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Making Sense of Scripture's 'Inconsistency'

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Author Topic: Making Sense of Scripture's 'Inconsistency'  (Read 197 times)
Mark
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« on: July 18, 2012, 11:00:40 am »

Making Sense of Scripture's 'Inconsistency'

I find it frustrating when I read or hear columnists, pundits, or journalists dismiss Christians as inconsistent because "they pick and choose which of the rules in the Bible to obey." Most often I hear, "Christians ignore lots of Old Testament texts---about not eating raw meat or pork or shellfish, not executing people for breaking the Sabbath, not wearing garments woven with two kinds of material and so on. Then they condemn homosexuality. Aren't you just picking and choosing what you want to believe from the Bible?"

 I don't expect everyone to understand that the whole Bible is about Jesus and God's plan to redeem his people, but I vainly hope that one day someone will access their common sense (or at least talk to an informed theological adviser) before leveling the charge of inconsistency.

First, it's not only the Old Testament that has proscriptions about homosexuality. The New Testament has plenty to say about it as well. Even Jesus says, in his discussion of divorce in Matthew 19:3-12, that the original design of God was for one man and one woman to be united as one flesh, and failing that (v. 12), persons should abstain from marriage and sex.

However, let's get back to considering the larger issue of inconsistency regarding things mentioned in the Old Testament no longer practiced by the New Testament people of God. Most Christians don't know what to say when confronted about this issue. Here's a short course on the relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament.

The Old Testament devotes a good amount of space to describing the various sacrifices offered in the tabernacle (and later temple) to atone for sin so that worshipers could approach a holy God. There was also a complex set of rules for ceremonial purity and cleanness. You could only approach God in worship if you ate certain foods and not others, wore certain forms of dress, refrained from touching a variety of objects, and so on. This vividly conveyed, over and over, that human beings are spiritually unclean and can't go into God's presence without purification.

But even in the Old Testament, many writers hinted that the sacrifices and the temple worship regulations pointed forward to something beyond them (cf. 1 Sam. 15:21-22; Ps. 50:12-15; 51:17; Hos. 6:6). When Christ appeared he declared all foods clean (Mark 7:19), and he ignored the Old Testament cleanliness laws in other ways, touching lepers and dead bodies.

The reason is clear. When he died on the cross the veil in the temple tore, showing that he had done away with the the need for the entire sacrificial system with all its cleanliness laws. Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice for sin, and now Jesus makes us clean.

The entire book of Hebrews explains that the Old Testament ceremonial laws were not so much abolished as fulfilled by Christ. Whenever we pray "in Jesus name" we "have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus" (Heb. 10:19). It would, therefore, be deeply inconsistent with the teaching of the Bible as a whole if we continued to follow the ceremonial laws.

Law Still Binding
The New Testament gives us further guidance about how to read the Old Testament. Paul makes it clear in places like Romans 13:8ff that the apostles understood the Old Testament moral law to still be binding on us. In short, the coming of Christ changed how we worship, but not how we live. The moral law outlines God's own character---his integrity, love, and faithfulness. And so everything the Old Testament says about loving our neighbor, caring for the poor, generosity with our possessions, social relationships, and commitment to our family is still in force. The New Testament continues to forbid killing or committing adultery, and all the sex ethic of the Old Testament is re-stated throughout the New Testament (Matt. 5:27-30; 1 Cor. 6:9-20; 1 Tim. 1:8-11). If the New Testament has reaffirmed a commandment, then it is still in force for us today.

The New Testament explains another change between the testaments. Sins continue to be sins---but the penalties change. In the Old Testament sins like adultery or incest were punishable with civil sanctions like execution. This is because at that time God's people constituted a nation-state, and so all sins had civil penalties.

But in the New Testament the people of God are an assembly of churches all over the world, living under many different governments. The church is not a civil government, and so sins are dealt with by exhortation and, at worst, exclusion from membership. This is how Paul deals with a case of incest in the Corinthian church (1 Cor. 5:1ff. and 2 Cor. 2:7-11). Why this change? Under Christ, the gospel is not confined to a single nation---it has been released to go into all cultures and peoples.

