day be purged by fire. This is an uncomfortable thought, so many would rather claim, “I don’t believe ‘the science’ shows any divinely-authored catastrophes that have profoundly altered the world. The world has always proceeded as it does today. So, I don’t believe in a God who created the world or who will come back to judge us.” They scoff, “where is the promise of His coming?” The promise is real, and its fulfillment is sure. I only pray that they will soften their hearts toward God while there is still time.
For now, multitudes of people will look at the same information we have, and because of their presuppositions, they will interpret the information with no reference to a superintending God. They pretend that the geologic record that is observable in the world gives no hint of a Flood, while it is perfectly obvious to others that the data suggest exactly the opposite – that a global flood did occur, and that it radically altered the world. They “deliberately overlook” (v. 5) what is there for their eyes to see. The King James Version translates this phrase, “willingly ignorant” – an ignorance that comes, not from lack of evidence, but from a decision to close one’s eyes to evidence that would challenge one’s absolute freedom. It is not that the truth is lacking; at Paul puts it, those committed to their sin actively suppress the truth that is there (Rom. 1:18) so they can carry on in illusory comfort.
Those with a skeptical bias go on to attempt other ways of discrediting the Bible, yet the arguments are weak. For instance, they have seized on Jesus’ statement that the mustard seed was the smallest of all seeds (Matt. 13:32). Botanists jumped in triumphantly, declaring that Jesus was factually wrong about that. The orchid seed, they point out, is smaller still, so the Bible contains inaccuracies. Jesus was talking to people in the Roman province of Palestine, however, and the black mustard seed was the smallest seed that any of them knew. He wasn’t giving a science lecture in any case – He was using an item they all knew as an object lesson. And for His audience in that place, He was making a factually true statement. Another weak argument is the rabbit, which was declared unclean to eat because it “chews the cud” but does not have cloven hooves, in Leviticus 11:6. A scientific inaccuracy! – declare the biologists. Once again, their aim is to discredit the Bible’s infallibility. If they looked at the matter with an open mind, however, they would have realized two things about rabbits: 1. They chew as if they were chewing cud, and 2. Rabbits do have a method of re-digesting food they’ve already swallowed – it’s just a different method from cows. If you’re curious, I’ll leave you to look up refection, or cecotrophy, on your own. It’s not a dainty subject.
The point I’m trying to make is that the same information can be interpreted quite differently by people who approach it with opposing mindsets. Those looking to build a case against the Bible can cite examples that cause doubt, if no effort is taken to understand it in the proper context. They are close-minded, allowing no chance for the text to explain itself. Those approaching the Bible with the assumption that God is all-wise, all-loving and self-revealing will take a little extra effort with puzzling passages. They will seek out the intended context for understanding them. When they start with the presumption that God is truthful, many issues will fall into place. The facts, viewed through lenses of faith, lead to entirely different conclusions from those of the skeptics. Not to go into details here, but this is why Christians can look at the same information appealed to by adherents of atheistic evolution as an open-and-shut case against God, and say that to the contrary, the facts point to an infinitely-good and wise God, who put His fingerprints all over what He has made. To be a Christian is not anti-intellectual or anti-science; science itself was birthed from the Church as a way to better understand creation, so to give greater glory to its Creator.
When we reconvene next time, we will examine some questions that arise with the Bible from the viewpoint of the historical record, and perhaps clear up a few misconceptions people get when they compare how different writers of the Gospels chronicled the ministry of Jesus. We had to establish the importance of the proper mindset, and the importance of understanding context first, however, so that we can look at specific questions more effectively. I look forward to continuing our discussion.
Your Brother and Servant,
Pastor Scott.
