Jesus said, "No one is good except God alone" (Mark 10:18), clearly one of the times that Jesus spoke erroneously. Why would I even suggest such a thing? Well, Jesus also spoke of the "good and faithful servant" (Matt 25:21) and the guests who were gathered for the feast, "both bad and good" (Matt 22:10) -- just two examples. So obviously Jesus was wrong when He said there was no one good but God. This is one of those cases that 1) honest believers have to look at and 2) decide whether we have a viable Bible or not. And it's just one.
The world (and a goodly number of self-identified Christians) will tell us that the Bible is a "good book," but "let's not go overboard." It's fine as far as it goes, but it's made by humans and, therefore, contains mistakes, errors, contradictions, even lies. Genesis offers us a "Creation story" that is clearly myth, as science today has shown. The God of the Old Testament is clearly the fabrication of an ancient, superstitious civilization that Jesus has demonstrated isn't that mean ol' God at all. The Bible clearly contradicts itself, and that, alone, makes it not divine, but human. Therefore, we get to figure out what is and isn't true. We get to shape the Bible and God Himself to what we "know" to be true.
The problem, of course, is that what we know about God and His Son, Jesus, and all that constitutes "Christianity" comes from the Bible. If that's only partly true, then Christianity is a construct of our own making. There is no actual, solid ground on which to stand. No "leading of the Holy Spirit" gives firm footing (since said "Holy Spirit" comes from the pages of the Bible and appears to lead different people in different directions that would require a reliable Bible to discern). We who believe do great harm by calling Christ a liar, by assuring others that Paul was wrong when he said Scripture was "breathed out by God" (2 Tim 3:16-17 ESV), by telling us that sin is no big deal in contradiction to God's original "you shall surely die" (Gen 2:17), the vast array of the Hebrew sacrificial system ordained by God, and, finally, Christ's own sacrifice for sin. Minimizing God's Word is, in the end, fatal to Christianity, slipping it in among all sorts of other "valid" religions and really not worth arguing about. It is, without a doubt, a dangerous, if not fatal place to stand. Christians, we need to accept that there are texts that appear to contradict and then see how they correlate rather than contradict. Playing Scripture against Scripture is futile. And a Scripture that is questionably true is useless.
2 comments:
If I cannot fully trust everything in Scripture to be true, valid, rational, and non-contradictory, then Christianity is no more true than any other religion, and is just as useless. If you can believe that contradiction is the hallmark of truth, then nothing can be believed to be true. If we cannot work through, not ignore, any apparent contradictions, the Bible is as useful as a Danielle Steele novel.
When I think about the apparent “contradictions” and other difficulties I might find in scripture, I remind myself that I don’t know all the answers, and there is much I still need to learn; I have not “arrived,” as they say. If there are issues, they are with me, rather than with God’s Word. It is a matter of humility on my part. Any thoughts in a different vein would not reflect a teachable heart that is grateful to know God’s truth as He sees fit to reveal it to me.
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