Once you grant the main premise of the Bible---about the surpassing significance of Christ and his salvation---then all the various parts of the Bible make sense. Because of Christ, the ceremonial law is repealed. Because of Christ, the church is no longer a nation-state imposing civil penalties. It all falls into place. However, if you reject the idea of Christ as Son of God and Savior, then, of course, the Bible is at best a mishmash containing some inspiration and wisdom, but most of it would have to be rejected as foolish or erroneous.

So where does this leave us? There are only two possibilities. If Christ is God, then this way of reading the Bible makes sense. The other possibility is that you reject Christianity's basic thesis---you don't believe Jesus is the resurrected Son of God---and then the Bible is no sure guide for you about much of anything. But you can't say in fairness that Christians are being inconsistent with their beliefs to follow the moral statements in the Old Testament while not practicing the other ones.

One way to respond to the charge of inconsistency may be to ask a counter-question: "Are you asking me to deny the very heart of my Christian beliefs?" If you are asked, "Why do you say that?" you could respond, "If I believe Jesus is the resurrected Son of God, I can't follow all the 'clean laws' of diet and practice, and I can't offer animal sacrifices. All that would be to deny the power of Christ's death on the cross. And so those who really believe in Christ must follow some Old Testament texts and not others."

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/07/09/making-sense-of-scriptures-inconsistency/
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Mark
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« Reply #1 on: July 18, 2012, 11:14:46 am »

Tim Keller Responds to Claims That the Bible Is 'Inconsistent'

Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, gets frustrated every time he hears the argument that Christians are inconsistent because they "pick and choose" what to follow in the Bible.
The influential pastor knows that there are many believers who don't know how to respond when confronted on the issue, specifically on the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. So Keller has written a brief post to help Christians understand why certain rules in the Bible are to be obeyed and why others aren't.

In summary, it all comes down to Jesus.

"I don't expect everyone to understand that the whole Bible is about Jesus and God's plan to redeem his people, but I vainly hope that one day someone will access their common sense (or at least talk to an informed theological adviser) before leveling the charge of inconsistency," the New York pastor wrote.

Before Jesus' time, God's people – as recounted in the Old Testament – had to offer sacrifices to atone for sin and follow a complex set of rules for ceremonial purity and cleanness. This included eating certain kinds of foods while abstaining from others (shellfish), and wearing certain forms of dress (garments woven with two kinds of material). That was the only way one could approach God in worship, Keller explained.

Today, such rules are not followed by Christians because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross, the pastor said.
 
"When he died on the cross the veil in the temple tore, showing that he had done away with the need for the entire sacrificial system with all its cleanliness laws. Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice for sin, and now Jesus makes us clean," he stated.

And it's not that Jesus abolished those Old Testament laws; rather, he fulfilled them.

"Whenever we pray 'in Jesus name' we 'have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus' (Heb. 10:19)," Keller added.

Therefore, he clarified, to continue following the ceremonial laws would actually be inconsistent with the teaching of the Bible.

So when charged with inconsistency, the Christian should respond, "If I believe Jesus is the resurrected Son of God, I can't follow all the 'clean laws' of diet and practice, and I can't offer animal sacrifices. All that would be to deny the power of Christ's death on the cross. And so those who really believe in Christ must follow some Old Testament texts and not others," said Keller.

There are still laws that are binding to this day, he noted.

"In short, the coming of Christ changed how we worship, but not how we live."

Which laws are still in force?

The New Testament reaffirms laws that are still to be obeyed. They include loving one's neighbor, caring for the poor, and not committing adultery or killing.

Keller also pointed out, "[A]ll the sex ethic of the Old Testament is re-stated throughout the New Testament."

Some of the arguments he hears often is that Christians "ignore" certain Old Testament texts, such as the rule about not eating shellfish or raw meat, and then they condemn homosexuality.

"It's not only the Old Testament that has proscriptions about homosexuality," he argued. "The New Testament has plenty to say about it as well. Even Jesus says, in his discussion of divorce in Matthew 19:3-12, that the original design of God was for one man and one woman to be united as one flesh, and failing that (v. 12), persons should abstain from marriage and sex."

The penalty for sins has changed, however. Whereas in the Old Testament, sins like adultery or incest were punishable with civil sanctions like execution, such punishment does not apply to God's people today.

Why? Because the people of God no longer constitute a nation-state. They are now an assembly of churches who liver under many different governments around the world.

"The church is not a civil government, and so sins are dealt with by exhortation and, at worst, exclusion from membership," said Keller.

Ultimately, it comes down to Christ. "If Christ is God, then this way of reading the Bible makes sense," he said. But if one rejects that main premise of Jesus as the resurrected Son of God, then the Bible is "at best a mishmash containing some inspiration and wisdom, but most of it would have to be rejected as foolish or erroneous."

"But you can't say in fairness that Christians are being inconsistent with their beliefs to follow the moral statements in the Old Testament while not practicing the other ones," Keller argued.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/tim-keller-responds-to-claims-that-the-bible-is-inconsistent-77993/
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« Reply #2 on: July 18, 2012, 11:15:18 am »

Properly read, the Bible should make you … an atheist?

So our review of The Christian Delusion continues in fits and starts (though mostly in fits).

This time I set out to review John Loftus’s essay “What We’ve Got Here is a Failure to Communicate” (a phrase I first encountered not in “Cool Hand Luke” but in Guns ‘n’ Roses’ “Civil War”) but I only got as far as the second sentence.

Like most of the contributors to The Christian Delusion John sets out fists a flyin’ with a cold slap from Isaac Asimov who barks out:

“Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.” (181)

It is right there that I got held up. Let’s call this sentence the “Village Atheist Challenge”. In order to analyze it, allow me to present a parallel. I call it the “Tree Hugger Challenge”:

“Properly driven, the Ford GT is the most potent force for horseback riding ever conceived.”

(As you all have probably inferred, the car pictured here is the GT, not to be confused with the equally beautiful, and much more historically significant, GT 40 of the late 60s.)

Now I find the Tree Hugger Challenge to be an astounding claim. Are they nuts? How do they defend this claim? So I ask the tree hugger to ‘splain himself. And this is what he comes up with:

“The proper way to drive the Ford GT is on a narrow, rugged dirt path. But it is horribly inept at doing this. Horses, by contrast, are very adept at doing this. So we ought to be riding horseback instead of driving GTs.”

I dare say, with a rationale like that our tree hugger doesn’t know if he is afoot or horseback. How would you respond to this reasoning? Would you fall off your chair? Hurl a quart of Penzoil at the tree hugger in disgust? Pull out all your bling that sports the Blue Oval and provocatively jangle it in his dreadlock-framed face? Whatever you might do, you certainly would not be satisfied with his explanation.

Here’s the obvious problem: his rationale is silly and question-begging. On my view, the GT was meant to be driven on the Nürburgring or Route 66, not on a rutted horse path. And so long as I find it so enormously capable of driving in those conditions I shall continue to do so.

Now back to the Village Atheist Challenge. What, according to Isaac Asimov, is the proper way to read the Bible? One that assumes it commends immoral behaviors and actions which are inconsistent with the authorship of a divine being. (You see, Asimov is an atheist to begin with so of course this is how he reads the Bible.)

But that just begs the question. Why should anybody else think this is the proper way to read the Bible? What if people offer another hermeneutic of the passages in question according to which the inconsistency between text and divine author disappears? What if they have a hermeneutic of those passages that trouble Asimov which allow the Bible to take off like the GT roaring down the interstate? Why should they listen to this clown riding along on horseback beside the highway, demanding that they pull the car off the tarmac and onto a rugged, pitted landscape?

Asimov (and Loftus) wants us to read the Bible their way so that it supports their atheism. Most distressingly, reading it another way doesn't support their atheism. And pulling sub-8 minute laps in the GT on the Nürburgring doesn’t support the environment. Ergo, if you are going to drive the GT it should be on a horse path. And when you start spinning your tires John Loftus has a wonderful mare just waiting for you.

http://blogs.christianpost.com/tentativeapologist/properly-read-the-bible-should-make-youan-atheist-3481/
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